Are We Sticking Our Heads In the Sand On..?
 

ICANN meets to address .xxx next week, yet less than 100 folks have voiced their opinions to ICANN's requests for input at [email protected] .

Even a quickie "I am against approval of .xxx" email might carry considerable weight, especially since so few comments have been submitted. After you support the Adult Internet Industry's need to keep .com in existence by emailing ICANN, they will send you an email asking you to confirm that you sent it --then, and only then, will it be posted and counted, so please don't overlook the near-instantaneous auto-response ICANN will send requesting your confirmation of your email against .xxx.

If we sit idly by, .xxx might kill us off, so PLEASE take this seriously. Please email them TODAY, lest they cut off in a couple of days to tabulate/staff/etc the meager number of comments sent thus far.

PLEASE email NOW, lest we all be possibly crying in our beer soon:-(.

FYI/background, even though a simple "I'm against .xxxx" will help, here's a copy/paste off of the www.freespeechcoalition.com site:




.XXX Top-Level Domain Info


A BRIEF HISTORY OF .XXX AND RELATED LINKS



ICM Registry Submits Revised Proposed .XXX Registry Agreement (4/06)

(click here for relevant documents and links to ICANN website.)


Click HERE to join our letter-writing campaign in opposition to .XXX


In 2004, after several membership and Board meetings, the Board of Directors of The Free Speech Coalition voted to formally oppose the creation of an adult TLD, a position it maintains to this day. The Free Speech Coalition opposes .XXX because:



.XXX Will Not Create a Framework to Protect Children ? Even its most enthusiastic supporters acknowledge that a voluntary .XXX will not provide an effective mechanism for keeping adult content away from minors.
There Is No Compelling Need For .XXX ? Other than financial benefit to ICM Registry and its investors, there is no compelling need or business model that necessitates the creation of .XXX.
.XXX Will Lead To The ?Ghettoization? of Protected Speech ? By its very existence, .XXX will segregate content-based speech and create a framework that could lead easily to government or private sector censorship, establishing an international precedent by which other content-based speech could be similarly segregated and regulated.
.XXX Will be Regulated, Not Self-Regulated ? A supporting organization, IFFOR, will set all policies that .XXX domain holders will be required to obey. A majority of IFFOR Board of Directors will come from outside the industry, thus creating a regulatory, rather than self-regulatory, framework.
.XXX Does Not Have The Support of the Adult Industry ? Contrary to statements made by ICM Registry and others, the overwhelming majority of adult entertainment companies do not support the creation of .XXX.
.KIDS Would Provide a Far More Effective Solution ? Instead of herding protected speech into a ?virtual ghetto,? a content-positive .KIDS TLD should be created where children can find child-friendly websites, making it far easier for parents to filter .KIDS in than it will be for them to filter adult content out!
Foreign Governments Oppose .XXX ? An increasing number of foreign governments have voiced their opposition to .XXX. In fact, rather than endorsing .XXX, the European Union recently proposed the creation of a .kids top-level domain.
Repressive Governments Will Engage in State-Sponsored Filtering: Many governments currently restrict the types of websites available to their citizens by utilizing filtering technologies. .XXX will provide these governments with yet another, more effective tool to control what their citizens can access, in effect, censoring speech for an entire country.



FIGHT .XXX!

Please email ICANN at [email protected]

Dave

See http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...03#post9813703 ---anyone know the answer to my question in posting #6 to FightThePatent's thread?

I sent them an email

email sent.

email sent

Please see Brandon's comprehensive thread at http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=604855 and then send your "I strongly oppose .xxx" email to [email protected] TODAY.

Thanks,

Dave

I like and appreciate ALL the emails being sent (see his 4th paragraph!).

Did ya's see this below one?
Objections To .XXX TLD
To: <xxx-tld-agreement@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Objections To .XXX TLD
From: Mark Kernes <markkernes@xxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 11:46:23 -0700

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

To Whom It May Concern:

I am opposed to the establishment of a .xxx top-level domain for the
following reasons:

1) Although ICANN may not be aware of it, and I'm sure is not complicit in
any such plan, the establishment of such a domain is clearly the first step
in several pro-censorship groups' plans to remove sexual and sex-related
material from the Web. Establishing the domain may seem harmless, but there
is already a move in the U.S. Congress to call for such establishment, and
then make it mandatory for all sites dealing in sexual and sex-related
materials to give up their .com, .net, etc. sites and relocate in .xxx. (Of
course, such a law by the U.S. Congress would have no effect on any
webmaster located outside the U.S.) Once the U.S.-based sites have been
forced into .xxx, it would be a simple matter for the Congress to require
all U.S.-based ISPs to filter out .xxx sites, thereby denying access to the
material to millions of adults who would wish to see it -- all in violation
of their rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

2) Leaving sexually explicit material aside, the above-planned ruling by the
U.S. Congress would undoubtedly sweep in many sites whose purpose is wholly
educational, scientific and even political, such as advice on
self-administered breast examinations, information on homosexuality, various
artistic works, etc. Sites containing photos of Michelangelo's David, for
instance, could easily be considered sexual and therefore blocked.

3) Attempting to exclude sexual material from the bulk of the Web is a bad
idea, especially since the proposed mandatory move to .xxx would affect only
U.S.-based sites. The more effective approach would be to establish a .kids
TLD, where webmasters who can certify that their material is completely safe
for minors can locate (or link to), and where parents can set their filters
to allow access only to .kids and .kids-approved sites, leaving the rest of
the Web free for adults to use as adults see fit.

4) It has been rumored that ICM Registry has already used its projected
ownership of .xxx to approach the owners of popular sexually-oriented .com
and .net URLs to offer them the same URL in .xxx at a premium price, with
the implication that if the .com URL owner refuses the deal, ICM will offer
that same URL to the .com's competitor. I'm sure ICANN would not want to be
party to such attempted extortion, if in fact such has occurred or is
planned to occur.

These are only some of the objections to the establishment of .xxx, and I
hope ICANN will take them seriously and refuse to authorize a .xxx TLD.


Mark Kernes, Sr. Ed., Adult Video News/AVN.com
9414 Eton Ave.
Chatsworth, CA
USA
818.718.5788.150
818.718.5799 (fax)

e-mail sent :thumbsup

I sent my e-mail :frenchman

i hate to break the news to you but icann doesnt give a shit about anyone but only how much money they make.

Try calling them up and they will tell you too.

While this is likely true, better to do something that may have no impact than to sit by and do nothing at all.

Email sent

Can't hurt to do it...but could make a difference if they get enough responses.

one things for sure...no responses will send a message that nobody cares what they do.

BTW, those of you who sent in e-mails, make sure you check your inboxes as they send some stupid confirm thing where you have to click a link. Just in case some of you all used addresses that dont exist...

already got my confirm email from them...was super fast

and I did confirm back with them too

I'm emailing today.. still trying to figure out what to write...


will this work;


I am against .xxx
It is my opinion that .xxx does not benifit anyone other than the registrars.
I believe that .xxx would not serve any purpose. I do not see how a site having a .xxx domain would make it safer for kids to surf the net. What's the diffrence between fuck.com fuck.org or fuck.xxx, after all, it's still fuck no matter how you look at it. I have spent a great deal of time, effort & money to brand my domains, & for you to make it so that i must have .xxx will kill my efforts & send me back to the beginning. Sure .xxx would be an excellent idea if it were by choice, & registrars would still make alot of money, but making it so that I have no choice is not sitting well with me. Icann has no business telling me what I can or can not do with my domains.. If I want to have naked women having sex on fuck.com or hahahaha.com or slut.com, then so be it.. that is my business & making me get fuck.xxx hahahaha.xxx etc is not going to change anything.. people will still go to google, yahoo, msn, aol etc & type in the word fuck.. do you think fuck.xxx is going to stop someone from visiting?

Email sent

dont send it

actually the first step is making that by choice so you cant say it would be great if it was by choice

this has been discussed several times though

you know what spacedog? change everything, send the thing from a non adult email adress, and say sometihing like "i am afraid .xxx will just mean more porn, please reject that terrible idea " ;-)

last time only the religious grups opposed it, now they arent visible there anymore and it looks like only the adult industry opposes it ( although ICANN should rmember the few hundred or even thousand emails they got from religious gropups in middle 2005 too )

another agrument someone else could mention -->

noone will voluntarly give up .com and move to .xxx because .xxx is gonna cost about $70 per domain ( no joke ) and that is 10 times more expensive than a .com domain

final thing, .xxx gets introduced and is voluntary....

in a year politicians try to make it mandatory which causes a major clusterfuck and legal chaos...

but even if it doesnt go throguh, and .xxx remains voluntary, then what could stop VISA to decide that from 2008 they only process for .xxx paysites ?
( because .xxx is perceived as the good, self regulating, ethical group of adult webmasters )

And (since .xxx is basically voluntary for now?) .xxx will only create duplicated sites and more porn.

hmm...

sex.com is worth a few million...


I wonder how much sex.xxx would be worth..

then again.. how much would sex.com be after .xxx if passed

Per this link, http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-tld-agreement/ , very few have posted. Remember, bush got in because some Florida voters "didn't bother" to vote. Please "vote" be posting at [email protected] ASAP!

Dave

Email sent.

:thumbsup

Cool, Rochard and others who have ridden to the rescue:-)

sent my email & confirmed

Just sent my email. Thanks Dave.

Done deal :winkwink:

I pray that everyone, including the really big guys/influencers in our Industry, will email their "Don't approve .xxx" input to ICANN at [email protected] TODAY.

Dave

I think a lot of people are

I sent in the following letter opposing the establishment of the .XXX TLD. They may not publish it, but I wanted to at least state my thoughts on the subject.


When the arguments in favor of the .XXX domain are closely examined, it seems to me that none of them are very persuasive. Moreover, when the other actions being taken by the U.S. Government are taken into account, it is clear that this initiative is nothing more than yet another attempt by them to regulate out of existence what the Constitution and Supreme Court (we hope) will not let them directly abolish.

How, exactly, is the .XXX domain going to keep children from accessing adult sites? In order to let adults access these sites, while barring children, some type of mechanism will have to exist to limit access to these sites. The answer we keep hearing is that filtering technology will be used - yet, the U.S. Justice Department is currently arguing, in the Child Online Protection Act case, that filtering technologies are inadequate and that credit card walls have to be established to protect children from accessing adult content. The credit card companies clearly state that their cards are not to be used for adult verification purposes, thus causing sites that use such a mechanism to risk losing their ability to process cards - which would effectively put them out of business. Furthermore, this solution would only apply to U.S. based sites, thereby not really diminishing the ability of children to access adult content at all - and what about free sites; how do they comply with the law - they either have to charge, or be shut down. There is much irony in the DOJ's position regarding searches for pornography. If that many people are trying to gain access to such content, is it not a "community standard," which is a defense under the obscenity laws?

But that is not the main issue here. It is only being pointed out to show that the U.S. Government's sole intention is to shut down adult sites, not regulate them nor come up with an effective way to protect children. Many adult webmasters have used the Internet Content Ratings Association ratings system, as well as other child protection technologies, to prevent children from accessing their content. In its new operating system, Microsoft is promising vastly improved parental controls and filtering technologies. If the browsers and search engine companies worked together with ICRA and other groups to improve detection and filtering, a solution for all children could be possible. But the DOJ is not interested in any solution that does not allow them an avenue to shut down sites; they want mandatory FTC labeling for adult sites - ah, yet another list they can use to prosecute and shut people down by using. Imagine my surprise; labeling doesn't work with ICRA, but will through the FTC? Does anyone doubt the real reason for this is so the FTC, one of the most draconian agencies of the federal government, can pass crushing regulations on how adult sites can advertise?

How, exactly, is protecting children possible with the "voluntary" .XXX top level domain (TLD)? Children will know, by typing a a name and .XXX, an adult site would appear - and searching for porn would be much easier unless - oh, yeah, filters are used. Not to mention, the ink will not even be dry on the establishing documents before the U.S. Congress will be trying to pass laws making it mandatory, adding all kinds of new restrictions and conditions, such as explicitly allowing any ISP to totally filter out .XXX traffic, with no penalties, or charging money to be able to access the .XXX domain. And once again, all these restrictions would only be on U.S. based sites - unless this truly is a mandatory thing for every country and every TLD.

Now, just for a moment, consider this - who gets to own the site sex.xxx? The owner of sex.com - sex.net - sex.co.uk - sex.de - just on and on. Some names are probably found in several TLDs - and only one gets the .XXX version? Besides making a ton of lawyers very wealthy, and a lot of webmasters much poorer, who, besides the .XXX domain registry company, which will be selling these domains at about $60 a pop, apparently (to start), and registrars who got paid for domains that might be seized away from their owners, benefits from all this? The situation is even worse if people have to give up their TLDs - or, if its just some TLDs that are affected. If sex.com and sex.net are abolished, but sex.de gets to stay, how fair is this? And, oh yeah - who, exactly, gets to determine what has to be behind the .XXX wall? Does the Netherlands, with its liberal society, have to follow the same rules as say Saudi Arabia, with its much more conservative view of sexual matters, on what has to be placed behind the .XXX wall?

The war being waged by the U.S Government on adult sites is being waged on several fronts - the COPA, the CDA (Communications Decency Act), 18 U.S.C. 2257, FTC labels, and abandoning Internet neutrality to allow the throttling and blocking of web sites and TLDs, a measure currently well on its way through Congress. Does anyone doubt that the .XXX domain would be the first one to be blocked, once this becomes legal? Does anyone else see the convenience in the timing of these two measures - net neutrality being abolished and the establishment of the .XXX TLD - both happening at almost the same time?

As discussed earlier, every so-called benefit of .XXX is already possible, should the ICRA labels be used as a guide by the technology companies, as the V-chip does now in televisions. But the DOJ is not interested in protecting children; their real goal is to stamp out the existence of the adult industry completely. No matter what ANY adult webmaster does - label with ICRA, put all material behind a credit card wall - the DOJ will still consider the content to be obscene and potentially prosecute it. .XXX is just another tool to help them in that task, and should not be accepted by ICANN.

Email sent...

I certainly hope that they do indeed publish your very well thought out email--thanks! Oh, be certain to keep an eye out for their almost-instantaneous confirmation email so that you can confirm you sent it and they can then post your's.

Dave

Thank you for the nice comment; they did publish my letter. It seems that the vast majority of the letters today are ones opposing .XXX, which is a good thing.

More posts blasting .xxx are urgently needed at [email protected] .

Dave

Dave, can you please email me a letter of which you would like for us to email ICANN...i will also email this letter to thousands of our webmaster clients and ask them to email ICANN. I dont know what would be the best way to express our thoughts ( and i am being lazy :-) so i was wondering if you have a sample letter? If so, please email it to me at [email protected] , thank you!!!

bump :):):):)

I just saw your posting and have sent you an email, Raffi. A simple, "I oppose .xxx" will suffice, especially since we need the emails sent ASAP to [email protected] --the ICANN meeting is Wednesday, so we need the emails expedited.

You're a hero fo doing this, Raffi!

Thanks,

Dave

:thumbsup

bump the .xxx

Icann meets tomorrow, so send your opposition emails RIGHT NOW to [email protected]

PLEASE??????

Thanks!

Dave

:thumbsup

I like this one : http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-tld.../msg00546.html

Nice one d00t!

And well-presented by Brandon :thumbsup