Originally Posted by Connor

Joan -

I'm glad that you replied, and I have a tremendous amount of repsect for you personally. I'm sorry that we're on opposite ends of this issue, and I'm sure there will be other issues on which we both agree. Dot XXX will never be one of them, however.

The problem is that ASACP in fact DID support the creation of dot xxx. That's what you're doing when you send in a letter to ICANN during the application process saying that you "applaud" and "support" ICM. You are helping to make something possible that affects the ENTIRE industry.

I don't know who at ASACP made that decision... was it the advisory council? Was it you personally? Whoever made that decision made a choice that affects a whole lot of webmasters, and made it IN SPITE of the fact that the only public industry meeting on .XXX resulted in a DOWN vote. If that choice goes bad for a lot of people then certainly you can see how they would be a little upset at the people who affected their business. ICM needed the support of industry groups in order to get their application approved. Your organization helped tham get that approval, and without that approval we wouldn't be facing the significant censorship threats that we are now facing.

As far as comparing this to applying for funding... come on Joan, that's not a very effective way to explain this. There were strings attached to this funding, and to accept the money you had to support something that can significantly harm the industry. Will the funding be worth it when some Senator tries to make dot XXX mandatory? Will the funding be worth it when Visa decides only people on .XXX sites will be processed? I thought the adult industry was doing a fantastic job supporting ASACP. In Sacramento, I can't think of how many times I plugged ASACP to one of the senators or councilmen I spoke to on behalf of the industry. So many companies have stepped up with donations. Weren't we as an industry doing a good enough job supporting ASACP? Why did your organization have to accept funding from ICM when you KNEW that doing so could result in all kinds of problems for the adult industry as a whole?

Frankly Joan I don't think you're in a defensible position. All this may be old news to you, but it's not to a lot of the industry. And I think it's only going to get worse when the first congressman announces his plan to make dot XXX mandatory and the industry is facing YET ANOTHER big legal fight, this one brought about by small groups of people INSIDE the industry. And if private industries start using dot XXX against us... oh man!

I spoke with you about this several months ago and pointed out some of my concerns. I asked you to consider revoking your support of dot XXX, but didn't hear back from you. I didn't know at that time that ASACP was getting funding for their support. I know that funding is important for any organization, but there HAS to be a point where the damage caused by accepting the funds isn't worth it.