ICANN Publishes Draft Agreement on .XXX

[Bec]

Now is the time to register your objection to the .xxx TLD proposal!

A Revised Proposed Registry Agreement with ICM to be designated as the Registry Operator for a .XXX Sponsored Top Level Domain (.XXX), as well as documentation submitted by ICM Registry in connection with the expedited due diligence conducted at the direction of the Board are being posting today for public comment.

This information is posted for a thirty day public comment period commencing at 12:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time (19:00 UTC) on 24 August 2010 through 11:59 a.m. Pacific Daylight time (18:59 UTC) on 23 September 2010.

Comments can be submitted to http://xxx-revised-icm-agreement@icann.org and viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-revised-icm-agreement/.

So get an email off to them by September 23rd to let them know the adult industry does NOT support this!

Full ICANN News Release

[nickbaer]

What does this mean to the average webmaster like myself?

[attis]

What does this mean to the average webmaster like myself?

Probably not much... unless, at some point .xxx becomes mandatory for adult websites... which I think is just a matter of time. The killer argument for this will be youth protection.

Until then, all the good domain names have been grabbed by companies with big money to spend and domain brokers.

Of course you can play with the big boys by pre-registering your .xxx domains here: http://domains.icmregistry.com/

[sc32803]

attis I respectfully disagree that this does matter a lot to average and small website operators. If .XXX happens it is very likely that governments will require all adult webmasters to move their .com sites to .xxx. This could be a huge expense for small operators and could put many out of business. (By the way, what makes me think that governments will write laws requiring XXX for adult sites? I have no doubt the owner of XXX will use his new found millions (billions?) to contribute to politicians who will make this happen, channeling even more money into his hands. An analogy is the rash of red-light traffic camera laws sweeping the USA. In most cases its the makers of the red light camera equipment that are contributing to politicians who write the laws. Sick? Yes. But that's what America is becoming.)

Another problem is that if .XXX happens eventually the general public might start to get conditioned to enter that domain for porn instead of .com. So if they hear the name of a site they might enter it as .XXX and could be directed somewhere other than your site. Some people disagree about how quickly the general public will adopt .XXX but I think they'll start to use it over .com faster than you might think.

So yes, if you are an average webmaster you should by all means voice your objection to .XXX while you can.