ICM’s logo, created by M&C Saatchi

No, a TLD is not a disease, though some might argue that it is on moral grounds. It’s a top level domain , like .com, .net, and .org. We’ve all become more familiar with domains like .info, .biz, and .tv, but when was the last time you recall typing one of them into the address bar? Most users’ web activity is driven almost entirely by searches on their preferred search engine, and a lot of clicking. So maybe you’ll see an ad or marketing piece with one of these TLD’s, but – and I base this statement on a LOT of observation as a web consultant – there’s a good chance that you will still type it into a search box. Which is just one of many reasons I think the fact that ICANN approved the top level domain .xxx today serves little purpose other than to make a lot of money for ICM Registry and its CEO, Stuart Lawley, the party awarded the role of managing the domains. 213,000 domains were allowed to be pre-registered, and Lawley believes that by this summer he can sell as many as 500,000. And at the insane price of 60-70 dollars each (most “regular” domains are usually around ten bucks), that’s easily over $30 million dollars in revenue. And to what end? The established porn industry has never been behind the idea and is already protesting it; they claim it marginalizes their content, and puts it at risk of being completely censored, as well as adding cost burdens to their business. The “casual porn enthusiast” (whatever I mean by that) also won’t like it, because sex, nudity, and porn is so stigmatized in our culture that this kind of user is probably happy to have the content they’re seeking available in normal searches, to maintain some plausible deniability if they fail to “clean their tracks” and get found out by a spouse or parent. And it won’t “clean up the web”, because nothing about the plan dictates that such content can’t appear on existing TLD’s. In fact, it’s just sort of reverse censorship; the domains will only be available to the adult entertainment industry, so all that ICANN has done is carved up an open system (the internet addressing system) and censored the rest of the web from using it. I mean, how cool would it be if you could register “YourName.xxx”? Well, unless you actually are a porn star, you probably can’t. Or can you? I don’t imagine issues like this have been sorted out yet. The International Foundation for Online Responsibility (IFFOR) will make these decisions. This should turn out to be interesting indeed. How sexual will be sexual enough? What do the words “adult” and “erotic” really mean? And if I can’t register IanGray.xxx, can I prevent some adult film company from doing so? I could go on, and probably will revisit the topic soon. But what do you think? Should there be a domain specifically dedicated to adult content?