ICANN Approves .xxx Suffix For Porn Websites

An anonymous reader tips news that ICANN has officially approved the creation of a .xxx suffix for porn sites, confirming the rumors we discussed on Thursday. While this resolves a 10-year debate on the subject, the Guardian notes that "many pornography companies are unhappy with the idea of a dedicated space online because they expect that as soon as .xxx is implemented, conservative members of the US Congress will lobby to make any sex-related website re-register there and remove itself from other domains such as .com or .org." Others are more confident, like Stuart Lawley of ICM Registry, the company sponsoring the new TLD. "Mr. Lawley said more than 100,000 domains had preregistered. He said he expected that when the dot-xxx domains opened for business, nine to 12 months from now, some 500,000 domains would register, or roughly 10% of the five million to six million adult online sites."

Re:What is the point?

[ciderVisor]

They will go register youporn.xxx so they have their name protected, and one will redirect to the other.

But if the .com address always redirects to the .xxx address, then firewalls could be easily configured to disallow all .xxx domains.

I guess that's one possible plus point.

Re:What is the point?

[mwvdlee]

Most likely the .xxx will redirect to the .com so all internal and external links will remain working and you won't have to convert or test anything.

Redirecting .xxx to .com is much faster, easier and cheaper than vice versa and without the risk of being blocked by firewalls or filters.

Re:why do people think this is a bad idea?

[jedidiah]

> -It is stupid to expect all porn to go to ".xxx".

Why should pornographers want to hide themselves? Really.

They should want to make it as easy as possible for their customers to find them and there non-customers to avoid them.

It serves both their capitalistic needs and their political interests.

Re:Can't work

[hedwards]

Sure it can, if the registrar makes good on its pledge to ban child porn from the TLD, that would likely be a significant draw to porn sites. Especially ones that are asking for people to pay. With $60 a year in registration fees, it's not going to make much difference off the bottom line of a decent site, but being able to say that you're free of unadvertised impropriety can easily add up to big sales. People that frequent those sites are often times concerned about things like kiddie pr0n and becoming a victim of ID theft. If the registrar manages to crack down on that more than the .com registrars do, then it's likely going to make much larger sums of money.

Re:What a great opportunity to creep everyone out!

[hedwards]

That's an excellent way of getting sued for sexual harassment. Even if there isn't any porn on there, I suspect you could still find yourself sued or fired.

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[account_deleted]

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So, like, fluffycutekittens.xxx ?

[axl917]

Someone should register that and put up an innocuous kitten pic, see what they do.

Re:100,000 preregistered?

[Arkem Beta]

I was also there when *cough* alt.sex was created; it took all the sex off mainstream usenet and put it in one tidy place. .xxx will do the same over time

Because all companies restrict themselves to .com and other organisations stick to their respective .org, .net or .edu?
Because all US based domains are registered under .us?

I don't think .xxx is going to change anything at all, especially if ICANN introduces custom TLDs [slashdot.org] for sale.

Re:100,000 preregistered?

[Joce640k]

You missed the point. They're going to make money!!

After this they'll do the custom TLDs, then do away with the whole thing and eventually they'll sell us the domains we really wanted in the first place. Why let people pay once when they'll be happy to pay three or four times.

Re:100,000 preregistered?

[abhi_beckert]

Domain squatting is a completely separate issue. And one that has been solved in many countries —where I live it's outright illegal to domain squat, and protected using the same laws/infrastructure as trademarks.

You can buy any domain you want here, but if someone else has a trademark — or if they're simply better known than you — then they can take it off you at any time. It's also illegal for anyone except officially approved registrars to sell a domain name, so taking control of a domain name someone else owns is always free.