Why .XXX *WILL* be *APPROVED*
 

.XXX *WILL* be *APPROVED*, BECAUSE:

ICANN and affiliate registrars will make tons of cash from the initial landrush/speculative buying of domains in the .XXX name space.

Not only will speculators be buying into this namespace, but everyone who is involved in the adult industry who already has an established presence in .COM/.NET will be attempting to buy their .XXX equivalents in order to protect their brand and identity.

To those of you who say you're going to boycott .XXX: GET REAL - If you don't buy the .XXX equivalent of your domain names, you are going to lose a substantial share of your market - You can doubt that the .XXX namespace will ever be approved, but if you don't secure YOUR land in .XXX, you are in for a hurting.

Take .TV, .US, and .WS for instance - they are all CASH COWS for the registries affiliated with them.

Do I support a new TLD, such as .XXX? Sure.
Do I think all XXX content should be forced into a new .XXX namespace? Nope.
Do I think adult industry leaders sending letters of OPPOSITION into ICANN will INCREASE the chances of APPROVAL for .XXX?
Yep, for sure.. Where there is more opposition, there is more of a market of demand - if someone is threatened, they will most certainly be buyers when their .COM realestate is being encroached upon by a new .XXX extension.
Do I think .XXX will be approved ultimately?: ABSOLUTELY.

Just my :2 cents: - Hope I didn't offend anybody.

Well thank you.

:)

interesting thoughts.

I was going to disagree, but the red colored text made me a believer!

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

.XXX is the mark of the Beast!

Your wrong about it not becoming mandatory, politicians already want to make it law and its not even approved yet.Als another flaw is you argument about supply and demand .The industry hasnt been calling for this. This is a cash grab pure and simple. What do you do in adult?

Me too :upsidedow red colors = powerful stuff :1orglaugh

wont become manditory lol : http://www.xbiz.com/news_piece.php?i...rchstring=.xxx

This company simply wants a piece of the adult pie without doing the hard (pun intended) work. What other reason would they have for not only adamantly claiming that they have zero affiliation with the adult industry but also charging a king's ransom for each tld?

Tony,

I'm not wrong about anything - I said, I don't WANT all .XXX forced into the space (that was my personal opinion) - I didn't say that was how the proposal is structured.

And, i'm not wrong about the supply and demand either. I guarantee you, even those who oppose this, when it is released, will be grabbing up the .XXX form of their domains. i.e.: I'm sure BrookeSkye.XXX will be owned by MayorsMoney, i'm sure Marc will fight for MILF.XXX, since he has MILF.com.

Yes, it is obviously a cash grab, pure and simple - and a cash grab which the big players in this market will be participating in, in terms of handing the cash over to those who are grabbing it.

My role in this industry? I'm a domain name investor with a decent adult portfolio, and I have done part-time promotion of sponsor's sites in the past.

I'm an entrepreneur who understands the domain name market - it's what I do fulltime. Do you understand how little it costs to setup a registry like .XXX, compared to how much it will return for those who are founding it?


Leave your sentimentality at the door, and realize you are in a business, and in this market, the lines are very gray - every business market changes, and if you don't adapt with the changes which occur, you will NOT survive.

Its not sentimentality ,its my sweat and blood . This is scumbag leech shit nothing more and if you think your going to get any of the gravy names your smokin dope those are gone already. lol Its all short term,quick cash thinking, not good business thinking at all.

Fortunately, the majority of people on the ICANN board are good souls who genuinely want to look out for the best interests of the Internet in the long term.

IF we adequately convey that there is no support for .xxx, that the industry is opposed, that ICM does not represent our community or its interests, then ICANN will listen. They have already expressed deep concern; it's up to us to convince them that what ICM is saying is simply not true.

Send your emails to

[email protected]

State that you're in the industry, that you represent __________ company, that you are opposed, and that you do not believe that any significant portion of the adult industry is in favor.

Respond to the confirming email you will get from ICANN.

This is REALLY important.

One thing I must say after hours of reading about this is that whether or not it does come about, we must be aware that a change is iminant. I love all of your comments because they are of an objective point of veiw, primarily triggered by economic viability. I too do not agree with the proposed .xxx move, but if the change comes about sooner rather than later, then so will my acceptance of it. Whilst ever there is a fight to be fought though, I will be there. :2 cents:

:1orglaugh

I have been trying to think about this from the point of view of the guys who are setting up the .XXX registry. MerlinK is right- it is going to be a cash cow and shrewd business move on their part. But there's a second part to the story that I don't think is being made public yet, although I suspect it is very much IN THE PLAN: a concerted effort lobbying governments around the world to REQUIRE adult sites to use the .XXX domain.

I just can't fathom that the .XXX registrar guys are not aware of how much more of a panic there will be for .XXX domains once such a lobbying effort is underway. Of course they can't make this part of the plan public now- because if they do it will inhibit the approval process. But once ICANN approves .XXX, it'll be a different story.

All of this seems to flow from putting yourself in the shoes of guys behind .XXX and thinking of how they would be able to maximize their payoff.

Now that you mention it though...the company backing this effort has made a couple of comments hinting that one of the reasons they're doing this is to "shut out" the adult industry.

:1orglaugh I saw the red text and just skipped the lot buggered if I am going to strain my eyes with that, hope I did not miss anything intresting but I doubt it

I'm not sure why you think such obvious and clichéd comments merit a new thread, let alone so much large red type. If this TLD is approved, of course there will be speculators and of course people will feel forced to buy the .XXX versions of their existing domains. What does any of that have to do with the price of eggs?

All that matters right now is that for the industry at large, .XXX represents an additional expense which offers absolutely no benefit: not to us, nor to the public, who it is supposedly intended to protect. For the time being we still have a chance to prove that we shall not be preyed upon by anyone happens to see us as an easy target.

I have no intention of boycotting .XXX if it is approved. But I shall boycott its supporters when it becomes clear who they are, just as I do anyone else who steps over the line of legitimate competition.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

It's not the additional expense that is the biggest threat involving .xxx (though that isn't insignificant.)

The real threat is the free speech restrictions that can and probably will come along with .xxx. As soon as it passes, you can pretty much be guaranteed that there will be legislators ready to pass laws restricting access to .xxx domains, or requiring that ALL adult sites served in __________ state be on .xxx, or that nothing in .xxx can be transmitted to the town/state/country of ________.

Lawley knows damn well that .xxx WILL be mandated by various groups. All of the right wing crazies, once it passes, will be clamoring for all .xxx content to be banned from their community, or that all adult content be forced onto .xxx domains, which they will then insist be blacklisted by their communities or ISPs

How people don't see through all of this, I have no idea.

too many fucking words...


it only would take one...



"money"














period

Is there any registrar taking pre-registrations for .xxx yet?
Not supporting it, but i wanna secure my ass!

I believe .xxx is with us whether we like it or not. Maybe not this time but in the future. It will make it easier for parents to stop children surfing porn, not stop them completely but help them a little. It will help separate the adult net from the rest, help again is the word I used. What it could do is provide an enormous cull of sites that simply are not worth renewing and a few people will go. Think of the real reason you make so little money, if you are making a little. Is it too few surfers, too many sites and or too many people trying to grab the traffic? Only the weak will go so don't expect to get rich over night. What I can tell you for sure is if you plan for it's coming you will be better prepared.

Sensible approach, I need to check who is looking at this in a positive manner. don't want to be caught out by denying it will happen.

can we all just put a link at our .com domains saying "Site has moved to mydomain.xxx" and redirect it after a few seconds ?

so if the mydomain.xxx is taken we register mydomain-tgp.xxx or something...

oh really?
 

So are you saying that you think .XXX is completely acceptable as long as it's pricing is more in the range of $7-10/year, rather than $60/year?

Are you delusional, full of shit, or completely selfish and greedy? Kids probably shouldn't have access to porn, and to be honest with you, .XXX would be an easy namespace to filter access to from school and family homes.

I'm not saying i'm 100% in support of the isolation of XXX material on .XXX name space, but get real buddy. You're talking some bullshit if you're trying to claim that there is "no benefit" to the public - the only party to whom there is "no benefit" is to US. ;)


You are cliche, my friend. Everything you've stated here is contradictory to itself.

Most people here are NOT arguing about the price, but rather the principles behind the .XXX namespace itself.

Quit trying to play the "good guy" in an industry where money, greed, and lust dominate.

You are arguing that the price is the outrageous aspect, alongside your peers in the industry whom are arguing the .XXX space is going to kill your business because of the isolation it will create from the rest of the general internet.

The day ICANN releases .xxx on to the net is the day the US will lose control over ICANN, and the internet :2 cents:

nice news

<rant>
I'm still not sure why people believe that kids shouldn't have access to porn. Not that I allow kids under 18 to access adult sites (because of the law), but in reality...there is no hard evidence supporting claims of underage porn viewing causing any damage to the developing mind. Furthermore, the overall lack of sexual education in the USA is the real reason why teen pregnancies have gone way up, and issues like rampant STD transmission and unprotected sex are also a result of this prudish societical stigma. Education is they key to a better life, this has been documented, scientific proof for centuries. So if parents are too chickenshit to teach their kids about sex, who's going to? They're either going to experiment themselves (often with dire consequences), or hunt down porn. One could argue that exposing teens to porn has positive effects.
</rant>

Why not read what I actually wrote, instead of telling me what you believe I meant? I have a reasonably good command of the english language and if I had wanted to say something else, I should have.

I wrote "All that matters right now is that for the industry at large, .XXX represents an additional expense which offers absolutely no benefit". I expressed myself as I did because there is no immediate risk of this industry being ghettoized and the introduction of .XXX now will have little if any impact on whatever future risk there may be. The tool for enabling censorship is the least of the problems any (US) government wanting to impose such censorship would face. If such laws were passed and no tool were to hand for enforcing them, one would be created.

However, if .XXX is passed, the common perception will be that the days of .COM for porn are numbered and that will dramatically reduce the selling price of any online porn business which does not own the matching .XXX domains. It is also reasonable that if online porn is ever pushed into a ghetto and .XXX exists, that TLD might be our future home. For both those reasons it would be damn silly not to take up the .XXX versions of one's existing domains.

So we begin paying an extra $75 per year per domain and keep paying it for no other reason than we must. Until and if either of the issues I just mentioned come into play (and they would not exist in the first place without .XXX), we get absolutely nothing in return. To me this is an internet tax by another name, made still less palatable because it is being imposed by greedy individuals and not by government.

But lets face it the customers will not know about xxx so they will surf .com. Other countries will win if the US webmaster is forced to .xxx and no one else is.

only goes without saying that theres no money to be made in "NOT" approving .xxx

read why they didnt approve it last time ( they said their decision was not reflective of feedback on the issue ) (i.e. they ignored the comments/emails )

some interesting opinions around here....

fuck .xxx

if xxx is passed and made mandatory that all adult is on xxx you can bet there will still be TONS of sites that don't comply, places that will exclusively cater to these kinds of of people and seo spammers and the like still filling the se's with porn spam. just like crack sites and other illegal type sites there will always be someone somewhere willing to host these kinds of sites for money and as fast as they get shut down, they'll just have more back up.

I think merlin has a agenda maybe hmmmmmm

oh yeah..
 

Yep, you got me tony - I have a huge agenda. :1orglaugh

what does this has to do with countries, do you believe that if a government law forces porn sites into .XXX's , they won't use ICANN to enforce it ? in such a case ICANN will just take the domain from it's owner and park it on a different namerservers like they do if you enter wrong whois info, until the government decides what to do with it.
or am I getting a head of myself again ?

The reason that .XXX would not be approved seems to be, that some ICANN board members are seriously questioning the issue of the sponsorship TLD (as posted up a few weeks ago on icann).. and seeing how the self-defining application of (paraphrasing here), that any adult website owner that wants self-labelling, is not good enough.

I understand your assessment that alot of people will make money, but ICANN's mission of expanding the namespace, is not for making money, its for serving the needs of communities that want the sponsored TLD.

This is the point that seems to be what might seriously undo .XXX, and having adult community take a public stance is surely one clear way of demonstrating that the better definition of the sponsored community is all adult webmasters who run adult websites.

(for those thinking that i have flip-flopped, i haven't. The points that i made prior was that the new agreement caters towards the objections of GAC/ICANN on those technical points it would appear to have ICANN approval. But, the subsequent release of the notes of the previous ICANN meeting that showed there was some serious concerns over the definition of the sponsorship community by ICANN board members has helped to illuminate the angle for which to protest .XXX)



Fight the .XXX!

they might use icann to enforce it but how could they use a US law to enforce non-us citizens? just move your domains to foreign registars and hosts (as long as you aren't american) and i don't see how icann do much unless other countries or icann themselves decide to make this law, which im pretty sure icann doesn't have the power to do.

Mwelink is very wrong...Let someone try to take mikesouth.xxx and put up a site, or not give it to me if and when I ask for it.

trademark law is our ultimate protection.

ICANN isn't exactly immaculate
 

I must say, ICANN isn't exactly the immaculate organization you all seem to think they are. The members on their board of decision makers are controlled somewhat by lobbyists and their financial input. For instance, there was a scare earlier this year, that ICANN might come into some sweetheart arrangement with registrars to charge *premium* renewal prices on *premium* domains, based on how good they are - i.e.: Homes.com might be $10,000 a year to renew, while Abdbdshhs.com might be $7/year still.

This was prevented, but only because of domain lobbyists was this attempt squelched.

If the adult industry is seriously interested in having input, I suggest you all start a collective fund (you'll need about $75-100k to begin), and hire a lawyer to lobby for the path you want your industry to travel upon.

Other than that, senators/ICANN doesn't give a shit what individual adult program owners think.

You don't have a trademark, Mr. South
 

Do you understand the UDRP policy? Apparently, you don't.

Do you realize that a few DIFFERENT points must be proven to take a name from somebody?

1) Bad Faith in usage (if the person isn't making money using the name, you have no claim - if they have no site, you can't do anything)
2) Infringement on a trademark/confusingly similar usage (I strongly DOUBT you have a REGISTERED trademark for "Mike South", and I don't think you're famous enough to be COMMONLY known)
3) No legitimate rights or interests to the name (your name isn't exactly GENERIC, there are TONS of people with the name "Mike South" out there: Google says, Results 1 - 10 of about 40,300 for "mike south"

I'm not a lawyer, and this is NOT legal advice - but, I believe that 2 out of 3 of these points must be proven to win the UDRP, and by the way, the arbitration panel will cost you a minimum of $1500, even with a single arbitrator.

If "Dave Cummings" was approved years ago as a Trademark (which it was), then certainly "Mike South" was/could be, too!

Dave Cummings
P.S. Here's my ICANN posting from today

ICANN ICANN Email List Archives
[xxx-icm-agreement]

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

<<< Chronological Index >>> <<< Thread Index >>>

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

As Part of The "Sponsored Community", like the VAST majority, I ask ICANN to Permanently Kill .xxx
To: <xxx-icm-agreement@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: As Part of The "Sponsored Community", like the VAST majority, I ask ICANN to Permanently Kill .xxx
From: "Dave C." <davec@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 23:54:35 -0800

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

My stage name is "Dave Cummings" and, besides my www.davecummings.com website,
I own many adult dot.com domains. Contrary to ICM's subjective claims, I see
almost ZERO Sponsored Community support for .xxx, but I do indeed see
CONSIDERABLE opposition to it. Please permanently deny .xxx ---it's NOT wanted
by the Sponsored Community, and it's not an appropriate potential legal mess
for ICANN to become trapped into.

Sincerely,

Dave Cummings/D. Charles Conners

how much did you get payed for starting a thread like this?

Thank you someone with a large .com adult portfolio wouldn't be pro this idea because his .com could be come worthless. Bookmark this thread .xxx happens within one year it will be law in the usa, which I figure is just what icm hopes for.

.WS domains are the ghetto for trojans worms and malware. Premium domain space my ass. It has a connotation of filth, .xxx will be no different. Yeah, lots of money for the big players, but it'll kill the reputation of the industry.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh nice punchline

doesn't ICANN have to power to take your domain if you put wrong details in your domain "WHOIS" ?
I guess the question is will the laws that force porn to on a .XXX be a global law by a global party like ICANN or a local law by a local party that *thinks* it has global power like the US government