If it’s not one thing in this business then it’s another. This week webmasters learned that ICANN is expected to approve ICM Registry’s application for a “sponsored” dot-xxx top-level domain (TLD). At first glance that might seem like a good thing. New domain names, the ability for parents to filter out adult sites, what’s not to like? There are, however, all kinds of problems with this new development that should make webmasters and other industry professionals stand up and take notice.To give a little background, a company by the name of ICM Registry is behind the push to make dot-xxx a reality. ICM has been represented to the adult industry by Jason Hendeles, a businessman out of Canada, and Stuart Lawley, a businessman from the U.K. Neither have any prior connections with the adult entertainment industry that I can discover – it appears both men merely saw a business opportunity in the selling of dot-xxx domain names to adult webmasters. The problem is, they had their hearts set on a “sponsored” level domain name that they could control.

Sponsored-level domain names are different from open domain names like dot-com or dot-net, which anyone can register. An example of a sponsored TLD is the dot-edu realm normally reserved for schools and universities. You could not register a dot-edu domain name without meeting certain requirements to prove you qualify. The same would be true for dot-xxx if it were approved as a sponsored domain name – those registering would need to agree to a certain set of rules and requirements, and failure to behave in the prescribed manner could result in the loss of one’s domain name.

Who sets these rules? That’s just one of many problems with dot-xxx, but we’ll get to that.

ICANN is the organization tasked with the authority to approve or deny applications for new TLDs, meaning ICM Registry would have to meet ICANN’s requirements before they could be put in charge of the dot-xxx TLD. Since sponsored domain names are supposed to be used for the good of a certain industry – like the education industry or the travel industry – ICM needed to show ICANN that they had the support of the adult industry as part of the process of getting dot-xxx approved. For years now, Hendeles and Lawley have been approaching adult industry leaders and asking for their support. They even paid former Cybererotica CEO Jonathan Silverstein a nice sum of money to help them convince the industry that dot-xxx was a good idea. Silverstein now says he sees why dot-xxx is dangerous. What’s wrong with dot-xxx?

The problem is, it’s a horrible idea.

The negatives are too numerous to list, but let’s see which ones we can cover – starting with claims that this new TLD will somehow protect children. Check out what the proponents are saying about dot-xxx:

“It will further help to protect kids,” said John Morris, staff counsel at the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology.

“The application is aimed at creating an identifiable Web area that will help battle child pornography,” said Stuart Lawley of ICM Registry.

“In short, adults have every right to select whatever legal content they wish, but parents have an equal right to ensure their children are not placed at risk,” stated ICM’s white paper submitted to ICANN.

Other excerpts from the white paper:

“In short, adults have every right to choose what they want to see, but parents have an equal right to ensure their children are not placed at risk.”

“Existing generic domain names (.com et cetera) make it nearly impossible to identify adult content in advance, resulting in confusion and annoyance on the part of Internet users. Nothing is more galling than to stumble unawares into such a site. But, because every adult-content provider already does business as dot- something, a search can produce unfortunate results. Horror stories abound, and they aren’t all urban legends; you — or, even worse, your child — can in fact look for information on horses and wind up with bestiality.”

Wow, sounds like dot-xxx is that magic pill we were all looking for, doesn’t it? I completely agree that parents have the right to be concerned about what their children access on the internet. I also agree it’s unfortunate when children come into contact with adult entertainment. Problem is, dot-xxx does nothing, I repeat, nothing to address these problems. There is no conceivable scenario by which all adult content would suddenly move to dot-xxx domains, meaning any suggestion that dot-xxx protects children is absurd, misleading and even dishonest.

Think about it. You have an 8 year-old and you’re concerned about your child running into online porn. Dot-xxx comes out, and you instruct your browser of choice to block access to dot-xxx domain names. Do you now feel comfortable to send your kid out onto the internet knowing he won’t come into contact with adult entertainment? Of course you don’t. Dot-xxx has done nothing for you as a parent, and any parent who believes the rhetoric coming from ICM Registry is being lulled into a false sense of security. I don’t think anybody without a financial stake in dot-xxx domains would disagree that filtering software is a far more effective tool for keeping children away from inappropriate content; not to mention, a little active parenting wouldn’t hurt either.

So dot-xxx does nothing to protect children, that much is clear. So what’s the advantage then? Frankly, I’m not sure I see one. But I do see a whole lot of problems.

According to ICM Registry, steps will be taken to assure that trademark holders are protected. In other words, YNOT has little to worry of someone else getting ynot.xxx since we hold a trademark. LightspeedCash would also be protected… again, trademarked property. But what happens when you have a generic domain name like bondage.com or adult.com? Who gets bondage.xxx and adult.xxx? That’s not so clear.

The fear is that deals have already been made that will pre-determine who gets the most lucrative generic domain names, but that’s purely a matter of speculation. What we do know, however, is that ICM Registry is not guaranteeing the owners of generic dot-com domain names that they will have first crack at the dot-xxx counterparts. Meaning someone who spent the last 10 years building up bondage.com, for example, could suddenly start losing money to whoever gets bondage.xxx. Few are expecting companies to take that kind of loss lightly, and industry squabbling and an endless string of lawsuits will almost certainly be the result.

Few “smaller” webmasters are holding out any hope that they might score a prime new piece of real estate, and those that do purchase a dot-xxx domain name might find the price a little steeper than normal – the expected price has been reported at anywhere from $60 to $75 per dot-xxx domain. Ouch! But hey, when you have complete control over a TLD as valuable as dot-xxx you might as well use that power to your financial benefit, right? Get out those wallets, webmasters.

What’s especially frustrating is that dot-xxx domain names offer nothing of value to webmasters, yet many will feel compelled to purchase one just to protect their virtual space. If you have bluetitties.com and you’re doing well, do you risk passing on bluetitties.xxx so that someone else might profit off your work? ICM stands to make a fortune selling dot-xxx domains that are bought not out of need but rather out of a defensive stance. Why should they get rich offering nothing of value? Good question.

We have all heard a lot about how ICM plans to donate a portion of domain name sales to various child protection groups, and that certainly makes them sound like first class citizens, doesn’t it? How generous of them to donate a small portion of the adult industry’s money that was generated from selling us all something that we really don’t need. Wouldn’t it just make more sense for the industry to donate all the money straight to child protection groups, rather than filtering it through ICM Registry so that only a small percentage ends up in the hands of the groups that need it? I thought the industry had been doing a more-than-generous job supporting ASACP. So now ICM Registry is to get the credit for supporting the group that we started and we funded, and for supporting it with our money? You have to love that ironic little scenario.

To this point I’ve talked about the various annoyances surrounding any dot-xxx TLD, but I haven’t gotten to the big pests that make this proposal so dangerous to our industry. Although ICM Registry has assured the adult industry that dot-xxx will be “voluntary” and that nobody will be compelled to buy or use a dot-xxx domain name, how could they possibly make that assurance to us? How could they know that it wouldn’t be made mandatory in the future? And I might add that if it were made mandatory, they certainly wouldn’t stand to hurt from that financially.

Senator Lieberman, a Democrat that many of you remember was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000, has already proposed legislation that would attempt to make dot-xxx mandatory. He has been joined by Rep. Fred Upton of Utah, and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana in calling for a mandatory TLD for adult sites. Congressmen have been salivating at the thought of lumping all online adult entertainment into one easily-censored group. Why are we helping them make that possible? Does the industry have a death wish?

If there were attempts to make dot-xxx mandatory – and come on, do you really think someone won’t try it with three congressmen already lined up? – there are two possible outcomes to an industry challenge. We win, or we lose. If we win then the industry spends hundreds of thousands of dollars – or even millions – trying to fight off legislation that wouldn’t have been possible without the creation of the dot-xxx domain name. What advantage is there in this for us, I wonder? If we lose then American webmasters are forced to move all of their adult websites over to whatever expensive dot-xxx domain names are available, and forced to abide by any rules that have been set for proper use of dot-xxx domain names. Yes, that means someone else will be telling you how to run your business.

The government is probably less of a threat regarding dot-xxx than private industry. Once adult websites are using dot-xxx domain names, what’s to stop ISPs from blocking out dot-xxx sites for any customers that don’t first jump through a lot of hoops? When a child accesses adult content on a dot-com the ISP’s are not held liable – how could they possibly know which dot-com domains are okay for children and which are not? But a parent might have a liability claim against an ISP that allowed access to dot-xxx domain names without first checking the age of the user. And search engines and directories that supply dot-xxx search results to surfers without first checking ID might similarly find themselves in trouble. Yahoo is currently being sued for millions over adult content in one of their chat groups, so you can bet they will be worried about liability issues.

We also know that a lot of adult customers access adult websites from work or college; if you’re on dot-xxx domain names you can kiss that business goodbye.

And just when you though it couldn’t get any more interesting, let’s talk about this new IFFOR organization that was created to oversee dot-xxx domain names. IFFOR, which ironically stands for “International Foundation for Online Responsibility,” was created back when ICM first started to push to make “dot xxx” a reality. IFFOR would have a Board made up of people from a variety of interests, including “family values” advocates. Adult industry representatives would make up a minority interest on this organization’s board. That means – yup – mostly people who do not have the adult industry’s best interests in mind will be making up the rules of behavior for dot-xxx domain name users. It is perfectly conceivable, and perhaps even likely, that a representative from one of the staunchest anti-porn groups like Concerned Women for America or Morality in Media could find a voice on the IFFOR Board – and a means for influencing the way that you can run your adult business.

And for what? So that foreign businessmen can get rich selling us domain names that we don’t need, and that won’t protect children? And then use part of our money to fund an organization not controlled by the industry and possibly even influenced by our biggest opponents?

There is very little about dot-xxx that doesn’t stink. The premise stinks, the potential for harm stinks, and the fact that certain people inside the adult industry helped to make this happen stinks even more. The question that I find myself asking is which industry groups helped ICM get their application accepted at ICANN, and were they offered anything in exchange for their support? If the shit hits the fan over dot-xxx like so many of us expect that it will, I’d like to know who to thank at Christmas for bringing this latest nightmare down on the rest of the adult industry. It shouldn’t be too hard to find those who have a financial stake in dot-xxx. Just find the people screaming loudest that dot-xxx is a good thing then ask yourself — good for the industry, or good for their pocketbook?