Industry heavyweights Gary Kremen, the owner of Sex.com, and Steve Lightspeed, owner of Lightspeed Cash, began a nasty bit of sniping late last week that ultimately cast a dark shadow over Adult Sites Against Child Pornography and divided the Adult community.
The issue apparently arose over Lightspeed’s exclusion from the anti-child porn organization and his perception that Kremen was the man responsible. At some point – Kremen claims it has been two years – the Sex.com search engine began directing surfers to the ASACP Web site when they searched for “lightspeed,” such as it would if someone were to search for the term “child pornography.”
On December 10, after Lightspeed brought this situation to light on Adult webmaster board GFY, Kremen resigned from the ASACP board.
“I’m resigning from the board because I don’t want there to be a conflict of interest to say that my personal actions have anything to do with the organization, number one,” Kremen told AVNOnline.com. “Number two, because of that Lightspeed thing – that I’m getting in the way of him joining the organization – then they’re free to join the organization. I have nothing to do with it anymore. They can join the organization as they said they would and support it.”
“Gary and I are not friends, there’s no confusion about that, but I do support the cause of ASACP so I don’t understand what the big problem is,” Lightspeed said.
At some point, Kremen’s frustration with Lightspeed spilled over and he apparently took it upon himself to use his search engine as a tool to make known his feelings about Lightspeed and his sites. However, Kremen did it while he still sat on the board of ASACP, which brought the whole organization into the issue.
ASACP executive director Joan Irvine called an emergency board meeting December 13 to address the situation. The result of that meeting, which lasted nearly three hours, seems to be to let everyone go their separate ways.
“Of course, we’re just moving forward,” Irvine said December 14. “We have not had one sponsor, member, or supporter contact us, so it’s totally a non-issue.”
Lightspeed withdrew his application to be an ASACP member December 13 via GFY. Also exiting the organization is AVN Online director of marketing and AlyTV host Aly Drummond, who said she left because AVN Online editor Tom Hymes already represents AVN on the board, whose rules prohibit having more than one representative from a single company or organization.
Although initially agreeing to speak to AVNOnline.com about the situation, Lightspeed did not return several messages left for him as of the afternoon of December 14. Upon initial contact, he indicated that his attorneys were involved with matters relating to Kremen.
An official press release from ASACP follows:
ASACP Advisory Council Changes
LOS ANGELES – ASACP is the organization that helps the Adult site industry make a difference in the battle against child pornography.
ASACP recognizes sexual child abuse as a heinous crime committed against children. As a major deterrent to such abuse, ASACP was formed in 1996 and is dedicated to eliminating child pornography from the Internet. ASACP also provides a self-regulatory vehicle for its membership through a Code of Ethics that promotes the protection of children through responsible, professional business practices.
The ASACP Advisory Council (AC) is a group of seven leaders in the industry who help direct ASACP efforts and decisions. The standard term of AC members is two years, but at times a member needs to resign for various reason, a job change, a move, or for personal reasons.
ASACP announced that Aly Drummond and Gary Kremen are stepping down – both of whom are original AC members.
ASACP wants to congratulate Aly on her new position at AVN. This is a great opportunity for her and AVN is lucky have someone with Aly’s expertise and energy join their team.
ASACP has made an effort to have a diversity of people and companies on the AC. Therefore, since Aly and Tom Hymes, Editor of AVN Online, both work for the same company, we needed to ask one of them to resign. AVN determined that Tom would remain on the AC. Therefore, Aly Drummond regretfully turned in her resignation.
“ASACP wishes to thank Aly for her dedication to ASACP since the beginning of the AC and for always promoting ASACP. She will be missed, but she promised she will continue to promote ASACP both personally and on AlyTV,” said Joan Irvine, executive director, ASACP.
“Gary Kremen has contributed considerable time, energy and financial support to ASACP since 2002. He was instrumental in its growth and the development of the Advisory Council. I appreciate his support and it has certainly been great working with him during the last two years," said Irvine.
ASACP appreciates the continued support of its Sponsors, Approved Members and Supporters. ASACP is currently in discussion with its other Sponsors to find replacements for these two openings.
If you are interested in learning more about ASACP or helping in the fight against child pornography, please view the ASACP site (www.asacp.org ) or email [email protected].
For further information, contact Joan Irvine, [email protected]
