“Grandfathering” Clause

Palm Beach Gardens, FL  (April 12, 2012) - ICM Registry, the registry operator for the .XXX top-level domain (TLD) for online adult entertainment, today announced a significant move to protect .XXX participants by submitting applications for three additional adult entertainment-related TLDs — .SEX, .PORN and .ADULT. Under new rules finalized in 2011, ICANN, the governing body for Internet names and numbers, began accepting applications for new domain extensions at the beginning of this year.

“ICM Registry has worked for more than a decade to create .XXX which has become a globally accepted and responsible place for adult online entertainment to thrive in an easily recognizable self-regulated environment,” said Stuart Lawley, CEO of ICM Registry. “We are dedicated to protecting interested stakeholders by providing the latest technology and the best domains which is why we created the .XXX TLD. We chose to submit applications for additional TLDs to spare .XXX participants from needless expense and to ensure the TLDs will be run in the same trustworthy and appropriate ways that .XXX is today.”

If awarded these new TLDs, ICM Registry is offering an unprecedented “grandfathering” clause and will automatically reserve matching names at no cost for those who already have .XXX domains. .XXX registrants can chose to do nothing and the matching names will never be released under the new TLD suffixes. If however, registrants choose to register the new names for use, there will be a nominal fee. This means .XXX domain holders can potentially triple their exposure and value of their holdings, while brand and trademark holders who own .XXX domain names are automatically protected and will not have to register for the new domain names.

“ICM Registry has invested just under two million dollars in these applications to support our existing customers,” said Lawley. “By offering the grandfathering clause at no charge, we are demonstrating our commitment to our adult entertainment community and will not collect fees for this from anyone who already has purchased a .XXX domain by the appropriate cut-off date.”

In December 2011, ICM Registry launched the world’s only internet TLD dedicated to adult entertainment. In doing so, ICM Registry adopted industry-leading best practices to create a safe place for visitors to interact with online adult entertainment. These practices include daily malware scanning of all .XXX sites by McAfee. The .XXX TLD has more than 215,000 domains under management. ICM Registry also created a fair and easy way for individuals and trademarked brands to protect against undesired use of their names with a rapid takedown and dispute process.

Each of the new TLD applications were submitted under separate, wholly-owned subsidiaries of ICM Registry LLC: ICM Registry SX LLC, ICM Registry PN LLC, and ICM Registry AD LLC.

^*Click here for more information on the “Grandfathering” clause.

Click here for more information on ICANN new gTLDs.

About ICM Registry:
ICM Registry LLC , headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, is the registry operator for the .XXX sponsored top-level domain as approved by ICANN in 2011. ICM Registry provides the management and supporting infrastructure for this extension offered via registrars around the world.

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Media Contact:
Jocelyn Johnson, KCSA Strategic Communications, 212-896-1267, jjohnson@kcsa.com

Following the huge success of last November’s show in Melbourne, which saw record crowds estimated to be in excess of 85,000 attendees at the .XXX sponsored event, ICM decided to boost their profile even more for this event by sponsoring the attendance of legendary adult performers Ron Jeremy and Nina Mercedez at this years Sydney show to promote .XXX.

Both during and after the Melbourne Sexpo, ICM saw a huge surge in traffic from Australia indicating the exposure and interest generated by the .XXX sponsorship of the event had a very positive impact.  Domain registrations also increased from the region immediately following the Melbourne Sexpo, and Australian Registrars are second only to US based Registrars in terms of the number of .XXX registrations.

“As part of building our brand awareness, we decided to sponsor the attendance of Ron and Nina for this years show. We have several media events already lined up including TV and Radio raising awareness of .XXX in the minds of consumers which can only be good news for .XXX domain owners,” said Vaughn Liley, ICM Sales Director. “As part of our traffic generation initiatives, we will also be promoting many of the new and operationally live .XXX sites to the estimated 65,000 attendees in Sydney,” he added.

In addition, ICM has teamed up with Crazy Domains, an Australian based Registrar, to offer special .XXX domain pricing during Sexpo.  More details can be found by visiting www.crazydomains.xxx or by visiting the .XXX booth # 173 at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Center between March 15-18.

“We are delighted to be members of the EROS Association, we’ve always been very impressed with their integrity and professionalism,” said ICM Sales Director, Vaughn Liley “We’ve enjoyed a great deal of success in recent times in Australia, and we see our membership of EROS as the perfect vehicle for .XXX to support their lobbying and public relations initiatives.”

ICM will be hosting a cocktail reception and industry networking event in conjunction with The Australian Sex Party immediately after the Sexpo Media Launch on Wednesday 14 March at the Park Royal Hotel, Darling Harbour and media and members of the adult industry are most welcome to attend and participate.

About ICM Registry

ICM Registry, headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, is the registry operator for the .XXX sponsored top-level domain as approved by ICANN in 2011.  ICM Registry provides the management and supporting infrastructure for this extension offered via registrars thought the world.

About EROS Association

The EROS Association Inc is Australia’s national adult retail and entertainment association. Established in 1992, EROS is the longest serving adult industry group in Australia and they have earned a reputation for integrity and professionalism in their activities. They function in the same way as other industry groups and trade associations, unifying members, lobby government and running professional and ongoing public relations campaigns.

Palm Beach Gardens, FL (February 21, 2012) –  ICM Registry, the company behind the new .XXX Top Level Domain, announced today details of the highly anticipated Adult Performer Program, which releases more than 3,500 .XXX domain names that were initially held in reserve to protect the individual name interests of performers and personalities within the adult entertainment industry.

“We recognized early on that a significant portion of the core success of the adult industry lies with its performers,” said Vaughn Liley, Sales Director for ICM Registry. “We also became aware that performers do not often have registered trademarks, nor do they retain legal representation to protect their ‘trade name.’ The Adult Performers Program was born from the desire to make a conscious effort to protect these individuals who are truly at the core of the adult entertainment community,” Liley continued.

“We offered a similar and unprecedented protection for existing adult domain owners as a part of our Sunrise A program in September and October of last year. We feel that these programs, along with our Rapid Evaluation Service (RES) dispute resolution policies, are a positive step toward protecting against infringement as well as a deterrent to would be cybersquatters,” he added.

The Adult Performer Program verification process is now available to 3500+ performers and personalities whose names have been reserved in anticipation of this program. These names will be released only to performers and personalities who express their interest at http://www.about.xxx/performers and complete a simple identity verification process and affidavit. Performers and personalities with more questions about the program can contact performers@icmregistry.com.

In conjunction with Name.com, these names are already pre-paid for the first twelve months (until February 3, 2013) and performers can either maintain the domains at Name.com or, if they prefer, transfer them to the registrar of their choice in the usual way.

“At Name.com, we love creative ideas that benefit everybody involved”, said Jared Ewy, Name.com’s Community Evangelist. “ICM Registry’s Adult Performer Program is a brilliant way to promote .XXX within the industry, while increasing web traffic and protecting adult performers. As a domain registrar, we’ll support these domains with our world class customer support, security and 24/7 monitoring, so industry talent can rest easy that more traffic won’t mean more problems–just more business with .XXX and Name.com.”

ICM Registry had the opportunity to verify Teagan Presley, the multiple AVN Award winning Adam & Eve contract star, during a recent live appearance where she became the first performer to be verified through the program and will be awarded the rights to www.teaganpresley.xxx.

“With the launch of the .XXX domain names, I was concerned that a squatter would grab www.teaganpresley.xxx and try to extort me”, Presley said. “Luckily the guys at ICM were smart and held on to the talent URLs; they allowed me to get it with no mess. Thank you, ICM!”

About ICM Registry:

ICM Registry, headquartered in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, is the registry operator for the .XXX sponsored top-level domain as approved by ICANN in 2011.  ICM Registry provides the management and supporting infrastructure for this extension offered via registrars thought the world.

About Name.com:

Name.com is a privately held ICANN accredited domain name registrar operating in Denver, Colorado. Name.com offers over 50 different gTLD and ccTLD extensions as well as aftermarket domain brokerage, brand management and consulting services.

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If you would like more information about this topic or would like to schedule an interview, please call Patrick Donaldson at 561.290.0168 or email pat@icm.xxx .

In announcing this action, ICM’s CEO, Stuart Lawley, reiterated the Registry’s commitment to enforce its policies.  “ICM Registry has raised the bar on responsible registry operations and we intend to maintain the highest standards.  We will not tolerate nefarious conduct and will exercise our right to take appropriate action when we detect widespread repeat patterns of cyber-squatting activity.  Would-be cyber-squatters are on notice – neither ICM Registry nor the .xxx community will be complicit in the theft or abuse of intellectual property. ICM takes a stand to facilitate user choice and parental control, protect the privacy, security, and consumer rights of consenting adults, fight child abuse images, and protect intellectual property,” said Lawley.

While cyber-squatters try to take advantage of legitimate rights owners in every TLD (from .com to .edu), ICM’s CEO, Stuart Lawley noted that the rights protections built into its agreement with registrants gives the Registry a number of innovative tools to combat malicious conduct and protect the .xxx TLD space.  In addition to its authentication policy, which makes it harder for cyber-squatters to hide, the Registry also makes a variety of innovative tools available to prevent and address abusive registrations, including a Rapid Evaluation Service (“RES”) to take immediate action on clear abuse of well-known, distinctive registered trademarks or service marks of significant commercial value, or of personal or professional names of individuals, and its Charter Eligibility Dispute Resolution Process (“CEDRP”) to resolve challenges to registered names in the .XXX TLD based on alleged use inconsistent with the qualifications for registration.  ICM Registry recently conducted a ground-breaking Sunrise process that enabled rights-holders to permanently remove their brands from availability for a cost-based one time fee.

Working with its sponsoring organization, the International Foundation for Online Responsibility (“IFFOR”), ICM has implemented a comprehensive and rigorous set of policies designed to protect third party rights and combat malicious conduct.  The IFFOR Policy Council, which includes representatives from the adult industry as well as experts in the areas of free expression, privacy, and child advocacy ratified the Registry’s baseline policies, including its policy prohibiting the registration of  “strings that infringe the intellectual property rights of a third party, including common law trademark rights; strings that are obvious variants of well-known trademarks not belonging to the registrant; first and last names of an individual other than the individual or his/her agent or names that suggest the presence of child abuse images.”  All registrants in the .xxx domain must agree to abide by those policies when they register .xxx names.

LOS ANGELES—A few months ago, AVN conversed with Google on the subject of how the leading search engine will treat search results for .xxx.

Dec 6 2011

If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on a .XXX domain, now is your chance. At 11am Eastern today, the ICM Registry will open registration for .XXX domains to the public.

Dec 6 2011

“xxx,” those three letters signifying all things pornographic and illicit, is officially up for sale as of Tuesday, CBC News reports. 

Starting at 11 a.m. ET, anyone, including owners of pornographic websites and other adult entertainment businesses will be able to buy website domain names ending in .xxx.

In an audio podcast interview for CBS News and CNET, ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley, the main behind the XXX domains, acknowledged that XXX domains, along with creative searching, will help seekers of adult content find what they’re looking for.

New .xxx top-level domains go on sale today.

Dec 6 2011

Porn kings will now have their own top-level domain to rule over.Today, .xxx sites go live at 11 a.m. EST.