Daily Domainer

ICANN revived a proposal they had earlier rejected to introduce a .xxx domain extension for adult sites. The use of the extension would be non-obligatory, and adult sites using a .xxx domain would voluntarily subject themselves to rules such as using clear content labeling, not posting any child pornography, not committing consumer fraud or engaging in deceptive marketing techniques, and not sending any unsolicited emails. Websites violating these requirements would presumably lose their .xxx domain.

The introduction of the .xxx extension had been rejected by conservative groups, who argued that if adult sites can keep their current .com domains, the introduction of .xxx would effectively increase pornography on the Internet. Adult site operators voiced their opposition as well, suspecting that they would eventually have to give up their .com domains (or redirect them to an .xxx domain) which woud allow the government and even private industry to censor "speech" that is protected under the US First Amendement. The word "speech", if defined broadly, presumably includes images and videos.

ICANN Publishes Revised Proposed Agreement on .XXX
http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-05jan07.htm

Outline of Significant Changes to the ICM Registry Agreement
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/xxx/changes-05jan07.htm

Daily Domainer comments:

We applaud the introduction of new theme or usage oriented domain extensions such as .travel, .mobi and .xxx. Some will catch on while others will languish and eventually disappear. The .xxx extension would come with strings attached, and while some of the requirements such as not posting child pornography and not committing consumer fraud would seem pretty obvious, adult site operators understandably fear that the introduction of an adults-only domain extension might only be the first of many steps to restrict adult content on the web.