Lawley made dotcom millions with web design and hosting
firm Oneview.net which was floated then sold before the first
internet crash, and has bank rolled the seven-year proposal to have
a top level domain for pornography.
His firm ICM Registry was awarded the right to operate the
domain but contractual wrangling is more about the conservative
Bush administration's connections to the religious right than they
are about the contract itself, Lawley told technology podcast
OUT-LAW Radio.
"We were hoping to sign our contract which was a standard
contract that most other registries have, until the United States
Government intervened," said Lawley, who lives in Florida. "They
had been lobbied very heavily by the Christian conservative groups
here in the United States."
Lawley says that the US Department of Commerce's view of the
proposal changed, which filtered down to ICANN. He said that he
obtained some government documents under freedom of information
legislation outlining parts of his case but that crucial elements
were redacted, which means they were blanked out.
"We received documentation that showed clearly what had gone on.
Some of the documents were sent in redacted form and we have
litigation in the District of Columbia courts against the United
States Department of Commerce and the United States Department of
State to try and force them to turn over these documents that we
allege show the level of interference in the ICANN process," said
Lawley.
"The documents show that up to a certain date the Department of
Commerce understood our application and were mildly approving of
it," said Lawley. "After several high level meetings between
Christian conservative leaders and administration and Department of
Commerce officials the tone very much changed overnight into 'how
do we stop this' and 'how do we kill it'. That's the nature of the
documents we are trying to get more detail on."
Lawley says that the .xxx domain is a good idea because it
introduces some self-regulation into a $5 billion industry that
does not currently police itself. His proposal mandates that anyone
registering a .xxx domain must tag their content so that it is
labelled as pornographic or adult material.
Even if the .xxx site merely points to a .com or .net domain,
the content to which it ultimately points must be tagged, he said.
He also said that $10 of the $60 annual registration fee will go to
a foundation set up by his company to fund child protection
online.
