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Porn group starts anti-XXX campaign

Kevin Murphy, April 15, 2010, 23:03:44 (UTC), Domain Registries

Now that the Christians appear to have quietened down, the adult entertainment industry has unleashed its own letter-writing campaign aimed at crippling ICM Registry’s bid for the .xxx TLD.
The Free Speech Coalition has started urging its members to lobby ICANN with emails demanding that the .xxx proposal is rejected.
The front page of its web site started carrying the call to action earlier today, already resulting in over a dozen form complaints.
The anti-porn complaints that have flooded ICANN’s forums for the last week focussed largely on the alleged harmful effects of porn, and will probably be politely ignored.
But unlike the Christians, the FSC has read the background documents – which request comments on how ICANN should process ICM’s application – and its letters are therefore on-topic
They urge ICANN to “Adopt Option #3” by agreeing with the dissenting minority view of the Independent Review Panel that recently ruled ICANN was unfair to reject ICM back in 2007.
“Regardless of the option chosen, I ask that ICANN continue to consider the widespread opposition of the sponsored community in any further decisions concerning a .XXX sTLD,” the letters add.
The campaign is not unexpected, but it won’t make ICANN’s board of directors’ decision any easier. After all, .xxx is ostensibly a “sponsored” TLD, and a significant voice within its potential customer base does not appear to want it.
There may also be other power games at play.
ICM president Stuart Lawley claimed during his IRP cross-examination in September that the FSC had offered to support ICM in 2003, but only if it could control the sponsoring organization and collect the associated $10 per domain per year.
The ICANN comment period runs until May 10. The FSC’s own comments, from boss Diane Duke, are here.


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Comments (6)

  1. Chris says:

    an email from an adult webmaster that best describes the true feelings of the adult industry towards the ICM:
    http://forum.icann.org/lists/icm-options-report/msg11648.html
    “I am a full time webmaster active in the adult industry. I run my own network
    of adult sites, I have been active in this industry for many years, I do
    business with other adult webmasters on a daily basis and I frequently visit
    the adult industry message boards (such as GFY, JBM, YNOT, NP,…).
    Suffice it to say that nowhere in the adult industry have I seen any kind of
    support for the proposed .xxx stld.
    Adult webmasters were against the .xxx stld in the past and they are still
    against it today!
    The ICM has fraudulently claimed that they have our support. This is not the
    case! The ICM has no support whatsoever in the adult industry!
    The posts/emails on this list have made this clear. There are lots of emails
    from adult webmasters who are against the .xxx stld, there are tons of
    anti-.xxx mails from religious groups,… The only pro-.xxx-stld mails are from
    a small group of registrars affiliated with the ICM.
    These registrars are obviously not part of the adult industry, so their emails
    can and should be ignored.
    No to the .xxx stld!”

  2. […] Porn group starts anti-XXX campaign […]

  3. […] Porn group starts anti-XXX campaign […]

  4. […] I would not be surprised to see additional adult sites using .XXX domain names, despite the initial objection of some in the adult business.Theoretically, I would think that when people become accustomed to […]

  5. […] I would not be surprised to see additional adult sites using .XXX names names, despite the initial objection of some in the adult […]

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