New .XXX Top Level Domain

Jigabug writes "There's a story over at Yahoo! News mentioning yesterday's approval by ICANN on a new .xxx TLD. Domains are currently planned to be offered at 60.00 each for registration. The .xxx joins the recently approved .jobs and .travel." From the article: "Adult-oriented sites, a $12 billion industry, probably could begin buying xxx addresses as early as fall or winter depending on ICM's plans, ICANN spokesman Kieran Baker said. The new pornography suffix was among 10 under consideration by the regulatory group..." CNN and the BBC have commentary as well.

Hmmmm...

Why not .orgy ?

Re:S'more...

or .cum

Re:S'more...

Because, as much as you'd like to believe, .jiz doesn't cover everything.

Everything related to the content, that is.

Re:Hmmmm...

The dole office on Normanton Road used to have the words "JOBS JOBS JOBS" plastered across the downstairs windows. The upstairs suite was vacant. I wanted to rent the upstairs rooms just so I could have "BLOW BLOW BLOW" written across the windows. And, of course, while I was there, I could sell a bit of blow as well .....

Re:Hmmmm...

Because it's easier to type .xxx with one hand?

Well great!

More TLDs noone is going to use because ".com" just sounds cooler.

Re:Well great!

Sure .jobs and .travel are going to take a long time to get used properly.

And the porn industry will be quick to register blow.jobs a lot sooner than they register one of these .xxx tlds

Re:Well great!

"Our thrust is to prick holes in the stiff front erected by the smut dealers. We must keep mounting an offensive to penetrate any crack in his defenses, so we can lay to rest his dominate position. We want him hung and we want stiff action. Let's get on him. Let's ram through a stiff bail law so it'll be hard for him to get it up. We've got to come together so we can whip this thing into submission. It'll be hard on us but we can't lick it by being soft."

G.C.

IAWTP

they should be looking at the needs of other net users. .blog would be a good start.

It would make it so much easier to filter. Google: "usefulstuff -site:.blog". I like it allready.

Just a price hike

Porn is one of the most profiting busineses on the internet. What if you just could bunch those profitable business together and force them to pay more? In TFA it suggest a price of 60$ which is about 10 times more then a normal domain. Why should it be this expensive? Are domains with the letter X that much harder to register than domains with the letter c?
This is nothing more than a gamble that legisation will force adult content to .xxx. The registar hopes to cash in on that move. Since the expense of 60$ is just small change with profitable porn, they may just get away with it too. Maybe /. should ask a licence to print money from congress too?

Obligitary

Goatse.XXX

Re:Would that be a problem?

But then Irish non-profit organizations would have to use .org.ie. Which I don't think they would really like to do.

Re:Would that be a problem?

I guess your beef is more with them actually legislating it, but that doesn't seem like such a big deal to me either.

As a Brit, I'm not too keen on the American govt trying to claim legislative control over the internet. If I decide to put kinky pictures on my site (which, as you will note, is at a .org domain name), does that mean that I get sued by the American govt? If the plan is for the legislation to only apply to Americans, how is that going to be enforced without removing internet anonymity? How long til the world governments decide that, since the whole .xxx thing worked so well (or regardless of the fact that it didn't) they'd like to control more stuff thank you very much?

How long til my favourite white-hat hacking sites go dark?

Yeah, right. THAT would work

It's going to be about a year before Congress tries to find someway to outlaw all porn that isn't on a .xxx domain.

Because the entire internet is in the US. (Not saying the morons won't try it)

this could lead to a new breed of bad jokes...

eg. "your mummas house has a .xxx address!"

Re:Yeah, like they're going to voluntarily do this

Even better, from TFA:

"ICM contends the "xxx" Web addresses, which it plans to sell for $60 a year, will protect children from online smut if adult sites voluntarily adopt the suffix so filtering software used by families can more effectively block access to those sites. The $60 price is roughly ten times higher than prices other companies charge for dot-com names."

So... what? The .xxx top-level domain only exists to help filter pr0n (blithely assuming parents all use filtering software)? And it costs ten times what a .com address does? And because it's new and non-standard people are less likely to recognise/remember/use it?

Wow, sounds like they're really stacking up those reasons to change to a .xxx address, eh?

I can't wait.

I look forward to the 20-year running gag that will be the legal battle over "sex.xxx".

Which is the top reason they *won't* move

If we can start moving all the pornography on to .xxx sites then we could make it far easier for people who dislike pornography to block it out .

Which is the top reason they *won't* move. Porn sites are fully aware that many people are infact paying for porn while pretending not to like it. People have subpoenaed adult channel subscription to disprove "community standards" and found that lots of people that supposedly don't like porn are subscribing to porn.

It is the same reason telemarketers would love to call people that have reserved themselves against telemarketing, and the reason the show pop-ups to people with pop-up blockers. Many people are weak and have installed those in "self-defense". So you stay on .com, and get all the people that have blocked .xxx but will, if you just tempt them properly, subscribe to your site. Result: Profit!

Kjella

Wow, they did something right!

I think this is the first actually useful TLD to be introduced in years. Congrats ICANN, you actually did something worthwhile and managed to justify about two weeks of this year's operating budget.

Now of course, we'll see who actually moves from COM to XXX voluntarily.

*sound of crickets chirping*

Re:Wow, they did something right!

This is NOT good news.

1) ISPs can and many will undoubtedly block .xxx

2) If any country decides to introduce legislation mandating the use of .xxx for adult sites it will SEVERELY hurt the adult industry as many people who own hundreds of domains would have to pay much greater amount than they currently do for .xxx equivalents ... and you can bet that domain squatters are going to do whatever they can to make a fortune off of registering .xxx equivalents of popular adult sites.

It's already known that $10 off of each domain sale is designated to go to IFFOR to "contribute to issues facing the adult online industry" .. however, most savvy webmasters pay less than $10 / domain as it is right now... and any adult organization supporting the new .xxx is undoubtedly only in it for personal financial gain .. as the overwhelming disapproval of adopting the TLD by the adult industry as a whole has been seen time and time again.

New Google Site

http://www.google.xxx [google.com]?

STUPID idea, and this is why

but why can't there be legislation that FORCES pornographic websites to use such a suffix from now on?

Because the entire world uses DNS, and the entire world doesn't have a consistent standard for what is socially acceptable when it comes to sexuality.

Some Islamic countries consider it socially unacceptable to show anything other than the eyes and hands of a woman.

In the US, we'd consider the French and British tendancies to stick topless women on TV unacceptable.

Japan has a real problem with showing genital hair, but no problem at all with representing underage characters.

The problem is that it suddenly tries to stick a single moral standard on the entire world to make a few short-sighted people who are agitating for an "xxx" domain (because they're scared Junior *might* discover what a woman looks like before getting married, God forbid!)

This promises to create an almost unlimited number of social problems. Why, why, *why* is ICANN letting this through? Okay, if we want to have a .xxx.us domain, we can make it, but there is zero reason aside from registrars pushing for more short-term money and a few short-sighted people pushing to "solve" the "Internet porn problem".

It's possible to build a worldwide content-rating system, but tying it into DNS (at least using the current approach) is just plain stupid. You want websites to be rated, add a /rating.txt file that works like the robots.txt that indicates level of content, and have web browsers and proxies respect it. For Christ's sake. But don't do something goddamn stupid like add a .xxx TLD.

Re:i'm certain i'm not the first to think of this

but why can't there be legislation that FORCES pornographic websites to use such a suffix from now on?

Who decides what constitutes "pornography"? You? Congress? What if Iran got to decide? They have internet access, too, remember.

A simple litmus test could be that the obscenity rules that apply to broadcasters being the yardstick against which .xxx compulsory domain naming apply

Yeah, the FCC has done such a great job of applying random, inconsistent rules to broadcasters. Skin is immoral and dangerous to our children, but extreme violence is perfectly fine? Also note that radio broadcasters have *much* more stringent rules than over-the-air television broadcasters do.

it's a win-win situation according to me... what am i not getting?

Government-mandated morality is not a good thing because it relies on one subset of the population's interpretation of "morals". This is not to say that the TLD is a bad idea, but it needs to be voluntary, not compulsory.

It might save my eyes

Next time I need some sporting equipment and go to Dicks.com I won't be unpleasantly surprised.

Adding the .xxx might help normal domains register what they want. There are so many porn sites, there is a chance that your domain might be taken and filled with horse on midget porn. It might be a bad decision to use BiteMyNipples.com for a business anyway, but as long as you stay away from the .xxx your customers might not get tricked.

This only matters if porn decides to use the .xxx anyway though, and there really isn't any reason for them to start. Old sites probably won't convert. New sites might choose either or both. I guess it is just one more chance for a site to get the URL they want.