A request for action

[Carlos Afonso]

Dear Rick,

Rick Weingarten wrote:

>Just a comment here.
>
>It's really important to keep in mind that concerns about xxx are not confined to the right wing. ALA and others on the free speech side of the spectrum also have grave concerns that labeled speech is a major step toward censorship. Let's guess how many days will elapse between the actual establishment of the domain and the appearance of the first bills in the US Congress seeking to limit access to xxx (such as in schools and libraries) and requiring that certain information providers be restricted to xxx.  It could be a nightmare for us.
>  
>
Not only that. I insist on the view that new gTLDs (or sTLDs) are 
approved just for the purpose of making more money and thus generating 
more income to ICANN. A sufficient number of major second-level domain 
owners will purchase <whatever_secondary_domain>.<any_xyz_topTLD> in 
order to preserve their domains or their brand names (in many cases they 
will never use them, just pay the annual fee to keep them from others), 
so nearly all gTLDs start with a captive market which ensures the 
initial and almost immediate break-even of any registry. I do not have 
to repeat here the scandalous offer from ICANN that countries purchase 
thousands of domains under .travel in 90 days or else they will lose 
them to others...

So the only interests being defended here are not freedom of or right to 
whatever, free speech, religious concerns and so on, but the ones of the 
company which originated the successful bid for .<any_combination_of 
letters> and of ICANN itself (nearly totally dependent on the gTLD 
business and hungry for cash as it is confronted with a monster budget 
to fund). All the rest is skillfully cosmetic.

In the case of .xxx, this is just a business negotiation between ICANN 
and ICM, as described below (from 
http://www.avnonline.com/index.php?Primary_Navigation=Editorial&Action=View_Article&Content_ID=108536) 
with all the usual candor of the wooden faces of the business, trying to 
convince us this will be very good for children as well (!!!), and 
trying to disguise the business as a non-profit operation through a 
concoction called IFFOR!

Now, my question is: what is NCUC really going to do about all this? 
Will we go ahead and tackle ICANN's strategic issues as a whole, or just 
remain a GNSO appendage?

frt rgds

--c.a.

[...]
Who’s Behind .XXX?

The current bid for a .xxx TLD is sponsored by ICM Registry, a tech 
company with no previous ties to the porn world. Founded in 1996 and run 
by entrepreneur Stuart Lawley, ICM Registry’s first bid for a .xxx TLD 
was back in 2000. “ICM Registry’s application was not selected to be one 
of the ‘proof of concept’ test-bed TLDs in the 2000 application round,” 
says ICM Registry’s vice president of strategic business development 
Jason Hendeles. “The previous round was more of a ‘beauty pageant,’ 
whereas this round is based on more objective criteria.”

Since then, ICM Registry has worked to build the kind of broad support 
ICANN needs to accept their TLD proposal this time around. The list of 
adult companies standing behind .xxx includes heavy-hitters likeVivid, 
Webquest, AdultShop, Python and Hustler; however, the XXX industry is 
joined by a range of other organizations rarely on the same side of any 
debate with porno professionals. “We’ve engaged in an outreach program 
to explore the concerns of the broader Internet community,” Hendeles 
explains. “The diverse group of stakeholders includes child and family 
safety groups, free speech advocates, information technology experts, 
and public policy leaders, both from Washington and internationally.”

While ICM Registry will handle the technical side of maintaining the 
.xxx TLD, IFFOR will represent the community of .xxx Webmasters in its 
interactions with the “outside world,” as well as establishing a set of 
best business practices. The specifics of these practices have yet to be 
determined, but are likely to prohibit some kinds of spamming and 
pop-ups as well as fraud and other illegal practices. Other than 
restrictions on unlawful material like child porn, there will be no 
content restrictions.

Past attempts to organize the adult technology industry have been less 
effective than many would prefer (remember The Global Internet 
Association?), perhaps due to the individualist nature of many members 
of the community; but the backers of .xxx think they’re on to an 
effective means of herding the adult Internet’s cats. “The key 
distinction that may result in success for IFFOR, where other, similar 
groups have failed, is the mandatory allocation of a percentage of 
domain name registration funds for these organizing efforts,” says First 
Amendment and online entertainment attorney Lawrence Walters, a partner 
in the firm of Weston, Garrou & DeWitt.
[...]