ICM Registry, the applicant for the .XXX Top Level Domain, has hit
back against claims the proposed TLD has no support amongst the adult
industry, disputing many of the claims made by the Free Speech
Coalition.
In a letter to ICANN published on the ICM Registry website, ICM
questions the FSC's role in representing the adult industry, and refutes
or clarifies other issues raised.
ICM says that the FSC is an American-based organisation and "is not and
has never been "the" trade association for the global adult
entertainment industry." And with the FSC and its American base, ICM
claims in its letter to ICANN as a "way of contrast, IFFOR is of a
global nature, and to date, ICM has received pre-reservations from over
9,000 members of the Sponsored Community from over 80 different
counties."
While this is true, ICM ignores other non-American adult industry
organisations who vehemently oppose the .XXX proposal. One of those is
Fiona Patten, CEO of the Eros Association, Australia's national adult
retail and entertainment association.
"I can see no positive outcome from the introduction of .xxx," Patten
told DomainNews.com in April 2010. She also believes nothing has
changed since the ICANN meeting in Wellington in March 2006 where the
Government Advisory Committee, where governments give advice to ICANN,
opposed the approval of .XXX. This included the Australian government
who Patten says has indicated they are still opposed to the introduction
of .XXX.
Patten also said it is her "understanding of the TLD process [that]
industry support is a fundamental requisite and ICM does not have that."
Refuting allegations that those pre-registering .XXX domain names had
somehow been tricked, ICM says this is "completely unfounded". In their
earlier letter to ICANN, the FSC also questions the way in which
pre-registration numbers and suggests that the numbers should not be
used to determine support for the proposed TLD. The FSC says that as ICM
said pre-registrations would not be used as a means of determining
support, then this should not be considered in the TLD application.
The FSC also asks ICANN to investigate how many pre-registrations are
defensive registrations and how many are by those wanting to on-sell the
domain names at a later date.
However ICM says that "ICM's pre-reservation service was launched in May
of 2006, and was cited numerous times thereafter as evidence of the
sponsored community's desire to register names in .XXX." Regarding
defensive registrations, ICM claim that "6,435 out of a total of 179,630
names submitted have been identified as defensive, which includes
defensive registrations by individuals and entities who are not members
of the sponsored community."
To read both the letter from the Free Speech Coalition and ICM Registry to ICANN, see:
icann.org/correspondence/duke-to-jeffrey-08sep10-en.pdf
www.icmregistry.com/articles/Response_to_FSC_Letter_9_Sept_2010.pdf
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