[FWD: Letter to ICANN about .XXX]

[tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

May 2006
>
>
> Dear Dr. Cerf,
>
> As a member of the adult Internet industry, I am writing to express my 
> opposition to the creation of a .XXX top-level domain (TLD), and to urge 
> ICANN to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the Commerce 
> Department and rescind its earlier decision to approve ICM Registry’s 
> application to establish and run the above-mentioned TLD.
>
> I believe that there is no compelling reason to establish such a TLD other 
> than to make a few people wealthy at the expense of many, and that any 
> benefits that may accrue to webmasters who purchase .XXX domains will be far 
> outweighed by the likelihood that governmental and non-governmental entities, 
> both domestic and foreign, will impose unacceptable restrictions on lawful 
> constitutional speech. As a responsible member of the adult entertainment 
> community, I am also very concerned that I will not have a sufficient enough 
> voice on the IFFOR Board of Directors, which will be setting all policies for 
> the TLD, and that these policies will be established and enforced by people 
> who may not have the best interests of this industry at heart, and may in 
> fact be personally hostile to it.
>
> I believe that there is a far superior solution to the problem of making 
> material unsuited to viewing by minors unavailable to them. Rather than 
> herding protected speech into a \'virtual ghetto\', a content-positive .KIDS 
> TLD should be created where children can find child-friendly websites, making 
> it far easier for parents to filter .KIDS in than it will be for them to 
> filter adult content out. In this scenario, there is no risk of censorship, 
> and minors will have a safe place of their own in which to experience the 
> gifts of the Internet.
>
> Again, I respectfully request that you take this opportunity to let this 
> application lapse without any further action.
>
>
>
>
> Yours truly,
>
>  Dave