ICANN has approved the proposed .xxx top-level domain (TLD) and entered negotiations with ICM Registry to work out the details. Here's ICM's description of .xxx and how it envisions it will work:
The .xxx sponsored top-level domain will create a clearly identifiable area of the Internet that will empower families and help protect children and others from unwanted or inappropriate content. The existence of the sponsored TLD would facilitate meaningful, voluntary self-organization and self-regulation by responsible adult-entertainment website operators.There's lots of commentary on the .xxx TLD in the domain blogosphere (see below for links). My two cents: The notion that this will lead to any meaningful quarantine of porn sites is absurd. If you're a network admin for a corporation or school, you can eliminate a headache by filtering out the entire .xxx TLD. So which porn sites will move to .xxx, abandoning any visitors from those networks? Oh, yeah - the "responsible" adult-entertainment sites. Call me crazy, but I'm guessing those aren't the same folks who are using zombie botnets to inundate my email Inbox and weblog comments with porn spam. So why approve it? Some say its politics, but I think politicizing TLDs leads to more headaches, not fewer. What's left?
Money, of course. For starters, fees to ICANN, and the registry, which will charge $75 per domain. Given adult sites' success using domains to build traffic, we may see a land rush once the .xxx names are released. Even if a porn site doesn't want to operate within the new TLD, they may want to buy the domains associated with their brands as a defensive move.
Here's some other commentary from domain blogs:
Christopher Ambler sees the approval as a hopeful omen for the pending .web TLD. Then there's the hornet's nest addressed by Lauren Weinstein in a letter to ICANN: "The creation of dot-ex-ex-ex may set the stage for potentially damaging and disruptive content control and censorship wars that we can hardly even imagine today. It's worth thinking through these issues very carefully before going down that path." Problematic scenarios are also addressed by Declan McCullagh at News.com: "One worry is that some nations may force sites dealing with sensitive topics like homosexuality or birth control into the .xxx zone, where they can be easily blocked."
Posted by RichM 
June 2, 2005 | Permalink | Newsletter
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