"The majority of adult webmasters want .xxx - only the radicals from the FSC dont"

Why the .xxx - would anyone want a top-level domain for porn?

Seth Finkelstein
Thursday January 25, 2007
The Guardian


The idea of a ".xxx" web suffix for porn sites is the internet's vampire: it seems nothing can kill it. Censors often oppose it because they believe anything that can be construed as legitimisation of pornography will hinder their efforts against it. Civil libertarians oppose it on grounds such as the threat of it being used to marginalise a wide range of material having to do with sexuality. Adult webmasters widely view it with suspicion, as anyone who has a ghettoisation scheme to "help" them usually isn't doing them a favour.

In fact, it is very difficult to find any lobbying group in favour of .xxx, with one notable exception. Namely, a company called ICM Registry, which would hand out .xxx site registrations, and would be given a money-making machine. The .xxx vampire has risen again because Icann, the organisation in charge of top-level domains, recently revisited the question of whether it should approve it as a "Voluntary Adult Top-Level Domain".
Too much of the punditry about this consists of repeating clichés about kids and red lights. But, leaving aside where one stands on issues of censorship, the .xxx domain is a bad idea purely from a business standpoint. To begin with, it provides no additional technical value. Labelling schemes have been around for years, and there already are systems that provide all .xxx could do. Putting such a label into a domain extension accomplishes nothing useful and gives the registry a monopoly.

Some people who support .xxx are apparently unaware of the long history of rating and labelling, as shown by the fact that already tried ideas are being reinvented, badly. (See, for example, the memo .sex Considered Dangerous').

Furthermore, many sites that already exist would not want to switch their names. If they already have a user base, why do anything which could disrupt operations? If the new domain is truly voluntary, a purchase would have to pass a cost-benefit analysis. But ICM Registry still has a virtually guaranteed market. Three notable groups would rush to purchase .xxx domains:

· Corporations not associated with pornography who will want to protect their trademarks. They will register their trademark names as domains for defensive purposes - not because they want to put a site on the domain, but so someone else cannot. This is a perpetual stream of income for the registry, and at the planned price of $60 (£30) for each domain, it will be a big chunk of money.

· Domain-name speculators who will want to get common words for potential resale value. These people don't want to run a site themselves, they want to resell the name to others.

These first two groups are pure profit to the .xxx registry. Since they aren't running sites themselves, there are no verification or compliance costs associated in determining if the domains are following registry policies.

· Bona fide pornographers, who will register the .xxx domain names corresponding to their existing .com domain names to avoid speculators, or so a competitor doesn't do it to cause market confusion, or as insurance in case some future law makes the .xxx domain mandatory for their content. This is similar to the trademark reason: it's defensive.

None of these registrations and associated registration revenue has anything to do with protecting children. It's all about fear that someone else will use the names, or greed to resell the names. Essentially, whoever gets the .xxx registry is playing the above groups against each other in a game of fear, uncertainty, and doubt - and collecting a large fee no matter who wins.

And pointing to the amount of preregistration claims shouldn't be used to imply that anybody actually wants the .xxx domain. Again, speculators may want it, but not for a reason anyone else would endorse. (Comments can be made to ICANN until February 5at [email protected] and viewed here). Surely, if everyone from civil libertarians and censors to adult industry webmasters says .xxx is a bad idea then maybe we can all agree it's a bad idea, and finally put a stake through its heart.

Hello,

I am a succesfull and responsible adult webmaster and I'm writing you to let you know that I am strongly opposed the the .xxx domain name idea.

While it sounds that the ICM Registry has good intensions, it is a clearly money driven proposal. ICM has no support in the adult webmaster community - the responsile part of our community fully supports self regulation, but we don't want to be regulated by outside companies, with no relations to our community.

I also feel that .xxx won't be a success also because of the surprisingly high cost ($75 per domain) of the proposed .xxx domains. It will not help parents to protect their children, if anything, it will give them a false security. The majority of adult webmasters won't abandon their current .com and ..net domains to move to .xxx - in fact .xxx domains will be mostly registered by domain speculators and by companies wanting to protect their trademarks.

Overall, .xxx won't accomplish anything and it's a clearly bad proposal, with no support at all from the adult webmasters community.