CYBERSPACE – Another adult industry heavyweight has come out against the proposed .XXX top level domain. In a letter sent last month to representatives of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), legendary adult entertainment figure Larry Flynt expressed his opposition to the new TLD.“Speaking on behalf of my company, Flynt Management Group, LLC I would like to state my opposition to the creation of a dot xxx top level domain (TLD), which I believe represents a direct threat to freedom of speech on the Internet,” Flynt states in the letter. “Legislation was recently introduced in the U.S. senate that will create a mandatory .xxx TLD, and in Australia a law has been proposed that would institute ISP-level filtering of adult content. Even if these individual initiatives fail, they have convinced me that it is inevitable that government will continue to try to impose a regulatory scheme on dot xxx that is unnecessary and unconstitutional.”
Flynt states that although he is “dedicated to supporting a responsible working environment that conforms to the laws of the land, and actively support efforts to make the Internet safe for children,” he asserts that .XXX is “an inherently dangerous idea with no real purpose.”
“Only if it [.xxx] becomes a tool of censorship will it achieve its goal of preventing access to adult content by minors,” Flynt continues, “and if it falls short of that goal, what reason for it was there for it in the first place, especially if alternative methods and tools can achieve the same results.”
The full text of Flynt’s letter to ICANN can be seen at http://www.freespeechonline.org/webdocs/HustlerXXXLetter.jpg
Those who wish to comment on the proposed .xxx TLD can do so by sending email to xxx-tld-agreement@icann.org and comments submitted to ICANN can be viewed at http://forum.icann.org/lists/xxx-tld-agreement/
