Joi, it?s great to see your openness and your posting on this topic as an ICANN board member.

However, .xxx is of course front page news today in mainstream media, accompanied by the obligatory ICANN spokesperson response “As a technical coordinator, we don’t pass judgment over content on the Internet”.

It?s na?ve to expect that .xxx will be seen globally as a non-content issue or to believe that content was never a factor in this decision. It?s na?ve to believe that nations with strong religious beliefs will see this as an appropriate decision for an international internet governance organisation. It?s na?ve to think that a decision of this magnitude should be made by a ?technical-only? body without consultation outside of the narrow confines of domain name industry regulation.

This is a global top level domain, not a subset of .us. Wider cultural consultation than occurred is necessary.

It may or may not be a good decision on technical merits, whatever they are in this case. But strategically it?s poorly timed, unlikely to be received well, likely to lead to more right wing calls for greater US government control over the Internet at exactly the time when we don?t need those calls, and also likely to lead for more calls in the WSIS context for international control by governments.

This decision will not help the cause of ICANN in proclaiming its legitimacy as a forum for Internet policy making.

Thanks for your comment Ian. I agree about the possible negative impact that this may cause. I would like to point out that although I do not believe it is ICANN’s position to be making a judgement about content, it was not a purely technical decision. We reviewed that there was support from the various affected constituents including child advocacy groups. Governments either directly or through GAC had a opportunity to comment and at least those governments represented in the GAC process were well aware of the process. Clearly we could have gotten even more input, but I believe that a whole hearted attempt to solicit input was made and the responses reviewed. Clearly, we can speculate on what people might think after hearing this announcement, but I believe that turning it down would have been just as upsetting to other people. In the end, we made the decision based on all of the discussion and information that was available to us.

Well Joi, ICANN’s going to get hit out at whatever it does, from several quarters.

Some will rail at this apparent support for further “pollution” of the internet

Others will decry - quite possibly with reason - the ostensible segregation / gulag-ization of sexual content, and the attempt to lump all that is sex related into the convenient label “.xxx”

There is a widespread concern that non pornographic depictions of sex (Rubens nudes? medical sites discussing infertility?) are going to get caught up in .xxx and ostracized by censorware software makers, government operated firewalled internets etc, possibly supplemented by legislation that forces porn sites to be registered only under .xxx and not .com, .biz etc.  As Bret Fausett said “Internet zoning laws”

The general structure of this tld administration does appear to have been defined with careful attention to the free speech and other implications of the TLD, and it must be pointed out that governments which will protest against this are quite likely to be the ones that already do all that is in their power to block pornography from their citizens, and that there’s a flourishing cottage industry that keeps giving people access to proxies etc.

The .xxx tld gives porn sites a foothold for themselves on the ‘net, and a chance to engage in what gets conveniently called “self governance”, and what I would call “being a good internet citizen”, without fingers being pointed at them.  Much like the arguments that are often heard by various countries who consider a ccTLD their virtual presence on the Internet and wish to exercise sovereignity rights over it, the .xxx tld gives adult entertainment providers a space / foothold of their own, where they have the chance to work together to rid themselves of what usually brings them into disrepute - porn spammers and child pornographers, for example.

I applaud ICANN’s courageous decision on this.

Courageous, yes.

Well timed? no.

Strategic? that didn’t seem to come into it. It’s hard to see what this achieves that furthers the cause of a globally accessible Internet.

Effective? I doubt it will have any self regulatory effect on either porn spammers or child pornographers.

Rather, I think it will be seen as Internet endorsement of behaviour seen by a significant number of diverse minorities across the planet as offensive. For what specific gain?

> Rather, I think it will be seen as Internet
> endorsement of behaviour seen by a significant
> number of diverse minorities across the planet
> as offensive. For what specific gain?

Gives the pornographers a lobby of their own as I said - and quite possibly a power base of their own when dealing with the descendants of Dr.Thomas Bowdler.

Coincidentially, it also gives the religious right and other censors a convenient target to expend their energies on, without railing at the rest of the Internet.

This is fairly evolutionary to see this Sponsored TLD move forward. 

I got the opportunity to hear ICM talk about .XXX at the Domain Roundtable Conference in a joint session with .JOBS / Employ Media.

.XXX is quite different in form from what someone would initially assume without review of the plans.  Different in a good way, for most every stakeholder and internet user from my perspective.

Stuart and the folks at ICM Registry have put together a sponsored TLD.  They should be commended on the structure of their plan, and their patience for the process.

ICANN has been very progressive and should also be commended on releasing this TLD.  As Bret Fausett identified in his comments, they were certain to be villified, in some form, for the .XXX domain regardless of outcome.

Quick humorous comment:
The media hype on this is quite high, yet hopefully the term ‘Sponsored Top Level Domain’ would not be abbreviated by accident in the media as ‘STD’ in referencing this new extension.

I think that the proposal makes a lot of sense.  I can see regulators eventually limiting adult content to these domains, and that would certainly make filtering easier.  It would allow freedom-of-expression while protecting children from stumbling upon Online porn.  I’m not sure if that will ever happen, but this proposal seems to make it possible.

Approval of .xxx needs to be seen in context. This approval by a quasi-public body will advance the public interest if it sets the stage for various governments and major market participants (e.g. credit card companies, Google, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, et al) to push pornography away from places where it can be readily seen by children, and those adults who don?t want to see it.

Complaints from porn operators and those who are worried about censorship won?t be nearly as persuasive if the porn site operators aren’t being put out of business or censored, but are merely being pushed into an ?adults only? district.

In fact, a virtual red light district will be more convenient for consumers of pornography, who know what they are looking for, and will be able to find it more easily. Creation of a virtual red light district will improve the situation from the perspective of society in general if (and only if):

1. The porn industry moves into that district (it becomes the only acceptable neighborhood for pornography). This could be due to voluntary action, market pressures, technological change, and/or government regulation.

2. Major companies involved in providing internet access (ISPs and distributors of browser software)  make it easy for owners of computers (e.g. parents and employers) to block access to that district. For instance, computer owners should be able to ensure that their computers aren’t able to access content within the .xxx TLD without proof of eligibility, such as approval by a parent or supervisor.

Hence, the ultimate outcome of the .xxx approval will depend almost entirely on what happens next?both with regard to the details of the ICANN contract that will be negotiated, and with the regulatory and/or market forces that evolve out of this decision.  Will pornography come to be located exclusively in this virtual red light district? Will it be difficult or impossible for kids to enter the neighborhood? If so, this approval will be good for the pornography industry, as well as society in general.