Adult webmaster AGAINST the .xxx tld

[enrique@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi,

I have emailed my comments about the ICM's .xxx tld proposal in the past and I 
regret having to do so again. It's is clear and has been made clear in the past 
that the adult industry (the intended target for the .xxx tld) does not want 
the .xxx tld. Why do we have to keep repeating ourselves? Why doesn't ICANN put 
an end to this madness?

Last June, after the meeting in Brussels, the ICM Registry made several 
statements that the .xxx tld had been approved while obviously this wasn't the 
case. This was just one of many shady tactics the ICM has been using since the 
.xxx tld was first proposed. 

The ICM claims to have the support of adult webmasters, based on .xxx 
preregistrations. Many of these preregistrations were defensive actions of 
adult webmasters who wish to protect their trademarks. Even though the ICM 
promised no to use those defensive registrations as a sign of support, they did 
do so.

The ICM claims that the matter of industry support has already been settled and 
doesn't matter any more (Stuart Lawley posted this several times on the XBiz 
discussion board) while ICANN itself stated that the ICM still had "to ensure 
that it still had sufficient backing from the adult industry to justify its 
creation" (1). The use of misinformation is a constant in the history of the 
ICM Registry.

Last time when ICANN requested comments on the .xxx tld, the majority of emails 
came from people who were opposed to the .xxx tld (both adult webmasters and 
religious groups). Only a small number of pro-.xxx tld mails were sent in. Most 
of those came from registrars (people who stand to make a lot of money if the 
.xxx tld ever gets approved). Then there's the matter of an email the ICM sent, 
supposedly on behalf of 240 members of the adult industry (2). This was quickly 
exposed as a fraud on many adult webmaster forums. Almost none of the names on 
that list were known in the adult industry. Most of the names didn't even show 
up in a Google search or at least not related to anything 'adult'.

I could go on and on about the tactics of the ICM.

Fact remains that:
* I, as an adult webmaster, don't want the .xxx.
* I, as an adult webmaster, will refuse to do business with anyone using a .xxx 
domain (if the .xxx ever gets approved. I hope it doesn't).
* I, as an adult webmaster, have never encountered any kind of support for the 
.xxx on adult webmaster boards or during adult webmaster meetings or gatherings.
* The .xxx tld would do nothing to keep children safe from coming into contact 
with adult content.
* RTA, Safesurf, safelabling tags and other means of self-identification are 
already in use in the adult industry. The ICM's claim that the .xxx tld 
provides a much needed solution to an identification problem is simply false.
* The ICM's claims that the .xxx tld would make it possible (or easy) for ISP's 
to filter adult content (quote from Lawley) contradict the ICM's claims that 
the use of the .xxx would not be mandatory for adult content. Using the .xxx 
tld to filter out adult content would only be effective if all sites with adult 
content used a .xxx domain (and abandoned their .com or .net domains). So 
either the ICM's claim about ease of filtering is false because an ineffective 
way of filtering would add no benefit to ISP's (that wish filter content). Or 
the ICM is planning to lobby to make the use of .xxx domains mandatory for 
adult content. This would make sense from the ICM's point of view since their 
target audience (adult webmasters) are opposed to the .xxx proposal. This would 
not only be unethical, it would also create a ton of problems for ICANN. Who 
would police the .com, .net and other tld's?

Suffice it to say that the the ICM and their .xxx tld have already created more 
problems for ICANN and the adult industry than they could ever wish to solve 
(if that were the ICM's intentions. By now we all know they are simply after 
the money).


Regards,
Eric

(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10412765
(2) http://forum.icann.org/lists/icm-options-report/msg12555.html