List of issues and solutions regarding .xxx for the IFFOR and the .xxx Board of Directors
 

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.

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

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.

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.

We are listening.

you make some valid coherent points.. the problem is, these people are addicted to $$$.

i will translate what you said into "casholese" ( the language of money )
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I dannyz have an idea that will make you less money , but you will be doing the right thing
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They stopped reading at "less money"

Interesting. Looking forward to hear your response.

Good stuff!

Well actually in the long term, they would make more money. If they followed the steps I outlined, it would diffuse a lot of Webmaster complaints and companies that are boycotting .xxx right now, thus making .xxx domains more valuable which would cause Webmasters to purchase many more domains.

its amazing that you can just pay money to people and have them adopt and believe bullshit. .xxx is a tyranny. anything they tell you is for faux security and bait to lure you in.

interesting ,i will read later

.xxx does not deserve this attention. its not even targeted at porn producers as you watch the advertising...6 months out, .xxx will be totally irrelevent, except for the suckers that are paying $100/year for nothing.

they don't need support, they are selling millions of $$$ in domains without following your steps or having widespread support in the adult industry.

The big companies are already supporting them. all the smaller companies will eventually get on the .xxx train as soon as profits start to decline and they are marginalized.

You mean like Manwin?

All of the big companies I talk to on the gay side of the business do not support .xxx. In fact the only one I know of that does is CorbinFischer, but good luck to him getting traffic to his site as most of the large gay link lists and traffic sites have already banned .xxx sites.

Great post... and while I agree with you... your solutions would cut deeply into .xxx bottom line, which is not in their best interests.

Ha that'd be funny if they showed why they charge 100 for .xxx vs 9 for .com!

manwin is protecting its own monopoly :)
do you know any that have banned affiliates sending traffic from .xxx ?

everyone was against the tubes and tgps openly , but they loved the traffic and eventually started their own

Yes. These are the ones that have banned affiliates sending traffic.

KJCash.com
AmAdBucks
JuicyBoys.com
zbuckz.com

See this thread:
http://www.gaydemon.biz/showthread.p...or-Against-xxx

Working on this response - and will post it in the morning - but wanted to pop back in just to let you know that at least one of your domains was in the group that got pulled today.

https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1049722

Until recently Stuart Lawley was on the IFFOR board. He stepped down and gave his seat to Sheri Falco (General Counsel for ICM Registry). IFFOR is an ICM Registry controlled puppet.

Thank you for pulling my domain! Despite the fact that I still don't support .xxx, I am happy you guys are having an open dialogue with us and look forward to hearing your response to my proposal.

As long as i get that free teeshirt i support them 100%

Sorry for taking longer than expected to get back to this. It's been a busy couple of days.

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.



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.



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.

Thank you for your reply. I'll take some time to think over your comments, but a few immediate questions come to mind. One thing I don't understand is, if you are going to have all of these so called 'benefits' for domain owners, why aren't the registrars touting these as reasons to purchase .xxx domains rather then just 'protecting our brands' and using fear?

There is also something from your TOS I'd like clarification on:

Does this mean that the ICM or an affiliated company could start the next 'xtube.com' or 'youporn.com' with content from any .xxx domain, without legal consequences?

Here's an idea. If the wholesale price is $62, why not at the very least offer this price to Webmasters who are only buying for the sole reason of protecting their brands? I paid $98.00 to Moniker to register Japanboyz.xxx, so basically any time I register a domain I have to protect my brand, I have to give $36 to the registrar. I think that's a rip off. If I wanted to protect all of my paysite brands, with 20 paysites, it means I'd be paying $720 per year just to the registration company and another $1240 per year to .xxx. While it may not sound like a huge amount, it certainly does effect our bottom lines.

I'm not really sure why registrars aren't speaking to the additional benefits for those in the industry. My guess is their advertising - particularly in the form of emails going out to registrants, is for those not in the industry to be aware and able to register defensively. We've been very eager to do our own advertising TO the industry. We felt that a series of advertorials where we could elucidate on some of those benefits would be helpful and welcomed, but the powers that be presently refuse to sell us (even at a hefty mark-up) the advertising space to do so. Needless to say that makes it difficult for the industry to get factual information regarding ICM Registry without wading through acres of policy, testimony and contracts in dry legalese.

Absolutely not. Those TOS apply ONLY to OUR sites (icmregistry.com, icm.xxx, about.xxx, buy.xxx, etc.). For example if we had blogs, etc and someone posted comments or responses to them. They do not apply to registrants sites in any way.

Mostly because we are a registRY not a registRAR, and we don't actually 'sell' domains, nor do we set the pricing for the registrars. Some registrars offer our domains for less than the amount that you paid, particularly if you purchased in bulk. (And by that I mean domains in bulk, not necessarily only ours.)

There was an option during Sunrise that allowed for blocking of exact domain string matches. Those companies that chose to participate in that paid a one time fee of $200 per domain.

May I turn your example around? You now own Japanboyz.xxx. You can take that $98 investment (or $1240 if that would be the cost to register all of your sites), and duplicate your .com on your new .xxx space. In doing that, you can take advantage of the benefits that are part of being a .xxx domain owner.

As we roll out consumer marketing in 2012, that means new eyes on your content that will see (if you choose to register for it) the McAfee trustmark, and that will know that browser settings will keep that content away from the eyes of their children.

YOU will know (when we determine our plan of action for piracy protection) that your content is protected, that RIGHT NOW we strictly enforce our standards with regard to cybersquatting and infringement, and you will have the opportunity (should you choose to take advantage of it) to integrate a micropayment system backed by familiar banks alongside your current payment processing.

Add up the costs of doing those things on your .com and the total is far more than $98 per year.

Just a thought. You already own the domain, why not make it work for you?

First off, I thank you for having this dialogue with me. I know you must be doing your best given the circumstances of your job, and I can respect that.

You have done a good job of listing all the benefits .xxx is promising to provide for the $100.00 price tag ($62 wholesale). However, have you thought about if adult webmasters actually care or want these things? If I'm paying $100 just as a defensive registration, odds are I'm not even going to use the domain, or at most I will put up a parked page linking them to the .com. I could care less about having Mcaffee virus scans, piracy protection, traffic portals or anything else. This goes back to what I said originally, which is why it's unfair that we have to pay so much just for 'defensive registrations' when we will not be getting any value out of these benefits in return.

And now, we are getting into the fundamental problem with .xxx. According to this article, 85% of current .xxx domain registrations are only for defensive registration purposes.

IMHO .xxx is going to look like a largely empty TLD and continue on a downward spiral unless some extremely drastic changes are made.

Looks like we posted at the same time. :)

Your most recent post does provide some additional food for thought. It's late here though so I'm going to leave this thread as is for now. Hope you have a good weekend!

An analysis of the .xxx zone file at http://jl.ly/ICANN/xxxzone.html shows that 85% of all .xxx registrations are defensive. Will ICM Registry refund those defensive registrations?

It's my pleasure, Danny - and thank you.

That article only tells half the story, by the way, as it doesn't represent the entirety of the registry database.

I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation. Hope your weekend is fantastic.

Assuming the entire database it twice as large or three times as large, why should we think that the 85% figure of defensive registrations would change?

Truthfully, it could go up to 90 or 95% which is why they are not all included in the zone file. I'd hope that all the .xxx registrations of adult webmasters that want to use the domain are being given a priority to bring them online. If not, why not?

Getting late so I guess no answer tonight.

Maybe, tomorrow.

Hey, DotXXX, are adult webmasters being given priority in processing domains after their domains have been registered in order to bring them online as soon as possible?

Or, is the process just first come, first served?

As a TM holder you would have been spending $300 for a 10 year block, those names all have DNS. You are saying there are tens of thousands of TM holders out there who would have waited until launch day to spend $100/yr (3x the cost) and risked someone else getting the name.