Another great post by Reed Lee, FSC attorney to ICANN:
http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-tld.../msg00530.html
I offer the following thoughts on ICM's sponsored
.xxx tld proposal and proposed contract as they
now stand:
1.
I have always thought that a .xxx tld is a bad idea.
For one thing, it seems to me to reverse the presumption
of freedom which should prevail on the Internet. To be
sure, children can benefit a great deal from the Internet,
but they won't likely be permitted to surf freely if they
can find pornography -- perfectly appropriate for the
adults who want to see it -- at the drop of a hat or the
click of a mouse. But the solution to this problem has
always seemed to me to be a bicycle lane for the Internet,
not limiting free traffic on the information superhighway
so that kids can play in the middle of the highway. And
this has seemed especially true in light of the struggles
to keep the Internet mainstream free for those who need to
reach people with messages about such things as birth
control or suicide prevention -- messages that many people
really think are inappropriate for children and so also
belong in some roped-off corner of the Internet, if indeed
they belong anywhere at all. Without a better understanding
of and common agreement on what expression constitutes
"material harmful to minors," .xxx seems dangerously
premature at best. Neither ICM nor any of .xxx's few
supporters have done anything to advance that understanding.
ICM never, so far as I know, contacted the ACLU or EFF as I
suggested, to see what those who are in the thick of free
speech fights on the Internet think of the proposal. It
did contact the Free Speech Coalition, which rejected and
opposes the ICM .xxx proposal.
2.
Roll-out of .xxx would also come at a particularly bad
time in the development of the Internet DNS. With so
few existing tlds, second-level domain names have undeniably
become valuable commodities, and handing a new set to a
single additional registry for adult entertainment would,
as many have noted, create instant wealth for ICM and make
for what some have called -- speaking metaphorically, of
course -- extortion. At the very least we'd be likely to
see an unseemly land rush for the second level, with nearly
endless disputes over intellectual property rights. At some
point in the future, rolling out a (perhaps unsponsored)
.xxx tld along with a .sex tld and several others designed
for adult entertainment would at least avoid the current
problem of the sort of oligarchical monopoly (not even an
oligopoly, really) which exists today in the tld field.
But until ICANN is in a position to do this, the second-level
domain name monopoly for ICM in the adult entertainment
sector will remain a serious problem. I am sympathetic
to those who would expand the domain name space precisely
in order to get by the current undue influence on second-
level domain names, but rolling out a _single_ new tld for
adult entertainment operated by a _single_ new registry
simply does not avoid the monopoly problem within the adult
entertainment sector. Unleashing that problem now will
not help the image of the Internet in the eyes of its users,
and it will, in my view, have serious and undesirable
anti-competitive effects in the adult entertainment Internet
"community." The haves always seem to want more in this
world, and I have sensed from the beginning of ICM"s sponsored
.xxx proposal that a few haves are chomping at the bit to snap
up the second-level domain names that some measly little user
beat them to under the other tlds.
3.
The adult entertainment sector of the Internet is undeniably
substantial, but it is simply not the sort of "community"
which fits ICANN's published ideas about sponsored tlds.
It lacks any sort of natural internal organization, and,
speaking as one who serves on the Free Speech Coalition
board of directors, it has little impetus to organize itself
except in opposition to direct regulatory threats (as,
indeed, many in this "community" view .xxx). Organizing
support for any sort of trade association or advocacy group
has been a daunting task over the years, and it is pure fantasy
to dream that IFFOR will be seen as an organization of, by,
and for the adult entertainment industry. I've done political
organizing in several fields for a long time now, and I know
that all true "community" organizations grow up from the
grass roots, they are not imposed from above. IFFOR will
not be seen as an adult entertainment industry organization
nor as a vehicle for genuine _self_-regulation. I respectfully
submit that if ICM has convincingly said otherwise, it has
seriously misled ICANN. There is a place for sponsored tlds
directed toward groups or industries which already have a
substantial internal organization when the internal organiza-
tions _themselves_ approach ICANN and ask for one. But this
is not what happened here. IFFOR does not yet exist even now.
It will be created only to allow ICM to imagine an organized
community behind its sponsored .xxx proposal.
part 1