25 Adult Webmasters Protest .XXX at ICANN Meeting

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Adult site owners protest at ICANN meeting.

About 25 adult webmasters — and one homeless guy who’s been hanging out outside the ICANN meeting all week — joined together to protest the .XXX top level domain name this afternoon in San Francisco.

The protest was organized by Free Speech Coalition.

Protesters held signs with .XXX inside a ‘no’ symbol and chanted various slogans against the approval of the domain name. Among their complaints: they’ll have to pay $60-$70 per domain, it will make it easier for governments to censor the internet, and that .xxx “perpetuates misinformation and stereotypes of the adult community by insinuating that we are ‘irresponsible”.

ICM Registry has spent millions of dollars and been fighting for years to be able to offer the domain name. ICANN’s board is expected to give final blessing to ICM Registry at its board meeting Friday.

Whether that will be the end of it is unclear. Some adult webmasters are threatening to sue if .xxx is approved. I doubt a lawsuit by opponents will be successful. I also wonder how much support there will be amongst adult webmasters for a lawsuit given that they were only able to muster up 25 protesters today in San Francisco.

Further Reading:

  1. Free Speech Coalition Provides Template Trademark Protection Letter to Adult Sites
  2. Adult Industry Plans Rally Against .XXX at ICANN Meeting
  3. Webmasters.org Attracts Bidders at SitePoint

7 Comments » - Posted in Policy & Law by

Comments

  1. Abu Dabu
    March 17th, 2011 | 5:49 pm

    this is a joke just like the protestors. I hope it passes.

  2. Adriaan
    March 17th, 2011 | 6:44 pm

    25 showed up to protest in person, but thousands sent in emails to voice their opposition to the .xxx tld during ICANN request for comments rounds. (just check the ICANN archives)

  3. Alan
    March 17th, 2011 | 7:33 pm

    25? Is that all the pornographers could muster up?

  4. Abu Dabu
    March 17th, 2011 | 8:07 pm

    Yes Alan… the FSC and their cronies. They are not making money off of this so they are understandably upset.

  5. Jp
    March 17th, 2011 | 8:59 pm

    Youbsaid it best Andrew. Only 25 protesters in San Francisco of all places. It should be easy to fine a mass of people to protest just about anything there. All they gt was the aging homeless hippie but I’m glad to hear he’s still got it.

  6. DR.VEGAS
    March 18th, 2011 | 1:39 am

    1) They don’t want to be “ghettoized”.

    2) They don’t want to have to “re-spend” large sums setting up in .xxx

  7. Abu Dabu
    March 18th, 2011 | 1:50 pm

    YAY!!!!!! .xxx WIN.. FSC FAIL

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