I just submitted the following comments, and sent a similar letter to the ICANN Business Constituency of which my company is a member (
www.bizconst.org if others might be interested in joining).
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Subject: Opposed to this .xxx application -- we have the cart before the horse
Hello,
ICANN should reject the ICM Registry application for .xxx. Although the application masquerades as a "sponsored TLD", it doesn't have the broad support of the adult community that it purports to represent, as can be seen by the prior comments at:
http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-tld-agreement/
with major organizations like Flynt Management Group opposing it:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/...rd-30apr06.jpg
The WHOIS of iffor.org shows that it is registered to the same people behind the .xxx application, ICM Registry:
http://whois.domaintools.com/iffor.org
Registrant ID:iffor-R
Registrant Name:Lawley Stuart
Registrant Organization:A Technology Company, Inc.
Registrant Street1:53 McKayfield Road
The
www.iffor.org website doesn't even list *any* members.
This is a case where we have the cart before the horse. If indeed there was a consensus amongst recognized adult industry members that a .xxx TLD is desirable, that would pass the basic test that there is a legitimate "sponsor". But the current application has things backwards, wanting the application to be approved first, and then theoretically building up a sponsoring organization later. Even further, the actual companies that would be affected by this application (and thus theoretically the main constituency of that future sponsoring organization) are actively *opposed* to its creation.
It would be akin to my company applying to run .bank as a sponsored TLD, and having myself create my own personal "sponsor" for it, totally ignoring all existing banking institutions and their desires. If approved, there'd be a windfall of cash for the registry operator, which is obviously the prime driver of the .xxx application.
In conclusion, while I support the concept of sponsored TLDs as the main route going forward for new TLDs, this application does not meet the definition in my opinion, as it lacks a true sponsor that is representative of industry consensus.
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ICANN's email system has a very poor implementation of "greylisting" (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting ), which explains why it can take hours for the confirmation email to arrive, for those who submitted comments but don't see them in the web archive.