Porn site operator follows up anti-trust suit with competitive threat.
Porn purveyor Manwin has taken its battle against the .xxx domain name a step further following its antitrust lawsuit: it’s not going to have anything to do with sites that use the new top level domain.
That’s according to a post on XBIZ this afternoon.
According to the article:
Manwin, with the announcement, has banned all activity between its brands and Internet sites registered with a .XXX TLD, including advertising for .XXX websites on its tube sites. In addition, Manwin said it won’t permit its content to be used or advertised on .XXX websites.
.XXX registry ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley smarted back:
“Apparently Manwin is confused about whether it wants to bring antitrust claims or commit antitrust violations,” according to the article.
Manwin runs Playboy sites as a licensee and says it gets 60 million daily visitors across its network of sites.
I find it surprising that Manwin is just now making a full force attack on .xxx. The only real coordinated opposition to the domain as it worked its way through the last legs of the ICANN process was a poorly represented Free Speech Coalition (FSC). I bet they’re wondering where the heck Manwin was through all that.
Manwinsucks.com says
As usual manwin spits another threat out with no substance behind its words. We all already see porn as xxx so when the xxx sites start flooding the search engines and the brand is at its strongest, do they really think they can refuse to do business with the xxx tld?
Let us be realistic, manwin advertises their tube and paid sites with keywords like xxx to promote themselves and now that it is an extention, their 60 million visitors will decline drastically over the course of a year or two. This is just like the time they threatened us to move our content from manwinsucks.com to another domain without the manwin name. All talk and nothing to back it up. Thanks for the news DNW.
Jp says
Andrew, I love your headlines. Keeps me coming back.
Uzoma says
It’s enough to kill off .xxx in my opinion.
I hate balkanizing the internet.
Tom Hymes says
The “poorly represented Free Speech Coalition” held off .xxx for years. The only reason it was finally approved is because ICM 1)threatened to sue ICANN and individual board members, and 2) Peter Dengate Thrush pushed it through on his way to his post-ICANN pay day. Both entities, ICM and ICANN, not only deserve one another, but deserved to be sued as co-defendants. Karma’s a bitch, eh?
ann says
I can tell you exactly where Manwin was. When Diane Duke, the Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition, was standing in front of the ICANN board of directors in San Fransisco voicing the industy’s opposition, standing directly next to her was Manwin’s in-house Chief Counsel. Check out the video.
Moreover, FSC did not begin fighting this during the last round. The first time Duke testified was in Lisbon in 2006, and she lobbied at every single ICANN meeting after that. Check out the transcripts.
Finally, the implications of this are enormous. Manwin sites get 60 MILLION visitors per day. Manwin is the world’s largest adult content producer. And, Manwin controls 80% of adult ad space. The value of any .xxx domain just took a nose dive.
John Berryhill says
“Peter Dengate Thrush pushed it through”
…using his Jedi mind control powers over every other member of the board, right?