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ICANN Approves .xxx Suffix For Porn Websites

Posted by Soulskill on from the if-you-build-it dept.

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."

4 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. 100,000 preregistered? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure that 90% of those preregistrations are by domain name squatters.

  2. Wtf is xxx? by bjourne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is only in the US that xxx is equivalent to porn. In other languages, xxx means crossed over or censored. So why the fuck is the new tld called "xxx" when the porn link is only obvious to Americans? Isn't ICANN supposted to care about the whole world and not just the US? If they wanted a porn tld, they could have called it ".porn," ".adult" or even ".sex" both which would have been more logical than ".xxx" Is it because the word "porn" is so dirty you have to call it "xxx" instead and pretend it is something else?

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  3. Re:it took me a while to figure this one out by mysidia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because the ICANN board is chosen by domain registrars who stand the most to gain by introduction of a new TLD.

  4. Re:why do people think this is a bad idea? by Aboroth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here are some points in reply:

    -It is stupid to expect all porn to go to ".xxx".
    -Therefore it doesn't make it easier to filter porn, it means your filters have to have one extra line for "block *.xxx". Technically, it is a little more work to block porn now than it was before.
    -Who defines porn, anyway? What is it, exactly?
    -The only reason it exists is to print money, and everyone is jealous that they can't do that