You can express your thoughts about the new .xxx extension proposal here ( link )
 

There have been many GFY threads about the idea to implement a new .xxx top-level domain name.
The vast majority of our industry opposed this idea, mostly since there is a risk that once it becomes available, some people will like to make it mandatory for us to operate under that domain, in order to drastically filter out adult sites. ( check out the past threads about it ).

Here you can express your thoughts about this proposal.
All opinions are sent to ICANN via email and then eventually published, so please no immature comments like "George Bush - stfu, don't steal our porn money. Oracle Porn" comments.
Opinions should be sent only by those who have the intellectual ability to express their arguments against that proposal in a convincing way, without presenting themselves as members of the adult industry ( so from a mainstream email adress :warning )

http://www.icann.org/tlds/stld-apps-...c-comments.htm

( don't click it, they don't need 100 referrers from GFY, save it open in new win.dow ) :glugglug

There is only one day left for public comments on the ICANN forum.
I guess i will be the only GFY'er who will send his opinion.

Not that it will change ICANN's decision, but neither does a single vote in an election, yet people still vote.

it will refused, as always

I sent my :2 cents: in

Here is what i posted:


subject: .XXX exposed


Some information about the proposed .XXX

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5176620.html

An excerpt from the article:

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Under his proposal, submitted last week to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), .xxx domain names would be sold for $70 to $75 each. Child pornography would be verboten, but pretty much anything
else would be permissible, Lawley said. "Apart from child pornography, which is completely illegal, we're really not in the content-monitoring business."

Instead, Lawley and his partners are in the business to make money. A report from Reuters Business Insight in February 2003 calculated that sex represented two-thirds of all online content revenue in 2001, and that it had ballooned to a $2.5 billion industry since then. Lawley estimates that
25 percent of all Internet search queries are related to sex and that over a million adult domain names exist. Owning the rights to sell pieces of .xxx real estate, he concluded, would be a perfect way to make money off of consumers' insatiable appetite for online raunch and ribaldry.

Free-expression issues

The way the proposed .xxx registry would work is twofold. Lawley's company, ICM Registry, would handle the technical aspects of running the master database of .xxx sex sites. For its troubles, it would charge $60 a domain name and let resellers add their own markup of perhaps $10 to $15 per domain.

A second, nonprofit organization, the International Foundation for Online Responsibility would be in charge of setting the rules for .xxx. It would have a seven-person board of directors, including a child advocacy advocate, a free-expression aficionado, and, naturally, at least one person from the adult entertainment industry. As president and chairman of ICM Registry, Lawley gives himself just one vote on the board.

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$75 per domains?!?!?!?!?!?!? And you thought Network Solutions was bad.


.XXX has been proposed to be a way to "save the children", but it is quite evident it's just a way to make money in the name of children.

While the word "voluntary" has been used when describing how webmasters of adult entertainment sites can choose to register a .XXX, the "voluntary" point is diminished as there is a concerted effort to propose legislation to congress to make it a law to create a "red light district" that is .XXX



This article brings up the point about Congress getting involved
http://news.com.com/2010-1026-517661...tag=nefd_acpro


An excerpt:
-------------------------------------------------------------

Protecting children

This is not just a theoretical concern. Back in 2000, before Lawley got involved as president, ICM Registry applied to run the .xxx domain. But ICANN shot down the proposal.

It didn't take Congress long to get involved. At a hearing in February 2001, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., demanded to know why ICANN didn't approve .xxx "as a means of protecting our kids from the awful, awful filth which is
sometimes widespread on the Internet." Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., griped to a federal commission that .xxx was necessary to force adult Webmasters to "abide by the same standard as the proprietor of an X-rated movie theater."

---------------------------------------------------------

In this MSNBC interview, you can see how other child advocacy groups are jumping on the .XXX bandwagon:

http://msnvideo.msn.com/video/defaul...0Today&setcp=b



By charging upwards of $75/domain, it does leave alot of room for
"commissions". How many organizations that support .XXX will be receiving "sales commissions"?


Technology is the answer to preventing kids from seeing the "bad stuff", not legislation. Parents are the first line of defense and need tools, not crutches, to keep their kids "safe".


-brandon
Internet Activist, http://www.FightThePatent.com

brandon -at - FightThePatent.com