Greetings,

The co-authors of this document have been participants in ICANN At-Large policy development for more than 15 years each. Moreover, we were the two Vice-Chairs of the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) at the time of the original delegation of the .XXX top-level domain (“.XXX”). We are aware of the draft comment on this issue currently prepared by ALAC and respectfully disagree with its core tenets.

Coming at this issue from a narrow perspective that focuses solely on its impact to Internet end-users, we do not see any significant negative effects resulting from the renewal of the .XXX Registry Agreement as requested by the current Registry Operator. Indeed, we appreciate the movement to harmonize .XXX with other generic top-level domains (“gTLDs”); doing so will reduce public confusion regarding policy differences between gTLDs, and improve uniformity of application for both would-be registrants and the general public.

Given the benefit of hindsight, the “Sponsored gTLD” program and designation have not on the whole provided any significant benefit to the Internet-using public. As such, we welcome the removal of this designation -- and any associated extra contract requirements -- from all applicable Registry Agreements going forward. Specifically, from the very beginning we were on the record having opposed the use of Public Interest Commitments (which have since been refined and renamed Registry Voluntary Commitments). Since these contract extensions were voluntary and not accompanied by any practical enforcement mechanism, they were open to abuse or ignoring by design. Using the opportunity of Agreement Renewal to eliminate these unenforceable extraordinary requirements is a prudent step that supports the sustainability of the Registry Operator, simplifies its oversight, and improves consistency between gTLDs. Conversely, mere inertia must be rejected as a rationale for opposition to change.

The .XXX domain was controversial at the time of its delegation because of the content and services that were to be offered by its registrants, generally of a prurient nature. However, the functions of ICANN must remain neutral regarding content. We note that despite the passage of more than a decade since its introduction, not a single one of the 25 most-heavily used “adult-oriented” Internet destinations in the world uses the .XXX domain. Given this current reality, all concerns about registrant-based personal abuse and exploitation -- and resultant policy and contract requirements such as labeling -- must aspire to be identical for .COM, .XXX and every other gTLD.

In summary, we share the view of IFFOR, its original sponsoring organization, that the evolution of .XXX from a sponsored gTLD to a generic one is reasonable and positive; its proposed Agreement Renewal should proceed without obstacle. Reducing divergence between gTLD policies, we believe, improves end-user confidence in a reliably-consistent domain namespace.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada

Carlton Samuels, Kingston Jamaica

We welcome the proposed update to the .XXX registry agreement.

Our position is that Internet end-users and registrants are best served through policy consistency across all gTLDs whose subdomains offer adult-oriented content. Furthermore, we observe that RVCs and Sponsored gTLD designations have not delivered expected results and should be eliminated in all gTLDs.