CWA: .XXX Porn Domain Lost in Cyberspace


Washington, D.C.—Concerned Women for America (CWA) is thrilled that a plan by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to create a .xxx domain for Internet porn sites has been deleted, days before expected approval.


Vint Cerf, the chairman of ICANN, announced yesterday that the issue had been removed from the agenda of an upcoming board meeting due to time constraints. He did not indicate when it might be reintroduced. Media reports indicate that the news came as a surprise to everyone, including Stuart Lawley, the president of .xxx's sponsoring organization, ICM Registry, who has spent millions of dollars getting the bid this far. Mr. Lawley was due to present the domain to the same meeting just minutes after Mr. Cerf's statement.

CWA actively lobbied against this new domain and has worked to increase awareness of its dangers for families and children.

“Creating a .xxx domain exclusively for pornographers would just be giving them a new platform to spread their smut,” said Jan LaRue, CWA’s Chief Counsel, who met with top officials at the Department of Commerce to block the domain. “Not only would smut-peddlers retain their current pornographic Web sites on all other domains, they would have been granted their own exclusive one.

“Porn site operators are the only ones who stand to gain from having a .xxx domain. Families across America realize that this outrageous scheme would only provide children with more opportunities to view hard-core porn images, and help legitimize an illegitimate industry,” LaRue concluded.


www.cwfa.org (01-12-2005)

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