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.xxx TLD Near Reality
By: MJ McMahon
Posted: 2:46 pm PDT 6-1-2005
TORONTO - That .xxx TLD you first heard about five years ago? It’s about to become a reality.
.xxx was officially handed over to ICM Registry today, after they re-submitted their application to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to operate .xxx as a voluntary sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) last March. The TLD was first proposed to ICANN in 2000 and sat in limbo for some time.
“It took us three years to get the support of the industry and the free speech groups. We had to deal with parents and children’s groups that have their own issues. Obviously, we had to deal with trademark and free speech groups to make sure they are both secure and protected,” Jason Hendeles, vice president of strategic business development for ICM Registry, told AVNOnline.com.
ICM has invested more than $1.5 million towards developing a consensus and support for .xxx. They have worked with industry professionals to develop non-profit organization International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR), which will oversee the TLD. Webmasters who purchase a .xxx domain will agree to abide by the charter of the organization.
“As a voluntary TLD we offer the industry to chance to regularize their business procedures and become a much more legitimized industry as a result of this,” Hendeles said. “A lot of people are going to jump on it and we’re not forcing anyone to give up their .coms, but those people that are in the .xxx space are all indicating their agreement to act responsibly.”
Primarily, .xxx and IFFOR were designed to combat the scourge of child pornography.
“The application is aimed at creating an identifiable web area that will help battle child pornography, while at the same time enabling responsible adult-entertainment web site operators to self-organize and self-label on a voluntary basis,” said Stuart Lawley, president and chairman of ICM Registry.
The domain is expected to be available by the fourth quarter through any ICANN accredited registrar. With $10 of each registered domain going towards funding of IFFOR, .xxx’s will run slightly higher than .com’s.
“Ideally, those who choose to register their .xxx domain will belong to a more responsible group of adult webmasters. They will have a well funded, well respected organization to speak on their behalf as well as an established set of responsible business practices to live up to,” Hendeles said.
IFFOR will have a seven-person board of directors, some from the online adult industry, and will run without government interference.
“This approach demonstrates that voluntary initiatives that harness the power of technology and the self-organizing principles of the Internet are preferable to efforts that would impose top-down command-and-control regulation,” said Robert Corn-Revere, a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP and outside counsel to ICM Registry. “Individuals should be able to use these tools to make their own decisions about what to read or watch, and not have those choices imposed by governments. In this regard, creation of a voluntary .xxx domain is a step in the right direction.”
.xxx TLD Near Reality **
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