.XXX domain tempts legitimate companies
There's another land rush on in Canada, but this time the territory is digital. XXX domain names became publicly available last week, and Canadian firms are already rushing to protect themselves against ‘ghost’ porn sites popping up.
The .XXX top level domain was announced earlier this year as a means of corralling porn sites into a single place on the Internet. The idea is that instead of registering using a domain name ending in .com or .net, for example, operators of adult websites could use a domain name that clearly identifies their content as pornographic. That can help to prevent kids from seeing inappropriate content.
It has also created a rush for organisations that want to register their own name under the .XXX top-level domain, to protect their branding. The City of Windsor purchased www.cityWindsor.XXX, for example, to prevent others from using its name to display pornography online. Other names that have already been registered include EdmontonOilers.XXX, and Relus.XXX. Rogers.XXX has been snapped up, and, of course, so has MSN.XXX.
I'm still sceptical about the effectiveness of a new top level domain designed specifically for porn. This is a voluntary exercise, because porn merchants don't legally have to move their skin sites to the .XXX domain. In any case, a mandatory porn ghetto online would be impossible to police. So, porn sites can quite happily leave their sites where they are. And given that .XXX sites will be easily blocked by browser plug-ins and software designed to filter out porn, many of these adult site operators will be actively avoiding the .XXX top-level domain. I checked for .XXX versions of the most popular porn sites as identified by web stats firm Netcraft, and there were no sites online. Significantly, though, the domains had been registered, suggesting that the domains were being protected,
The more I think about it, the more that the .XXX top level domain looks like a licence for web registrars to print money. Once a domain like this is introduced, legitimate brands will be persuaded to register their existing domain names with the .XXX extension, to protect themselves, and to save themselves having to launch costly legal actions against cyber squatters later on.
What's your take on .XXX domain names? Will they be effective at curtailing the inappropriate viewing of porn by minors? Or are they simply a way of generating more cash from businesses?
Danny Bradbury, MSN Tech & Gadgets
Comments
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Posted by: Tri | Dec 16, 2011 2:55:51 PM
"The more I think about it, the more that the .XXX top level domain looks like a licence for web registrars to print money."
Correct. The .xxx domain is the most expensive to register of any domain in history, and 13% of all web searches are porn related. As you noted, other companies are snatching these expensive domains just to protect their brand.
Whomever got the right to sell this domain suffix is there to make a crapton of money and nothing more.