In the minutes of the most recent meeting with ICM, the ICANN board made it clear that they are concerned whether or not there is industry support for .xxx. (ICANN is charter bound not to approve any new specialty TLDs unless there is a strong demonstration of support from the industry or constituency it would serve.)
ICM states that it has 24 large companies strongly on board in support of .xxx. This, of course, is a joke, as there are thousands of companies in the adult industry.
BUT... if the other 99% of companies stay silent on this issue, ICANN will never know the depth of the opposition, and ICM will get its way.
EVERY PERSON on GFY needs to take 5 minutes and send a short email identifying themselves as a person in the industry and describing why they are opposed to .xxx. It doesn't have to be long and eloquent, it just has to state that you are opposed, the name of your company, and briefly why you are opposed. Send your statement to
[email protected]. Make sure you get the confirming email back (takes about a minute) and then respond to that, otherwise your email will not be read.
If you post on other boards and communities, PLEASE repost this notice.
If you are connected to media that reaches the adult industry, PLEASE encourage them to cover this story.
For those of you not aware of the situation, ICM is talking out of both sides of its mouth, telling the anti-porn forces that .xxx will "help prevent children from being exposed to pornography" and "keep those who don't want porn from accidentally running into it" while at the same time telling adult webmasters that ".xxx will always be voluntary."
Obviously, these two statements are totally opposed to one another.
In the best case, .xxx will simply be another top level domain that all of us will have to register our key .com domain names in to keep cybersquatters or others from acquiring them... at a minimum cost of about 60 bucks per year per domain, because ICM will be charging all of the registrars close to that much as the "wholesale" registration fee.
In the worst case, various state, local, governmental authorities could decide that all adult content must be under a .xxx domain or risk violating some law or regulation. Such policies would undoubtedly trigger a first amendment fight, but as we know, the loser conservatives have an amazing way of getting their agenda pushed through. Another scenario would have Visa or Mastercard declaring that they will not process for any adult content unless it is on an .xxx domain. This would be harder to defend on a First Amendment basis, as Visa is not restricting speech, only commerce.
So... I hope that you can see this is NOT an issue that anyone should be sitting back and saying "Let others carry the ball." I very strongly recommend that you write to ICANN telling them that the adult industry opposes .xxx, that you personally oppose it, that it will not reduce children's access to adult content, and any other relevant points you wish to make.
ICANN does listen, and a number of its governing representatives are on record opposing .xxx, but ICM has hundreds of thousands of dollars into this proposal, and stands to make millions if it passes, so they will not give up easily. If you operate an adult site, or provide services to those who do, you cannot sit back and not take action.
The new deadline for comments is March 9th.