.XXX Domains Are Live

By Jane McEntegart
published

It’s been a long time coming, but the first .xxx domains are officially live.

It’s taken over a decade but the first .xxx domains are finally live and accessible to the web-surfing public. One month after ICANN announced it would allow .xxx domains the same rights as .com, .org and other top level domains, a handful of .xxx websites have gone live. ICM Registry, the company behind the .xxx registry, has nabbed three of the more obvious URLs, sex.xxx, porn.xxx, and xxx.xxx, and is using them as educational websites to teach people about ICM and the .xxx domain.

As a registry operator, ICM Registry will provide management, supporting infrastructure and back-end functionality for .xxx domains. However, while ICM is eager to create and maintain a domain specifically for adult or x-rated content, the industry it’s attempting to target has reservations about the x-rated URLs. One of the drawbacks of .xxx domains is that it will be easier for schools and businesses to block pornography. If pornography is so easily blocked, the adult industry fears it may suffer as a result.

Despite .xxx being voluntary, companies face an awkward decision regarding the new registry: Say an adult entertainment company doesn’t want a cyber-squatter sitting on the .xxx version of their website, but also doesn’t want to endure the easily-blocked nature of a .xxx website. The obvious answer would be to purchase the .xxx domain and simply not use it. However, companies (or countries) blocking .xxx domains could cross-reference those illicit URLs with regular .com or .org addresses and block those versions too.

The initial launch of .xxx will happen in three ‘sunrise’ phases during which trademark holders and porn webmasters can secure their .xxx domains. The Register reports that this while all of this won’t start until September, general availability could come as soon as November and “certain ‘Founder’ sites at premium domains could go live in as little as a few weeks from now.”

Jane McEntegart
28 Comments Comment from the forums
  • flamethrower205
    Eh, doubt it'll stick that much. People don't like the address being so obvious.
    Reply
  • falchard
    I already reserved my website SugarAndCream.xxx
    Reply
  • bustapr
    tried them out, theyre not live yet, theres just the same .xxx domain page in all the sites.
    Reply
  • bustapr
    damn, steam sure takes its time decrypting portal 2 XD
    Reply
  • alidan
    i should buy up a bunch of urls with .xxx and than auction them off one by one.
    Reply
  • What is the point of .xxx? The names for porn sites aren't exactly going to be used by .coms, now are they? This is the dumbest thing in the history of internet legislation. The more top-level domains, the worse the internet gets.
    Reply
  • c_stec
    bustaprdamn, steam sure takes its time decrypting portal 2 XDI'm in the exact same boat. Only at 32%. Anywho, on a more related note, I don't think these will become a big deal.
    Reply
  • AltPluzF4
    "One of the drawbacks of .xxx domains is that it will be easier for schools and businesses to block pornography"
    Funny quote.

    Anyway, this clearly won't hurt anything, since it's optional to use a .xxx domain. The entire concept of .xxx domains would only work if there was a global agreement upon the human population to use it as a way to keep minors from illicit content. However, that's a "perfect world" which will never be. So this is nothing more than a wasted effort. Any pornographic content will be and can be easily bypassed on filters, especially since you can use trusted sites with server-side scripting to pull content from blocked sites. Such as web proxies... when I was in school, I bypassed anything I wanted simply by using a web proxy. Filters can't block those without knowing every one available.

    In summary; I think this is pointless, and an unintended side-affect that I see is forums that censor links by replacing the .com with .xxx; I suspect that spammers will search for these, register the domains, and use it as a way to trick people into visiting their content.
    Reply
  • "As a registry operator, ICM Registry will provide management, supporting infrastructure and back-end functionality for .xxx domains."

    Having trouble suppressing the Beavis and Butthead snickers...
    Reply
  • The XXX extension will have no affect on adult Dotcom websites; adult Dotcoms will remain unchanged. Furthermore, with so much adverse publicity - including threats by Governments to block XXX country by country - many will look to avoid the XXX webspace completely. For those compelled to reserve domains defensively, it's likely that anonymity will be required as names get set as Unresolvable and/or Unknown. The outcome? Perhaps a mass of "For Sale" signs by speculators looking to offload their XXX investments.

    All ICANN has done here is to openly advance fragmentation of the Web and encourage people to find new ways of making the most of their surfing experience. The result is that Internet users are now bypassing ICANN to create their own unique, memorable and personalised range of brand new Dashcom Domains and TLDs, totally free.

    Sites such as Dashworlds.com now provide brand new Dashcom (not Dotcom) domain names. Dashcoms are addresses in format "travel-com", "hard-ware", "stock-market" (and of course any XXX your heart might desire). Totally outside the realm and control of ICANN, Internet users can create any domain or TLD in any language, instantly and at no cost.

    With users and members in over 90 countries worldwide, resolution is via an APP; although new ISP Links are available to make this unnecessary (ISP Links that are also available to ICANN).

    Having just one Internet floating in infinite cyberspace is like saying you can go anywhere in the USA as long as you only use route 66. So now, just as in the USA (and everywhere else in the world) the Internet has more than one option.
    Reply