XXX TLD Officially Open

[Adaptive]

I actually find this structured approach to be quite interesting, despite the cynical, money-minting glee with which it will no doubt be executed. How far the industry has come since the days of faxing in my passport to register a .com.

Allow me to translate, for those that were lulled into a hypnotic trance by the Patrick Stewart sound alike:

Sunrise A: Additional adult domain cost! Your existing domain strategy just got more expensive to maintain unless you want your SEO to get nuked.

Sunrise B: Brand Blackmail, early period. Otherwise known as "That's a nice non-adult themed brand you have, it would terrible to see something happen to it."

Landrush: Laughing all the way to the bank. 18 days? Try 18 hours.

General Availability: Gone, all the good names are.

[MartinCron]

Sunrise B: Brand Blackmail, early period

For what it's worth, it looks like the Sunrise B is for blocking/making it impossible to register .xxx domains with your registered trademark such as MarthaStewart.xxx instead of having to pay to register (and presumably not use) MarthaStewart.xxx

If any other TLDs work this way, I don't know of them.

[andrewvc]

Regardless of your opinion of adult content, this stuff makes far less practical sense than things like RTA labeling http://www.rtalabel.org/. All that RTA requires is a simple meta tag, and it's free.

Content filters abide by it, and it doesn't disrupt existing business.

.xxx is just an effort to make money with another new TLD. It doesn't make the web safer and it doesn't make content-filters simpler or more accurate.

Since no one is proposing forcing sites to use .xxx, those concerned with truly making the web safer should really be looking for the most effective way to get wide penetration of a labeling solution, and a meta tag is about as simple as simple gets.

[joe_the_user]

Since no one is proposing forcing sites to use .xxx,

No one has to propose it openly since the threat is implicit. Regardless of what is said at the moment of creation of the domain, all that a would-be censor has to do is wait [Internet-memory-erasure-period] and say "hey, we created XXX because all the porn is supposed to only be here" and viola.

[gwright]

I disagree. Setting aside the problem of global top level domains, which I think are a bad idea, tagging adult sites via domain names greatly facilitates filtering as compared to meta tags.

Meta tags are an application level concept and so they have to be implemented at that level via browsers or HTTP proxies, or deep packet inspection.

DNS based filtering can be done more simply via network layer devices without having to look at the application level content. So DNS filters would work even if the website content was encrypted, for example.

From an administrative point of view it is much easier to control and manage network infrastructure than it is to control individual browsers or application level gateways.

[jackpirate]

this stuff makes far less practical sense than things like RTA labeling

The XXX in the URL makes the content filtering human readable. That is hugely important, and a service that can only be provided by a TLD.

That said, I agree that this is nothing but a new way to heckle money.

[kosei]

+1 for the use of "wide penetration" in a post about .xxx domains :-)

[jackpirate]

The consensus seems that the .XXX TLD is just a money grab because it's not forcing adult content onto this TLD, and there is no practical way to even do that.

Therefore, wouldn't a counterpart TLD, such as .SAFE, actually make more sense? Companies that target children, such as Walt Disney, could provide a guaranteed safe sub-internet. With wikipedia's new filtering options, they could put a wiki-subset on .SAFE with maximum filtering on.

It would be hugely costly to police, and so probably the most expensive TLD ever. But some companies would surely still be able to profit.

[mmatants]

Agree re: cash grab.

The counterpart "safe" TLD is part of a much bigger content curation problem that is evolving in the Internet. Some parents out there are not at all OK with Disney content, even, some will want to leave boobs in but head-crushing out, etc, etc. Properly tailoring to people's many shades of content filtering seems like a job for dedicated browser-recognized crypto certificate chains.

This way, different consumers can directly delegate trust to a custom choice of entities that already are engaged in this space (e.g. all the "family focus" agencies), instead of fighting over a centralized TLD committee.

[rhplus]

This is what the KIDS.US domain was supposed to be. Their directory lists fewer than 10 sites that successfully signed up. All of the content is dead or stale. Just how do you police any sort of dynamic, interesting, ever changing content?

http://www.cms.kids.us http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2002/11/56429

[waitwhat]

Ah yes, .xxx -- a solution to a problem that absolutely nobody had other than wannabe-censors.

[jarin]

And woe be to the adult company who registers a .xxx domain and redirects it to their .com site.

[veyron]

how about whitehouse.com? Quite a few kids stumbled into the world of porn through that domain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehouse.com

[lowglow]

I feel desensitized by the countless number of TLDs that have come out recently. I guess I should be excited by .XXX, but I just am not.

[kijeda]

Not quite countless. There are 307 TLDs today, up from about 250 a decade ago. Most of this growth as been in non-Latin IDN domains (There are 21 gTLDs today, including .XXX)

There will however be a sea change in the future, ICANN is intending the open up applications for new gTLDs in 2012 that could see hundreds more TLDs added. So if adding the dozen or so new gTLDs in the last 10 years has seemed countless, it will get worse.

[Adaptive]

I'm with you, and they know this too. That's why they produced such a happy-sounding threat letter video.

[Sephr]

It's only a matter of time before someone pays the ICM Registry for on A record on XXX. so they can have http://xxx/

[ashconnor]

For $85,000 though. Makes .xxx look cheap.

[joezydeco]

Can I get xxx.xxx and then subdomain it out to my heart's content to anyone that wants to pay?

Martha Stewart can pay under Sunrise B to stop marthastewart.xxx, but can she stop marthastewart.xxx.xxx?

[sdkmvx]

She can sue for trademark infringement via normal channels (courts) for both of those, even if she has not registered marthastewart.xxx.

[palish]

vectormath.zzz.yyy.xxx

[0x12]

The temptation to put a useful, non-porn site on a subdomain of .xxx is quite large. Just to make the point that .xxx is useless and for the large number of clicks that it will no doubt bring.

Elementary programming course on 'thesecretcode.xxx'. Legions of porn seeking people converted to programmers, if slashdot is any indication that should be a perfect match.

[TomGullen]

I want to register "fffaaaaaaaaaaaaaaxxxxxxx.xxx" and it can be a place people can send faxes online from

[jmtame]

There's something difficult about saying "hey go to mypornsite dot x-x-x", it's 3 syllables over the conventional "dot com", "dot net" or "dot org."

[dpcan]

Well, I think tripple X is probably the way most people will "say" it, if it's ever actually "said" - if you know what I mean.

When's the last time someone told you to go to a porn site in plain English, out loud, anywhere?

[dskhatri]

It reminds me of the .mobi silliness. Why would a TLD, meant for the mobile devices, require one more keystroke, AND for the unfortunate people stuck using old phones with telephone keypads, require hitting 6 twice?

[cryptoz]

www has three times as many syllables as 'world wide web', yet somehow it caught on.

[chc]

On the other hand, the length + repetition also makes it more memorable than most TLDs.

[wgx]

"Go to mysite dot tripl'x" ?

[guelo]

ICANN is a corrupt undemocratic non-representative self-important parasite on the internet who's main concern is increasing their budget so they can schedule more of their all expense paid meetings in Puerto Rico or Costa Rica.

That is all.

[WestCoastJustin]

Feel like I'm going to get in trouble checking this out at work ;) All anyone has to do now it filter by .xxx

[burgerbrain]

What really needs to happen now is for lots of people to start registering domains for (preferably high profile) non-adult content websites.

Water down the domain so it no longer means much, so filtering by it becomes destructive.

[missing_cipher]

For that to be effective, any and all pornographic content in every other TLD will have to be banned. I don't see that happening...

[waitwhat]

That, IMO, is the reason for .xxx -- to make life easier for those who want to censor the internet.

[T_S_]

Hard to see what all the excitement is about while xxx.ly is still available.

[p4bl0]

So, who's gonna get lambdax.xxx ;-) ?

[celalo]

how do they make these intro videos? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIDKnDSaWqE Does this technique have a name? Are there any special tools for that?

[sampsonjs]

Since the MPAA got rid of the X rating, I'm glad we have this. Now the phrase "Triple X" won't become obsolete.