YouPorn has filed a lawsuit against both the ICM Registry and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) over the introduction of .XXX top-level domain name .
The company that owns YouPorn.com and PornHub.com domain names and DigitalPlayground.com filed a 44 page lawsuit in the United State District Court for the Central District of California,asserting “monopolistic conduct, price gouging, and anti-competitive and unfair practices, broadly harming competition, businesses, and consumers, arising out of the establishment of .XXX, a new Top-Level Domain Name (“TLD”) intended for adult-oriented content.”YouPorn and Digital Playground "seek redress for monopolistic conduct, price gouging, and anti-competitive and unfair practices, broadly harming competition, businesses, and consumers, and arising out of the establishment of .XXX, a new Top-Level Domain Name ("TLD") intended for adult-oriented content. (Other TLDs are, for example, .com and .org.) The business practices at issue have enormous and worldwide consequences for the Internet, an essential engine in all domestic and international commerce."
Both companies think that the creation of the new .XXX TLD is forcing trademark owners to purchase from the ICM Registry expensive .XXX domain names in order to protect their .XXX domains.
YouPorn.com and Digital Playground asked ICANN to impose price constraints on ICM and to open up the .XXX contract for competitive rebbiding.
Here is a part of the lawsuit :
"The creation of the .XXX TLD is forcing owners of trademarks and domain names in other TLDs to purchase from ICM expensive "defensive registrations" (or the right to block or prevent the use by others) of those same names in .XXX. Such defensive registrations are necessary to preclude others from registering and using the owners' names in .XXX, and prevents the confusion or dilution in value of those names that would otherwise result. For example,
YouPorn.com needs to block anyone else from establishing a website using the confusingly similar name YouPorn.xxx. Otherwise, consumers seeking YouPorn.com may instead reach YouPorn.xxx, causing YouPom.com to lose
business and harming its reputation."
“Also, ICM is actively attempting to establish and monopolize, and has a dangerous probability of establishing and monopolizing, an additional separate market for affirmative registrations in TLDs with names that uniquely connote (or that are otherwise predominately intended for) adult content. For example, the letters “.XXX” connote adult content, as could other hypothetical TLD names such as “.sex” or “.porn.” However, .XXX is currently the only adult- oriented TLD, giving ICM a present monopoly in such TLDs.”
“ICANN has a monopoly over the DNS and over the approval of TLDs and their registries. There was no competitive process for the award of the .XXX registry contract. ICANN awarded ICM that contract without soliciting or accepting competing bids, and without any market considerations whatsoever, thus awarding ICM monopoly control and free rein to impose anti-competitive prices and practices within the distinct .XXX TLD. The .XXX registry contract itself places no restrictions upon (and in fact enhances) ICM’s abilities to exploit that monopoly position to the disadvantage and harm of competition, consumers and businesses.”
You can read the lawsuit in full here .