March 11, 2011 | The Biz

The fight continues against .xxx domain

Next week, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) will be holding a public meeting in San Francisco to discuss the proposed .xxx top-level domain name. The organization decides what domains are allowed and how they are handled.

The Free Speech Coalition (FSC), a trade association of the U.S. porn industry, is already planning to voice its opinion at a rally outside the Westin St. Francis Hotel in Union Square on March 17, when the meeting is held. It is urging other members from the industry to join the protest.

The FSC fears that the .xxx domain will make it easier for governments to censor what they deem inappropriate material. It also claims that the private company, ICM Registry, which has been pushing hard for the new domain, is doing so simply to make money.

ICM claims it has the support of webmasters, saying that thousands of people have pre-applied for over 200,000 .xxx domains. However most of these people are speculators sitting on the .xxx version of known web properties and popular names; they can sell them to the highest bidder once .xxx is approved. 

After spending millions of dollars and several years lobbbying ICAAN for .xxx,  ICM wants to have total rights to manage and sell the .xxx domain for a decade. Adult sites will be under pressure to pay up every year in order to keep the .xxx version of their site name from being used and abused by other companies and individuals. It's a cash grab of major proportions.  

FSC president Diane Duke has coined the slogan: ".XXX is bullshit!" And she's right.

Porn stars to demo against .xxx [The Register]