Trueman says decision was “foolish and unnecessary”.
Pat Trueman, former Chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, called ICANN’s decision on .xxx today “foolish and unnecessary” in an interview with Domain Name Wire. Trueman served in the Justice Department starting with Ronald Reagan in 1988 to the end of the administration of George H. W. Bush.
Trueman said ICANN’s board appears to be caught up with process in making its decision.
“They seem to be caught up in process rather than need,” he explained. “They had a non-binding ruling against them saying they didn’t follow their process. It was not binding that they change their position [on .xxx].”
He said the .xxx domain name will make pornography even more available to children than it is now. Although he admitted that pornography is easy to find now, this will make it even easier: children will just have to type .xxx after a domain name to be guaranteed of finding adult content. Furthermore, he said no existing .com porn site would switch to a .xxx and leave the .com behind.
Using internet filters to block .xxx won’t be much of a help, claimed Trueman. “Filtering companies will all tell you filtering isn’t the problem, it’s that so few families use filters,” said Trueman. He said only about 20% of families use an internet filter.
Trueman thinks the only group that wanted .xxx approved was ICM Registry, which will operate .xxx.
“So what is the point?” he asked. “The pornographers didn’t want it. The people who want to protected children and others from internet porn didn’t want it. The only people who want it is ICM Registry, who will make money.”
Porn sites will feel compelled to register their .xxx equivalent to prevent competition. But ICM registry will make money from more than just adult entertainment sites, Trueman explained.
“There will be a britneyspears.xxx,” he gave as an example. “People have to buy up the .xxx domain to protect their own good name, and they will pay a higher price than .com”.
It looks like he fully understands the real business model of most new TLD advocates, namely milking the defensive registrations.
It really is a complicated issue. I get his anger in that the country is becoming more wide open every day with few constraints or limits, and as a parent you fear what your kids will come in contact with. It seems that almost anything goes today, and intuition (common sense actually) tells you there is some implosion point up ahead, and it won’t be good. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression have been hijacked, used & abused in the extreme.
On the other side, the .xxx domain theorectically could become a way to filter the internet so that adult material would be less readily available to children. The operative word here is “theoretical”, and this would probably not work in the real internet world without massive legislation and a forced migration of adult content to the .xxx space, or the creation of a new technological channel completely separate from the rest of the internet (which must be subscribed to). This might be possible if they were to follow the format that cable TV uses in which adult channels are blocked unless subscribed to.
In the end, few people seem to want this .xxx or see any real need for it. ICANN must be careful to not sell away pieces of the internet under the pretense of innovation.
The only thing that should drive the introduction of new tld’s, .xxx or otherwise, is a demonstrated market demand. And one that introduces no detriment to the function of the internet … like “unlimited” new tld’s hitting the net. Excesses like that are driven by greed and an indefensible, cavalier attitude that looks the other way in the name of the next get rich quick scheme.
I agree with George. He nailed it on the head.
That is exactly how it will go down once it becomes readily available to reg and park/develop.
It was very unnecessary to aprove it.
Do you think that Focus on the Family will buy FOTF.xxx just to keep it off the market? If you can mask ownership of .xxx then maybe….will there be restrictions? will you have to prove you are porn to “qualify” for the domain…..yet another drain on the brand holder’s wallets….
I have to believe the man. After all, his name
is Trueman.
.xxx will be banned by everybody and will be worthless out of the gate, much like .CO
Do you think that ICANN.XXX or WIPO.XXX or the names of all big shots will be available in the land rush period for .xxx? do you know of any restrictions?
.xxx SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED.
BAN THE .XXX TLD and Do not Approve it. Simple!
My 3 cents.
Mr Truemans position has been made clear over the last several years and he has led the fight from his position against .xxx and was responsible for many of the US based religious groups comments to the recent public forum that were duly noted by ICANN.
With regard to the comments about defensive registrations some people clearly haven’t read the application or draft contract.
Non adult industry Trademark holders can apply during the launch phase to have their names/marks effectively permanently removed from the registry for the payment of a low, one-time fee. The IPC within ICANN are very satisfied with our solution and we worked closely with them in developing the plan. They would have been happy, I believe , if our approach had been adopted in the last DAG4 for the new round of gTLDs.
@ Stuart – interesting, what is the one time fee? Who determines if it’s a valid trademark or not?
we have said that the non adult industry trademark protections will be done on a cost recovery basis. We are not sure of the exact fee yet as we are running the numbers, now we have the go-ahead, in conjunction with a couple of alternative trademark validation specialists who we met with in Brussels who have already done this kind of thing. Out of interest how much do you think it should be?
Stuart –
I would say the cost of a 1 or 2 year registration. This will still be a lot since people are used to paying $10 for domains and .xxx will be $60.
I guess the challenge will be the costs/rules of anything being contested. Verizon.xxx is easy, but when someone comes along with Jessica.xxx and has some sort of trademark for “Jessica”.
They can make more money from the trademark protections than from the porn industry I am sure that no one want his family name on the .xxx TLD or this company that sold you something bad.