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Originally Posted by dannyz-zbuckz
This is an open letter that has been emailed to Chad Belville, one of the board members of the IFFOR, the policy making board for .xxx. He says that he believes .xxx will address our concerns. Below I have sent them what I think are the some of the key concerns of members of the adult industry, along with solutions that I think would benefit both .xxx domain owners and (in the long term) the .xxx organization. I'll be waiting for their reply.
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Sorry for taking longer than expected to get back to this. It's been a busy couple of days.
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List of issues and solutions regarding .xxx for the IFFOR and the .xxx Board of Directors
The Problem:
.XXX is currently selling domains not out of providing any service or value to Webmasters, but out of fear. This is evident by the fact that they are branding ‘.xxx’ as a way to ‘Protect your Trademark.’ For Adult Webmasters, we are threatened that if we don’t purchase a .xxx version of our .com domains, that we will have to fend for ourselves against Cybersquatters or other nefarious individuals stealing our brands and blackmailing us for thousands of dollars. In the mainstream world, .xxx is promoting itself to non-porn websites, also using fear as a tactic to get them to purchase the ‘.xxx’ version of their mainstream domains or else beware of the evil porn Webmasters who will grab them and use them to sell, well, smut.
The Solution:
.XXX should get out of the fear business and get into the business of providing a valuable service for the community it purports to represent. If you have a trademark, copyright or have been operating an active .com website for at least a year, .XXX should allow you to purchase your own domain for a reasonable cost, not exceeding $15.00. Obviously this ‘discount’ should not apply if you have a ‘.com’ website that is a parked page with no content, but on any websites where it’s deemed there is intellectual property, .xxx should apply the discount. Additionally, all those that already paid the $100 domain fee for the sole reason of ‘protecting their trademark‘ should be refunded for $85 (or whatever the fair and reasonable cost determined is). This in turn would create more brand loyalty amongst all .xxx users, which means rather then boycotting .xxx and buying domains only out of fear, they might actually use the domains, which in the long term would benefit and give more value to all who are using .xxx
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We hear what you are saying but disagree with the premise behind it. We’ve been saying since the beginning (2003/4) that there are significant benefits that .xxx offers webmasters, and we’ve added to those benefits over the years without added to the price.
They include:
* A huge amount of new online real estate for the adult space for new and interesting ideas
* The highest standards of ANY registry with regard to cybersquatting and infringement.
* An extensive and ongoing marketing/advertising campaign directed to the consumer as to the benefits of visiting .xxx sites
* Bridging the gap between adult and mainstream to bring even more surfers, and paying customers to .xxx sites
* McAfee Secure scanning that enables site owners to display the McAfee secure trust mark, which has been shown to increase conversions by 12%.
* Upcoming Piracy Protection Implementation
* Upcoming search, traffic and resource portals
* Upcoming (optional) Micropayment system
The $62 wholesale price of .xxx names has been set and fixed since the 2003/2004 application and hasn’t varied. From that amount we have our ICANN fees, payments to McAfee for the Malware scanning service, upcoming payments for a piracy protection service, the cost of our registry back end functionality, a significant marketing budget, and $10 of each registration goes to IFFOR. This price point gives us a sustainable business with a decent rate of return on our projected numbers. You will see that other niche TLD’s are priced in a similar vein, so the idea of selling the names at a .com like price is a non-starter. Dotcoms were $100, then $70 and $35 before they got into the tens of millions and dropped into single figures. There is a huge differential in the economics depending on whether you are selling a few hundred thousand or a few million names.
That said, we have always made it clear that increased registrations would bring with it, economies of scale and that future price drops were possible.
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The Problem:
Many Webmasters are worried about the fact that we have no say in policy making decisions regarding what we can or can not do with our own domains. Currently there is a board of 9 Directors in the IFFOR Policy Council, and they hardly make up a fair and accurate representation of the entire adult community and all of our voices.
The Solution:
Most of us live in a Democratic society. .XXX Domain Owners should have a stake in any policy changes that are made regarding our own domains. Allow all .xxx Domain Owners to register to vote. Before any important change in policy or guidelines is implemented, it should be put to a vote of all Registered Domain Owners. Additionally, the IFFOR Policy Council Members should also be elected by a vote from Domain Owners. Let the .xxx Owners themselves determine their own futures, not a few select BusinessMen or Lawyers.
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As it stands, any new policies will go out to registrants for feedback and commentary. Additionally, in section 5.3 of IFFOR’s by-laws, you will see that there is a provision in which IFFOR can adopt new rules and procedures with regard to the board selection process. We highly encourage you to communicate with those members of the Sponsored Community Stakeholder group and to share your ideas.
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The Problem:
If we are going to be charged $100 per year for a domain subscription, we deserve the right to know where all that money is going to.
The Solution
Make it transparent. If the money was going to help build a legal defense fund and P.R. campaign to protect adult sites from censors, add valued services for Webmasters, as well as protecting first amendment rights (whether it be on .com or .xxx websites), then it might be seen as a worthwhile contribution to a good cause.
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As a privately held corporation, ICM Registry is really under no obligation to publish the entirety of it’s financials, but we do recognize the need for a significant amount of transparency in that regard, which is why I outlined much of that in my response to your first statement.
IFFOR on the other hand, being a non-profit organization IS required to be entirely transparent in all regards, and you will be able to find all of that information on their website.
Interestingly – everything that you listed in your solution and MORE, are things that are being done right now, between ICM Registry and IFFOR for the benefit of .XXX domain holders.