In the second part of our interview with Stuart Lawley, president and chairman of ICM Registry, Lawley goes on the record about various rumors regarding who has supported ICM's application for an . xxx sponsored Top-Level Domain (sTLD).
He also addresses a fundamental hurdle ICM had to jump in the application process. Neither Lawley or Hendeles has owned or worked at an adult company; however, one of the main criteria for ICANN to approve an sTLD application is that the company applying demonstrates that there is support within the corresponding community. Thus ICM had its work cut out for it when it submitted a second sTLD application for .xxx in 2003. What machinations ensued to drum up support within adult are a bit hazy, but certain names keep coming up. Both Lawley and Hendeles have stated that the only relationships they have discussed with players in the adult space would involve advertising, outreach, and promotion once the sTLD receives final approval.
AVNOnline.com: xBiz reported that ASACP will be a direct beneficiary of IFFOR. Hendeles has stated this is undecided. Which is it?
Stuart Lawley: This was a misquote.
Clearly the ASACP has goals and a membership complement that fulfills the charter of IFFOR. We have proposed to work closely with the ASACP to establish them as our [child porn] hotline for the .xxx registry. ASACP has been in negotiations with ICM for ASACP to serve as a hotline for reviewing reports of suspected child pornography and perhaps to carry out the secondary monitoring of .xxx sites for child pornography.
No formal deal or promises of funding have been made with ASACP, however, it would seem blindingly obvious and completely appropriate that ASACP would be seen as a likely recipient of grant funding to be issued by IFFOR's grant advisory committee. Those parties selected by the community to represent IFFOR's grant advisory committee will be responsible for making this decision, not ICM Registry.
Such funding can only be finalized once the board and supporting organizations of IFFOR has been populated. The principals of ICM will not have control over IFFOR's activities, which is why we are encouraging substantial participation by the industry in the supporting organizations of IFFOR.
Do you have any deals on paper that would benefit anyone else in this?
No. ASACP isn't getting a cut.
If you're talking about people like Lensman, Ron Levi, LFP, you name it —no one has been promised any money whatsoever as a one-off payment, recurring payment, or slice of the revenue. I can absolutely assure you of that, hand on heart.
Would those people you mentioned have an advantage or a preferred position in domain name registration?
No. Do you think ICANN would go for that? They would kick our butts.
So registration will be open to the public?
It is not open to the public. This is limited to bona fide members of the adult community. Cybersquatters will not come through the door.
Who's bona fide?
We will have identification mechanisms in place and we hope people like AVN, GFY, and places like that will help us authenticate people.
It would have been easy for us to come to AVN and say give us your subscriber list and when people come, you say he's one of ours and we give you $5 for it. But that's exactly the kind of deal we tried to keep away from because we don't want people to think we're buying our supporters.
There is no deal.
We are going to be coming out and saying if you become one of our authentication providers and you authenticate people, we will pay you some money to do it because you're not going to do it for bloody free, are you? We haven't launched that.
It puts whoever is responsible for authentication in a very advantageous position.
We're not going to just have one.
Some people may want to be authenticated [in this way], and some people won't. If people don't authenticate that way, they're going to have to probably pay us a small fee. They'll go through a manual authentication where we simply call them and they'll say I'm in the business, these are some of my sites or no, I'm not in the business, but I want to start. In that case, we make a note of that, let them start the site and if [it's not adult] we take it down. It's for the community. Cybersquatters and speculators are not allowed.
Do you care that the government could possibly step in to control the realm?
Yes, we do care. It's my name that's over the door of this business as president and chairman of it.
We've put together the structure of IFFOR and the one thing you see all the way through it, if you look at the charter, is promote free speech, defend the voluntary nature of this, promote the adoption of the TLD through the adult community. Yes, I do care, and yes, it's absolutely written into stone.
This is a voluntary space and we're obligated to defend the voluntary nature of it. I've met with many politicians over the last two years and told them that this needs to be voluntary and there are benefits for it to remain voluntary.
We believe there will be more take up if it remains voluntary; more people will register. If it became mandatory, people would relocate offshore. Congress only has jurisdiction in America, and this TLD is global. We're talking about this on a worldwide basis, not just in the United States, so the U.S. government can't dictate to a TLD. A TLD is run by ICANN, and that's on a global level.
In order to regulate, the government would have to find all 2 million of those [adult] sites across several TLDs. If people stop and think it through, it just can't be done. I'm not going to say somebody won't try, but these things just won't pass legal muster by any stretch of the imagination.
You have suggested that .xxx is good for the industry and will protect children. If that is your goal, then why charge so much more for .xxx domains?
ICANN's financial evaluation team had very high requirements regarding the financial stability of new registry operators. Our business plan was comprehensively evaluated in order to ensure that we would be viable under worst-case financial and operational situations. Our responses provided strong evidence of a well thought through plan and of adequate capital resources to support the financial stability of the registry. In the process of developing this plan, it was determined that the lowest price we could offer registration services based on volume expectations was $60.
We anticipate operational and administrative costs of at least $3 million per year to maintain the registry.
Keep in mind that the .xxx registry will never realize the volume of registrations that .com, .net, or .org, which collectively include more than 40 million domains. The economies of scale of supplying tens of thousands or even a few hundred thousand names vs. the millions in these other registries requires .xxx to have a higher price to ensure viability.
The other approved sTLD registries, .jobs and .travel are expected to offer their customers a wholesale price of nearer to $100 per domain. Many of the smaller country codes, including .TV, are in the same price range as .xxx.
In light of the anti-.xxx forces, would you consider not selling the domains or dropping the application altogether?
No. Absolutely not. We never said we had universal support.
Who are your current board members and what are their qualifications?
In accordance with IFFOR's bylaws, there are currently three interim IFFOR board members, myself, Ronald Appleby, and Timothy Denton.
Mr. Appleby and Mr. Denton have agreed to step down within 30 days after ICANN accreditation to make way for appointments from the nominating committee.
Both Mr. Appleby and Mr. Denton are highly respectable Canadian lawyers with significant experience working with nonprofit organizations.
How did Appleby and Denton get chosen for the initial board?
They are two very prominent Canadian attorneys. Their presence is purely an administrative function. To register a Canadian nonprofit you have to have three directors. If we could have done it with one, we would have done it with one—being me.
Mr. Appleby is the Hendeles family lawyer. He's been the family lawyer for 40 years or something. Mr. Denton understands the Internet and is an advisor for the people who run .ca.
They were people of integrity and trust and have no involvement in the politics of IFFOR in any shape or form.
With most of the industry located in the states, why is IFFOR established in Canada and why does ICM have no visible U.S. interests?
ICM is an American company and I'm an American resident. It's a Delaware corporation and we deliberately did it in America because we knew it would be afforded protection under the First Amendment.
IFFOR is in Canada because Jason is from Canada, I guess.
We thought it would give the whole thing more international flavor and his lawyers are very expert at setting up a nonprofit.
You're worried about it not being in the United States. The rest of the world is worried about it being in the United States.
IFFOR Corporation may be established in Canada, but will be based in Washington, D.C. It will have offices there for the lobbying efforts.
Who will sit on the full IFFOR board?
We're not dictating that. We have a seven-member board that has not been populated at this time.
We already have dozens of nominations for people to go on the board.
Whether the industry has time to form a supporting organization and have an election or whether the nominating committee just interviews and chooses from the applicants that are there [remains to be seen]. But there is no favoritism. No one has been handpicked.
Who are the applicants for the board?
It would be inappropriate to disclose who those candidates are at this time. However, we are open to solicit statements of interest from anyone interested in participating. Candidates will be disclosed at a later date.
(Potential candidates can email detailed background information to [email protected].)
Will anyone from the media be on the board?
At this time, four candidates with connections to media organizations have submitted their candidacy to be involved with IFFOR.
Will you be at any industry shows or events to reply directly to webmaster concerns?
Yes. We anticipate a substantial presence at the Internext show in Florida. We are confident that we will be able to respond to webmasters directly at the convention.
When you put this effort together you had supporters who wrote letters on your behalf. Who are those people?
That list is confidential. It has been submitted to ICANN.
There was a public comment board that anyone could comment on. In addition, we submitted detailed letters of support from our supporters.
These people requested confidentiality and we granted that. That's only fair.
How many support letters did you get?
I can't give you numbers, but it's a very impressive array covering all industry sectors on a global basis.
I believe the combined revenues of all the companies was over $2 billion.
If this is about making the industry a better place why doesn't anyone want to come out?
I think the essence of that is this a bold step by the industry. It wasn't certain it was going to happen and for members of the community to step forward, I don't think they wanted to risk being shot down, as it were.
We went around, not only to industry, but to free-speech advocates, privacy and security people, and child protection advocates, and we've managed to garner interest from all of those groups. But the first group we had to gain was the industry itself and it was a bold step on their part to come forward. Then we went and built the rest of the constituencies around that. We said the industry is with us; are you willing to come to the table too?
Are any supporters now backing away?
To date we have received over a thousand emails and letters of support from adult webmasters from all over the world. We are unaware of anyone withdrawing their support. While we understand that some webmasters may never support us, there are many that continue to be supportive.
As with any new technology there will always be some resistance to change. However, the benefits that the community could realize substantially outweigh the concerns of the vocal minority. There will be many opportunities over the next six months for us to respond to questions and address webmasters who may feel insecure. We would encourage adult webmasters to carefully consider the important issues that IFFOR will be addressing and with an open mind and focus on the positives that .xxx could bring to their community.
