If ICANN Were a Democracy…

Comments overwhelmingly opposed to .xxx. But that doesn’t answer the question regarding what ICANN ought to do.

I decided to check in on the .XXX comment period today to see how the comments were coming in. This is what I saw:

Thanks to an effort by Focus on the Family, there are over 13 pages of comment titles for the current comment period. Many of them are form submissions with the same title and same content.

So how much ought to these comments from “MITTENS1120” and “eagleswings07” weigh in on ICANN’s decision on granting ICM registry .xxx? Most of the comments just say porn is bad, and don’t actually answer the question ICANN posed regarding its options going forward. Few of them add value.

The truth is, few people from both the general public and the adult entertainment industry are in favor of .xxx. Most of the loud people are against it.

But the issue here isn’t regarding porn any more. It’s regarding a mistake that ICANN made. You can argue if the mistake was “approving” .xxx to begin with or withdrawing that approval later, but one of these decisions was wrong.

What if ICANN doesn’t let ICM Registry have .xxx now? The .xxx domain will surely be released in the fresh TLD round by someone. And ICANN will have a lawsuit to contend with.