The ICANN 38 International Meeting has left this question unanswered. Debates on a separate specialized zone which should become home to all porno sites have been long underway. However this year ICANN has made a far reaching announcement. As early as in 2005 the ICM registry became a pick for the .XXX sponsored top-level domain as a potential community site for the adult entertainment industry. According to the ICANN‘s assessment, the registry fully met the criteria set forth for sponsorship of top-level domains. Later, the ICANN revoked the decision. But having reviewed the ICM application, the Independent Review Panel (IRP) confirmed the legitimacy and validity of submitted documents. The ICANN Board meeting held in Brussels last week unambiguously confirmed the validity of the IRP’s findings. But, sure enough, the issue is more tricky as it might seem. Today, the ICANN will have to run another review of the ICM to ensure that it complies with requirements to TLD sponsors. More specifically, it is necessary to ensure that the ICM is financially viable to support a top-level domain: since 2005 the financial situation of the company might have significantly changed.
If everything is sound then at this stage, before the application for the .XXX sponsorship is approved, the ICANN will have to hold preliminary discussions with the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). It is only after they are over that the final decision will be taken regarding appropriateness of endorsement of the application l.
The GAC in its turn harbors some doubts about the delegation of the domain .XXX. However Peter Dengate Thrush, the Chairman of the ICANN Board, has announced at the ICANN 38 International Meeting in Brussels that the Board has the right to disregard the GAC’s opinion on this issue.
The announced decision on the launch of the specialized top-level domain which theoretically may embrace all “adult sites” has evoked a positive reaction from most registrants and professionals. It was only representatives of the porno industry who turned out to be against it because it will have an adverse effect on their business. “Today one may bump into a porno site while browsing a completely neutral address in any zone, - says Andrey Kolesnikov, the director of the Coordination Center for ccTLD .RU, - but one of the fundamentals of the Internet is ‘don’t want – don’t-watch’, and domain .XXX perfectly proves this statement. If there is an organization neither ready to launch such a sponsored domain and, moreover, it meets all the respective requirements, neither the ICANN nor GAC simply may dump it. The ICANN remains just a regulator of the processes. The Corporation’s functions come down to receipt of an application and reviewing it for compliance, but it may not at its own discretion decide which domains may appear in the Internet and which may not. Delegation of the domain .XXX will regulate the cyberspace and will make life easier for those regulators, registrants and users who do not want to see porno in the Internet. Those against this domain and turning their blind eye to the problem simply are hypocrites and obscurantists. There was, is and will be sex in the Internet.
