FSC Meeting About .xxx Domain Tonight

Tonight’s Free Speech Coalition general meeting will examine the lobbying arm of the adult industry’s stance against a separate .xxx Internet domain for adult Websites.  

The group first rejected the separate adult top-level Net domain, according to executive director Bill Lyon, because they rejected what he calls the "ghettoization" of the Internet and, more important, because a separate adult domain could make for far easier arbitrary filtering opportunities. 

But tonight the FSC will discuss the pros and cons of the separate adult Net domain and follow it with a question-and-answer period before asking members to vote on whether to back the domain. 

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rejected the establishment of a separate .xxx domain in 2000-01. But Lyon said the prime reason for the FSC to consider a change in its opposition to the separate domain now is a Canadian company, ICM Registry, has asked the FSC to become part of a nonprofit they're setting up to attract people to registering in the .xxx domain. 

"Free Speech Coalition is really a logical partner for this," said ICM president Jason Hendeles, whose company will be represented tonight. "There's a mix of credible representatives to the (adult) industry that can both defend the industry and their action online, and I also think the adult community trusts the FSC." 

"And they have indicated that it would be financially remunerative to us if we did that," Lyon told AVN.com earlier this month. "We might be able to get a certain amount of money for FSC for each URL that was sold. And that, of course, is attractive, because we're always short of money for things we want to do." 

Hendeles emphasizes that the .xxx domain as ICM is formulating it would be "completely voluntary, though it's intended for adult Webmasters should they want to register," with ICM working on the idea based on concerns adult Webmasters raised to them since the first ICANN turn-down. 

He also said alarms about "ghettoization" of the Internet and prospectively easier filtering, with all filtering's known and possible glitches, might be somewhat premature. "There's a lot of arguments that are emotional coming out about this," he said. "The ghettoization is…not going to happen, the First Amendment isn't going to allow that. 

"But those kinds of opinions are very American-centric opinions about a medium that is inherently unregulatable, and is internationally not under the control of the U.S. government," Hendeles continued.  "There's just not going to be a way to move or force or pressure two million adult websites to just not exist anymore or to move into one place." 

Lyon thinks that while the prospect of a new revenue source for FSC is significant, what's more important, from his and the group's standpoint, is their prime mission of protecting adult entertainment, a mission Lyon fears would be compromised irrevocably if a separate .xxx Net domain is established and FSC reverses position to endorse it.   

The meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. PDT August 21 at the Warner Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills

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