Pornography will have its own domain, dot-XXX

The creation of a new red-light district on the web has been an ongoing discussion for several years. ICM Registry, a private Florida company, has long been pushing for the specialized dot-xxx suffix for adult entertainment web sites.

ICANN to give the .xxx domain the go-ahead
ICANN, the government-appointed agency responsible for assigning online domain extensions, agreed Friday at a meeting in Brussels to move forward on the long-standing proposal to set an official designation for porn websites.

The group ruled that in order to maintain neutrality in dealing with new domain names, it should create the dot-xxx suffix, which would be dedicated to pornography, and allow porn websites to sign up to the scheme on a voluntary basis, reports UK’s Telegraph.

There are an estimated 5 to 6 million adult sites on the World Wide Web, but a majority of them are expected not to welcome the move

"If expedited due diligence results are successful, then staff will proceed into contract negotiations over .xxx," said John Jeffrey, general counsel for ICANN, the California-based nonprofit agency which is appointed by the U.S. government to oversee the internet content.

ICM welcomes the move
ICM Registry has heralded the ICANN’s decision and said it expects to go live with .xxx domains, similar to the .com and .co.uk domain names used by other companies, at the start of 2011.

"It's been a long time coming," ICM Chairman Stuart Lawley said in a statement, adding that it is "great news for those that wish to consume, or avoid, adult content."

"The decision should soon bring to fruition our six-year effort to create a specific Web address for online adult entertainment, and comes on the heels of an independent review that declared that ICANN's previous decision to deny dot-xxx was wrong," he said.

“It is good for everybody,” Lawley, whose company will run the domain, said. “It is a win for the consumer of adult content. They will know that the dot-xxx sites will operate by certain standards.”

"People who want to find it know where it is, and people who don't see it or want to keep it away from their kids can use mechanisms to do so," he said.

Porn industry may have no interest in moving to the .xxx domain
While the creation of so-called “sex.com” domain may help parents stop their children from seeing adult content, the experts believe the plan may upset much of the adult entertainment industry.

There are an estimated 5 to 6 million adult sites on the World Wide Web, but a majority of them are expected not to welcome the move.

"Expecting pornographers to voluntary give up their successful .com addresses and locate solely on the .xxx domain is both foolish and shortsighted," said Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough Is Enough, in a statement.

“Arguments presented suggesting that the U.S. Congress will be able to pass a law to require all pornographers to leave the .xxx space would likely not pass, and even if passed, would likely be either struck down in the federal courts or be unenforced.

“Historically, all attempts by Congress to regulate Internet pornography have not been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court,” the statement further read.