Third Time No Charm for XXX Domain

The multiyear effort to create a .xxx top-level domain, sticken down in a 9-5 vote by ICANN on Friday, has been a controversial one, with ICANN board members expressing concern over whether ICANN, by approving such a domain specifically designed for adult material, could find itself in the content-regulation business.
The Internet's agency for overseeing domain names on Friday rejected a proposal for creating a voluntary domain ending in .xxx. The 9-5 vote to block the plan is the third time the agency has decided against some form of the proposal.

The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), meeting in Lisbon, voted against a request by ICM Registry to create the .xxx top-level domain (TLD) for adult sites.

"This decision was the result of very careful scrutiny and consideration of all the arguments," ICANN Chairman Dr. Vint Cerf said in a statement. "That consideration has led a majority of the Board to believe that the proposal should be rejected."

'Extremely Disappointed'

ICM President and Chief Executive Stuart Lawley said in a statement that his Florida-based company "was extremely disappointed" by this most recent rejection. The proposal had initially been presented by ICM nearly seven years ago.

"It is not supportable for any of the reasons articulated by the board," he said, adding that the vote "ignores the rules ICANN itself adopted for the RFP (request for proposal), and makes a mockery of ICANN bylaws' prohibition of unjustifiable discriminatory treatment." He reportedly said that a lawsuit was "likely."

Larry Walters, a Florida attorney with extensive experience in First Amendment and online adult issues, had expected ICANN to approve the new top-level domain.

"Any other TLD with this amount of supporting material," he said in an interview before the vote, "would have been approved a long time ago. The contract being proposed by ICM Registry is well within the range of other TLD contracts."

Opposition in Adult Industry

The multiyear effort to create voluntary, adult site .xxx domains has been a controversial one. Some Board members have expressed concern over whether ICANN, by approving such a domain, could find itself in the content-regulation business.

ICANN board member Steve Goldstein said in Friday's meeting that, if passed, the resolution would mean that the agency would need to "assume ongoing management and oversight roles regarding the content." ICANN defines itself as the agency "responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers," not as a manager or definer of content.

ICM's Lawley criticized this concern over content management, saying that ICANN itself put those sections into the proposal during negotiations.

There is opposition to the idea among the adult Web site industry. Some have said that the .xxx domain, even if voluntary, would create an online ghetto that could more easily be controlled and isolated by governments or others. Religious and other groups also oppose the domain as a way to legitimize adult sites and make them easier to find.

Because the .xxx domain would be voluntary, questions have been raised as to whether parents and teachers would actually be able to block all such sites.

After its initial proposal was tabled and effectively rejected in 2000, largely because of ICANN's concern about becoming a content regulator, ICM resubmitted it in 2004 with provisions to handle any regulation issues outside of ICANN.

ICANN's board rejected that proposal in mid-2006, expressing concern that the language was vague and that ICANN would end up having to step in as a regulator. The newest proposal, rejected Friday, was the result of negotiations between ICANN and ICM to clarify enforcement.

Source: http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Third-Time-No-Charm-for-XXX-Domain/story.xhtml?story_id=13200G4SSQ7O