My Long-Ass Letter To ICANN Concerning .XXX

[c-lo]

I wrote all of this. The least you can do is EMAIL THEM a few grammatically correct sentences to say 'No, I'd like to stay in business.'

Dear ICANN,

The .XXX TLD is an unwelcomed burden to the adult industry. Whether you are affiliated with online pornography or stand wholeheartedly against it, .XXX is not a solution created with a child's best interest in mind. I can't see how anyone could support .XXX. For adult webmasters, it forces you to give up your previous business, frequent visitors (bookmarkers), costs much more, is regulated through a 3rd party's MORALS (not by law), and can be used to automatically block you from potential customers (college students.) As one who loathes internet porn, why would you support something that assists in legitimizing online pornography?

To all Americans, regardless of your personal opinion; consider just how fair this regulation is. It is a violation of free speech. Would you expect to have your church's website strictly designated to a .god domain? How do you think Amazon or eBay would feel if they were forced to a .shop domain, leaving their established brand-name up for grabs to whoever clicks 'register' the fastest? I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate it. Neither does the majority of the adult industry.

Many flaws exist within the proposal of ICM's .XXX TLD. For instance, parents who have failed to install parental controls on their home computers will not suddenly be urged to do so (should .XXX pass.) The implementation of this TLD will not provide a cure for a parent's irresponsibility / ignorance.

Furthermore, the implementation of .XXX as a means of decreasing / stopping the distribution of child pornography simply will not work. Sadly, child smut peddlers are much too smart to fall victim to the regulation of a .XXX domain. Why would someone doing something so illegal (and immoral) choose to be regulated through the .XXX TLD? They won't. They'll continue to register .coms (most likely through hosts located in poorly-regulated, foreign countries.) They'll also continue to distribute their material through p2p file-sharing services, which fall far beyond the reach of .XXX (as no domain registration at all is required and anonymity is basically assured.)

I assure you that no honest adult webmaster intends to offer minors access to pornographic content. Besides the fact that it is morally wrong... (Yes, we have morals. We are people, too.) ...it is not a smart business decision. We are a business like any other (for the most part.) We offer free 'sample' content in hopes that adults will enjoy it, and thus buy memberships. To purchase a membership, a credit card is necessary. Seeing as how minors cannot legally own credit cards, they are obviously ruled out as the target market. There are no benefits to providing minors with pornograpy. I, personally, am disgusted with those who do, as well as with the parents that fail to regulate what media their child views.

Unfortunately, the only ones who will feel the effects of this unwelcome burden are the honest webmasters; who want only to bring sexually explicit content to the eyes of mature adults who wish to view it. Some of you stand in favor of being allowed the privilege of viewing online pornography. Some of you believe it is corrupt, degrading to women, an exploitation of human sexuality, or perhaps all of the above. Whatever your stance, I beg you to pardon your previous bias if only for a minute, to see the ICM proposed .XXX TLD for what it really is; a way of collecting larger revenues and supressing those who hold an interest in seeing two consenting adults engage in sexual intercourse. How will .XXX succeed? By selling you false promises that .XXX is sincerely interested in protecting your children.

Did you know that the new .XXX TLD will cost webmasters $75 per domain vs $8-12 for a .com domain? Moral stance aside, isn't that a suspiciously large profit markup for something solely intended to benefit children?

I've discussed the problems and deceit lying within the .XXX proposal; but what about a truly effective solution?

I propose to you that all adult sites featuring and linking to adult content should be forced to label themselves with an RTA label. (http://www.rtalabel.org)
RTA labelling is detectable by parental software, is easy to integrate into websites, and avoids the burden and fees associated with a .XXX TLD. If sites fail to label themselves, they should be shut down immediately or subject to fines/penalties of some sort. If ICM is sincerely interested in protecting children, and not lining their pockets with cash, they should have no complaints against this proposal.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you will understand why I, and the majority of the adult industry, DO NOT SUPPORT .XXX.

Sincerely,
(my name)


I read FightThePatent's thread and learned some details about the proposal (such as that it costs $75 per domain!) I fought this the first time...and hopefully this will be the bullet that keeps it down.

So what do you think? Anything need to be revised before I send it?

Thanks,
c-lo

Arguments For & Against .XXX

[Big_Red]

thats one heck of a letter. nice job! lets hope they read it.

[c-lo]

Thanks man. I hope they do. It took like an hour to write.

later
c-lo

[EscortBiz]

nice job man wwell written damn

[polish_aristocrat]

Very nice letter c-lo.

Personally I will write an even longer letter again too, but I will send it to ICANN closer to the date when they will be taking the final decision regarding accepting .xxx or not.

And to this date, I am very disappointed with the affiliate program's response to this issue, which is almost non-existent.

[seeric]

they will read it.

[seeric]

Originally Posted by polish_aristocrat

Very nice letter c-lo.

Personally I will write an even longer letter again too, but I will send it to ICANN closer to the date when they will be taking the final decision regarding accepting .xxx or not.

And to this date, I am very disappointed with the affiliate program's response to this issue, which is almost non-existent.

like wise, let me know when that is and i will have some others do the same. more impact will be felt at that time. i will personally email the webmasters in our program and the webmasters from my past programs involvements through the ragecash owners and at least get it out to 10k webmasters email boxes.

[polish_aristocrat]

Originally Posted by A1R3K

like wise, let me know when that is and i will have some others do the same. more impact will be felt at that time. i will personally email the webmasters in our program and the webmasters from my past programs involvements through the ragecash owners and at least get it out to 10k webmasters email boxes.

thats great

I was already thinking that you stopped caring about this issue already

( I remember you were involved in fighting it last year )

[polish_aristocrat]

as for when they will be taking the decision - noone knows it

but the public comments period is closing February 5th

they may be taking the final decision short after that or maybe 2-3 months later - honestly no idea

so perhaps the best would be that your webmasters email ICANN (via the public comments) late January / early February and should the decision be taken later, then everyone can just email the ICANN board memebrs (or the chairman) directly (not via public comments which will be closed already) LOL

[c-lo]

Originally Posted by polish_aristocrat

Very nice letter c-lo.

Personally I will write an even longer letter again too, but I will send it to ICANN closer to the date when they will be taking the final decision regarding accepting .xxx or not.

And to this date, I am very disappointed with the affiliate program's response to this issue, which is almost non-existent.

Yeah, I considered waiting until the very end as I figured most of the anti-xxx letters would come in then (webmasters have a tendency to postpone, it seems.) However, I don't think that's such a good idea if you're letter is long and at least semi-professional, or if you raise not only valid points against it, but alternative solutions as well.

I'm posting mine sooner in hopes that those that support it will read my post and change their mind. If I can only change one person's mind, it's still one step closer to putting this thing down once and for all.

Program owners and industry 'bigshots' always seem to keep quiet when something goes awry in the industry. It doesn't make sense because they have more to lose than almost anyone. It's embarassing, really. I took the time to write a hella long letter to ICANN and I probably don't make 1/100th of what some of them make.

Anyways, I appreciate your gratitude, everyone.

later
c-lo

[polish_aristocrat]

but FYI I checked and your letter doesnt seem to be posted at the ICANN forum.... are you sure you confirmed it?

here's the forum

http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-icm-agreement/

[c-lo]

Yeah, I haven't sent it YET. That's why I posted it here - to get some feedback to see if there is anything people think I should add or delete before submitting it...and also to make people aware of the .XXX problem.

I will submit it very soon. There's no way I'm gonna type all that and not submit it.

later
c-lo

[polish_aristocrat]

Originally Posted by c-lo

Yeah, I haven't sent it YET. That's why I posted it here - to get some feedback to see if there is anything people think I should add or delete before submitting it...and also to make people aware of the .XXX problem.

I will submit it very soon. There's no way I'm gonna type all that and not submit it.

later
c-lo

[polish_aristocrat]

bump for this topic

[c-lo]

Hey, thanks for the bump. And just so ya know, I emailed it to them last night.


later
c-lo

[Rhesus]

Others should email too. Every bit helps, and it really does!

[seeric]

ICANN public comments end FEB 5th, GO TO THE ADDRESS NOW AND EMAIL THEM YOUR DISPLEASURES.

[polish_aristocrat]

Originally Posted by A1R3K

ICANN public comments end FEB 5th, GO TO THE ADDRESS NOW AND EMAIL THEM YOUR DISPLEASURES.

[c-lo]

Does anyone see my letter on the forum? I sent it several days ago and I'm still not seeing it. It was entitled "The Many Reasons I Oppose .XXX".


Thanks,
c-lo

[polish_aristocrat]

with replying to most .xxx threads within minutes I will probably look like a person with no life, but then again, with my 34k posts, I probably already do

to answer your question c-lo, I dont see your letter either,. are you sure you confirmed it?

after sending an email to [email protected] you're receiving soon after that an autoresponder with a link which you have to click to confirm your message (it may get caught in SPAM filter but you should still receive it)

by clicking on that link, you're confirming your message and it gets posted on the ICANN forum within a few hours

[c-lo]

Yes, I confirmed it both by sending the letter back to them unaltered and by clicking the link (both of their suggested confirmation methods.) I did confirm from a different email box though (one it forwards to.)

I just resent it from a different domain and confirmed it from there, as well. It better show up this time. By the way, you may have more posts than any man should, but at least they're helpful.

later
c-lo

[polish_aristocrat]

I see your letter finally approved and posted there

[c-lo]

Cool. Thanks for the heads up.

Keep those letters coming...it's not too late to not be the douchebag that let's this shit pass!

later
c-lo