Webmasters Protest .XXX at ICANN Meeting — 25 Adult

Adult site owners protest at ICANN meeting.

Regarding 25 adult webmasters — and one homeless guy who’s been hanging out outside the ICANN meeting all week — joined together to protest the .XXX top level domain name this afternoon in San Francisco.

The protest was organized by Free Speech Coalition.

Protesters held signs with .XXX inside a ‘no’ symbol and chanted various slogans against the approval of the domain name. Among their complaints: they’ll have to pay $60-$70 per domain, it will make it easier for governments to censor the internet, and that .xxx “perpetuates misinformation and stereotypes of the adult community by insinuating that we are ‘irresponsible”.

ICM Registry has spent millions of dollars and been fighting for years to be able to offer the domain name. ICANN’s board is expected to give final blessing to ICM Registry at its board meeting Friday.

Whether that will be the end of it is unclear. Some adult webmasters are threatening to sue if .xxx is approved. I doubt a lawsuit by opponents will be successful. I also wonder how much support there will be amongst adult webmasters for a lawsuit given that they were only able to muster up 25 protesters today in San Francisco.