Today at the ICANN meeting in San Francisco, the ICANN Board voted 9-3, with 4 board members absenting, to approve ICM application to run the .XXX registry.
There was substantial opposition to .XXX on the Board itself and the resolution and the objections some of which were quite lengthy, can be found below.
The Board definitely wrestled with the decision but found themselves between a “rock and a hard place” as board member Rita Rodin Johnston described it.
Its been a LONG and EXPENSIVE battle that ICM Registry fought with ICANN to get approval to run the registry going on for well over 7 years and costing ICM more than $12 Million dollars.
It became clear to me back at the Brussels ICANN meeting in June 2010 that .XXX would be approved.
Here is the resolution that was passed today:
“””Whereas, on the 25th of June 2010 the ICANN board, after substantial public comment was received on the process options available to icann to consider the independent review panel’s declaration of 19 February 2010, the board accepted, in part, the findings of that panel. the board then directed staff to conduct expedited due diligence to ensure that the ICM application is still current; and (2) there have been no changes in ICM’s qualifications.;”
“Whereas, ICANN staff performed the required due diligence that showed that the icm application remains current and that there have been no negative changes in ICM’s qualifications”
“Whereas, ICM provided ICANN with a new proposed registry agreement that included additional provisions, requirements and safeguards to address the issues that the GAC and other community members had raised with respect to the previously proposed agreement”
“Whereas, the proposed registry agreement and due diligence materials were posted for public comment. over 700 comments were received, though few of the comments addressed the terms of the registry agreement. no changes to the registry agreement are recommended in response to the comments.;”
“Whereas, on 10 December 2010 the board agreed with an assessment that entering into the proposed registry agreement would conflict with only three items of GAC advice and directed the staff to communicate this information to the governmental advisory committee”
“Whereas, on 10 December, 2010, the board further determined that it intends to enter into a registry agreement for the ICM Registry for .XXX subject to GAC consultation and advice, and thereby invoked the consultation as provided for in ICANN bylaws sex article 11, section 2, paragraph 1j.”
“Whereas, to facility the bylaws consultation with the GAC on the 25th of January 2011, the board directed staff to forward a letter to the board to the gac clearly set forth the board’s position on how the ICM proposed registry agreement meets items of GAC advice, and setting forth the items of GAC advice remaining for consultation, the letter was forwarded on the 11th of February 2011 and is available at the given link”
“Whereas, on the 16th of March 2011, the GAC forwarded a letter of the board clarifying GAC advice on the ICM matter;”
“Whereas, the board has carefully considered comments from the community and the GAC in making this decision, in furtherance of ICANN’s mission;”
“Whereas, on the 17th of March 2011, the board and the GAC completed a formal bylaws consultation on those items for which entering the registry agreement might not be consistent with GAC advice.”
“it’s now resolved, the Board authorizes the CEO or the General Counsel to execute the proposed registry agreement for the .XXX s’TLD in substantially the same form posted for public comment in August 2010.”
“Resolved, the board adopts and fully incorporates herein its rationale for approving the registry agreement with ICM for the .XXX s’TLD and there’s a link provided. to support the entering into the proposed registry agreement.;”
Resolved, the board and the GAC have completed a good-faith consultation under the bylaws, and the section is given, as the board and the GAC were not able to reach a mutually acceptable solution, pursuant to article bylaws, the board incorporates and adopts as set forth in the rationale the reasons why the GAC advice was not followed the Board’s statement is without prejudice to the rights or obligations of GAC members with regard to public policy issues falling within their responsibilities.”
“So that’s the end of the resolution and I’ll not read the text of the rationale which i can tell you runs to 20 pages.”
There were four Board members that rescued themselves from voting then several ICANN board member that spoke against the resolution and voted no on .XXX
The turning point for the application was the independent judicial review which found that ICANN denial of ICM registry’s application violated ICANN’s own rules.
The panel found:
“””In the view of the Panel, the Board did decide by adopting its resolutions of June 1, 2005, that the application of ICM Registry for a TLD met the selection criteria, in particular the sponsorship criteria.”
“”In the Panel’s view, the TLD process was “successfully completed”…in the case of ICM Registry with the adoption of the June 1, 2005, resolutions.””
“””ICANN should have then have proceeded to conclude an agreement with ICM on commercial and technical terms, without reopening whether ICM’s application met sponsorship criteria.”
The ICM registry has received over to 210,000 pre-reservations to date for a .XXX domain name.
Regardless on your feeling about this extension, you have to admire the tenacious fight the ICM has put on and the amount it was willing to invest into getting the extension.
When the initial application was submitted with ICANN, the stated fee was under $100K and they wound up spending in excess of $12 Million to get to today’s approval.
We now see the results after the IP community fought it.
If the mainline press does not make an issue of this over the next couple months.
And, if the religious groups in the U.S. don’t jump on this new development, Icann
might not get their fingers slapped.
If it hits the fan, Obama will need to get involved because the religious right will
make it part of the 2012 presidential elections.
I guess we have to see how the mainline press treat it.
Short term, the .xxx will move forward.
Long term, Icann’s authority might or might not be challenged.
Do I get the impression Icann is shooting craps/ rolling the dice?
why did they need to spend 12 Million? Greasing palms ? attorney fees ? Thats ALOT of money
This is huge. Congrats to Stuart and partners.
Great News! I am planning a UK affiliate site for this extension. Does anyone know how long it will be before consumers can purchase it?
@ Mel …
$13 Million for Sex.com vs . $12 Million to get a shot at owning the vertical 🙂
“Regardless on your feeling about this extension, you have to admire the tenacious fight the ICM has put on and the amount it was willing to invest into getting the extension.”
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True, lets hope that it ends up worth it for them after all that money, patience and effort, so much has changed in the last 7 years and far bigger changes lie ahead. Could be an even steeper hill to climb ahead.
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“When the initial application was submitted with ICANN, the stated fee was under $100K and they wound up spending in excess of $12 Million to get to today’s approval.”
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That’s friggin INSANE, so how much of that $12 million ends up in ICANNS coffers or did most of it get burnt on lawyers?
That must mean that any of the new religeous gTLD’s will end up costing even more, people have been fighting over Religion for centuries never mind 7 years 😉
“Does anyone know how long it will be before consumers can purchase it?”
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Welcome to the brave new world of a Free Market DNS.
Anyone can become a .XXX Registrar.
Having some tech clue would be the first step.
@ Gazzip – That’s friggin INSANE, so how much of that $12 million ends up in ICANNS coffers or did most of it get burnt on lawyers?
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Not insane if they succeed in step 2 … getting a “zoning law” passed or supported
by other players … if successful how much will the ” red light district ” of the
internet be worth ?
Everybody sing along …. “The Internet is for Porn”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1844775900946449930#
“Short term, the .xxx will move forward.
Long term, Icann’s authority might or might not be challenged.”
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ICANN has less and less Market Reach with their so-called Root Servers
The .XXX decision will bring more Reputation DNS Players to the games.
Building an XXX “Brand” should be like building any other brand.
Navigating thru the complex waters ahead for any .XXX Registry, Registrar, or Registrant will likely take more Domainer clue (tech and otherwise).
The awareness this will bring to the various issues will be good.
Ｎ Ｅ Ｗ . N E T
.sx won’t stand a chance with .xxx
“step 2 … getting a “zoning law” passed or supported”
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@ Anthony,
By step 2 “zoning laws” I take it you mean that ALL adult websites will have to use .xxx ?
If so is that even possible? Would’nt that essentially be a monopoly? Are’nt monopolies frowned upon by corporate America and many other institutions all around the world?.
In many jurisdictions competition laws place restrictions on operating monopolies. Why would .xxx be any different?
So no .sx, no .sex, no .porn etc ?
Is the whole world agreeing to put all adult websites on .xxx – I don’t think so.
Can I use xxx extension in a web with no porn content?
Mel
Most of that money was spent on legal fees with a few million just going to for that independent judicial review.
As I said in my post of the other day calling the FSC out, its not like they wanted to spend $12M or more, they would have been happy moving forward based off the the approval they had in June 2005 .
http://www.thedomains.com/2011/03/17/its-time-to-call-bullshit-on-the-free-speech-coalition/
Gazzip
Very little of the $12 Million went to ICANN and ICANN spend millions more fighting the extension.
See the above link to the story which will give you lots of background
Alan
I will have the info on the expected dates for the roll out shortly
Don’t forget trademarks get the 1st shot as always during the sunrise
Review
The .XXX extension is an “sTLD” not a gTLD so their will be restrictions on use
@ Gazzip … cities have red light districts … if the internet is one global village, I
could it happening albeit with a good fight … whatever happens it will be interesting
… good timing call for the seller of Sex.com ! 🙂
Should be interesting to see how the circle-jerk evolves, in terms of who gets delegated the primo terms.
No surprise there – they were persistent enough and it didn’t really make sense with ICANN trying to open things up for new extensions that they would be denied yet again. Will be interesting to see the real effects it ends up having vs. what people have been conjecturing it will do to the adult industry.
Review
Part of your answer is here:
http://www.thedomains.com/2011/03/18/icm-xxx-domain-names-will-only-be-available-to-the-adult-entertainment-industry/
The main stream adult industry players can really hurt the .xxx extension by making a couple of moves with regard to how their content is distributed on the free sites. (I’m not going to reveal how)
I don’t see the .xxx extension being such a big deal for them. Plus the adult sites have now made it common practice to create popular sites that are built off of aggressive affiliate programs and domain names that don’t sound like they’re related to porn.
If I recall correctly, it was discovered that a lawyer working at SEC
in Washington, DC was on porn sites 8 hours a day.
(Don’t know if it was a man or woman. 🙂 )
It is difficult for webmasters at large corporations to block access to
most websites. However, they will be able to totally block ,xxx.
What is stopping ISPs from blocking ,xxx?
What about the major ISPs (by checking a box) offering an option
to block ,xxx.
It wouldn’t surprise me if ISPs in the bible belt block the new tld.
I can also see some countries totally blocking ,xxx.
Maybe, all of my points above will represent a very small percentage
of potential traffic. I don’t know.