New 'XXX' Domains for Adult Web Sites

By Ed Oswald | Published June 2, 2005, 11:56 AM

Internet users looking for -- or blocking -- pornography will have a much easier time thanks to a new top-level domain name just approved by ICANN. The group responsible for overseeing the world's domain names approved the ".xxx" domain, which British company ICM Registry will be in charge of managing.

The new domains could appear as soon as the end of the year, according to ICANN. Dot-xxx was part of 9 other new domains being considered by the organization. Consumers will be able to purchase the new domains for $60 per year. ICM says it will work with companies to voluntarily move them over to the new domain in order to help protect children from seeing inappropriate content.

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Nothing like charging ten times as much to facilitate voluntary movement.

The adult sites with the financial wherewithall to make such a transition are the least spammy of the bunch. With the censorship of xxx that will no doubt follow, the search indices will still be cluttered with the most spammy, seedy adult sites out there.

One other thing...

Why is it with *some* on the right that chanting things like "Nuke Iran," "Carpet Bomb Iraq," "kill liberals" doesn't inspire even a nanosecond of introspection or consideration of the social consequences about perpetuating such savage, violent thinking and behavior, but...

one tit on a TV and the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

If these sort of people weren't so scary and violent, this sort of absurdity would keep me in perpetual laughter.

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tit's kill, homosexuals want to have sex with every same-sex person they meet and muder is cool as long as its in the name of god.... and not in my country.

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In my opinion, this is quite pointless, as only certain websites will use this new domain, leaving hundred-of-thousands of adult content websites out there on .com/net/org domains, parents will simply not spend the time monitoring their children and end up just blocking .xxx domains, then they will blame everyone but themselves when they catch little Timmy doing the deeds.

This is the internet, it’s a place where a person is suppose to have freedom (a freedom that is slowly being taken away) last time I checked, it was not illegal to be naked, or have sex or watch people having sex (if it is illegal in your country I suggest you move.) people who wish to have sexual content removed from the internet need to filter it out or call up their ISP’s and cancel.. Problem solved.

Again, YOU DO NOT HAVE THR RIGHT to take away others freedoms because it conflicts with your own religious or moral views.

Side note for those who see everything as Black & White: I am not supporting things like child pornography rape or the rare but sometimes seen murder-rampage plots, these all affect others against their will and should be removed and people should be brought to justice.

Ps. Please don’t mind my spelling and grammar

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Whoever you are "jeffreybt", I like ur comments.
Thanks

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God I just love the people they think porn, videogames, viopent movies, and other crap should be banned cause it is "bad". Hey do everyone a favor remove whatever you inserted into your backend and wake up to the real world. If you dont like it that is fine dont look at it, teach your kids to not to also if that is what you want for them. Dont try to censor something just cause you and your little group of biblethumpers dont like it.

I have a son and I will teach him right from wrong just like my mother and father did to me. I will watch porn if I want to, watch a violent movie, then turn on my ps2 and shoot some people in gta3 just cause I am able to and it is my right and feedom.

You dont want to live in the real world then take you and everyone else that think that way to some island in the middle of nowhere and live in huts and have no communication with the rest of the world. Now you can have it just like you want it.

But wait then you would have nothing to piss and moan about since your life sucks so horribly bad you have to ruin others.

But onto the this article, I think they are just making things even worse with making this .xxx domain and then they want to charge $60 to register the site just to have a .xxx domain. How about this, open up your eyes make it cheaper than anything else to register for x years instead of 1 year and offer other advantages that may make it more attractive.
If you try and pass a law to make porn sites do this, then they will just move the servers to another country that does not care and host it there. Then this will be all for nothing.

It is a constnat battle some weeks to block all porn sites here at my job, but hey the few they do get through I normally find within a few hours or someone accessing it cause of th surge in bandwith (most times) along with type of contant being logged.

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I don't think but I believe that porn is "bad". I am not against video games and movies. I also play games like GTA, Driver and NeedForSpeed and watch some violent and horror movies like AvP. I also believe in freedom.
Every parent teaches their kids about good things and no one likes that his or her child go in a wrong direction. The problem here is not about teaching our kids but the problem is that humans r attracted by the bad things bcoz its our nature and if there is no such thing then no one will go in the wrong direction.
There are good games and movies that gives u info about many things but pornography is giving u what?
Freedom and entertainment does not mean that u should open everything in the community. There are ways to entertain ourselves but what type of entertainment is it that u are watching naked people.

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Thanks for protecting childrens from pornography but still we are destroying our youth. Instead of makeing ".xxx" domains, remove all the pornography from the internet. Its just wastage of time and destroying ourselves and nothing else. Misuse of technologies.

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Great Idea, but people want to make money out of something and this seems the easy way to do it.
The tricky part for implementing ".xxx" domains correctly will be introducing legislation to prohibit the use of other top level domains as pornographic sites.
It would certainly make web-surfing for children a lot less hectic at school if webhosts actually followed the trend, but this still doesn't account for "nude/mature" content that aren't as explicit as pornography.

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I completely agree. Pornography is nothing but destructive to whoever is affected by it (children AND adults). In my opinion, it should be outlawed altogether, but I know that will never happen.

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I think if we are to remove porn for being "destructive", we should also remove all religious sites since, for those that know history, religion has been the justification for more "destruction" than some kid jerking it ever was.

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"Instead of makeing ".xxx" domains, remove all the pornography from the internet."

No. How about you learn how to be a parent and protect your kids from seeing it? Don't ruin it for every one else.

your like the people who blame violence on videogames. It's the parents obligation to raise their kids right and make sure they dont see what they are not allowed to, untill they are 18+ like every label says EVERYWHERE.
or atleast put things into context

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Additionally, as strange as it seems, a lot of innovation in terms of the internet has come from the adult industry...

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But outlaw religion first, please.

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Absolutely correct! Religion has been and still is the most destructive force ever created by man. Look to the middle-east and see that it continues.

To those of you who say that ALL porn is destructive to all of those exposed to it... well... obviously you've not properly experienced good porn! I'll admit some bad porn movies can be almost painful to watch ... but then again that describes most of what's on TV these days. Don't get me startted on porn soundtracks and pop music! Now that's evil.

The .xxx level domains are a good idea... but you cannot FORCE anyone to register under that description. Some will choose to... others will not. Why should those domains cost more to register? Will part of the money be applied to somehow assist parents in educating their children?

People... if you don't want your kids to view porn... then I suggest you monitor their activities and teach them what types of behaviour you think are appropriate. Also check under their beds. Teach them what you expect of them. Your children are YOUR responsibility... not mine.

Sure, society has a certain responsibility to ALL of us. We are all responsible to one another to adhere to certain acceptable social behaviours. However, pornography is a rather private thing... not a social event (unless you're really lucky!) What's done legally and in private is not subject to legislation by any segment of society or government.

Porn is big business. Sex sells. We are the consumers. So... what's on tonight?

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DUMB and UNPRACTICAL!

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*ahem*

it's impractical

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Ok...I'm all for moving adult-content sites to .xxx domains...but let's give them motiviation to move... I pay $8.95/year for my domains through GoDaddy.com. I have 5 .COM, 1 .ORG, and 2.NET. If I owned an adult-oriented site and you were going to charge me $60/year just to safeguard some kids because their parents don't have the 'stones' to buy good filtering gear or to --oh I love this one-- actually WATCH their kids on the PC, then quite frankly, I'm going to tell you to: shove it, take it where the sun don't shine, kiss my @$$, bite me, etc... We'll probably see the more noteworthy sites move to XXX like Playboy/Penthouse/Hustler/etc... But littlejoespornsite.com isn't going to move because it costs 6x as much per year and doesn't have the same appeal as .COM. Get real.

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Not to be a smartass, but Playboy isn't XXX. They don't want to be associated with Porno. They want to be associated with art, and I'm sure there are many other "porno" sites that feel the same way.

They would never move.

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I think .xxx domains are to be targetted for professional porn sites. Not the average kid ripping other work and pasting it into the site for a few page hits. Since .xxx easily identifies the site type, I'm sure the webmasters would appreciate it. ".com" is just a phase. ".com .net .org" just don't seem right for a porn site. Restricting them to using .xxx would make the internet a safer place for children (and easier for parents to "identify" the site content).

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yeah $60 is a little much, where is the motivation to switch when you have a popular .com? I have always thought the purpose of the site should match the suffix.
general company sites - .com .biz
non-proffit orgs - .org
personal/other - .net
now porno - .xxx

charge less for .org and .net, and discount for length of registration.

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They need to FORCE those filth sites to use the .xxx suffix.

They also shouldn't charge that much dang money for the fee. $60....? Come on.

The whole domain name thing is a racket anyway. Just more money for them everytime there is a new one. .tv .biz .org .net .com .crap

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I agree it would be nice to force some sites to .xxx but I don't believe it would ever happen. They would have to have a STRICT definition of what is xxx. One would say that if there is any nudity it should be .xxx, but that would mean for instance any sites that show Michaelangelo's statue of David to be .xxx. And many art museums have nudity in their art. Should this mean that all museums have .xxx in it?

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i agree with scary guy, nobody is going to switch over to those extentions because of the high price, i can get full service hosting and a domain for that price
it would be another thing if they made the domains like 20 bucks and somehow passed a law that adult content could only be posted on those urls, but that wont ever happen, however i do like that they took a step towards making filtering easier, but it's not gonna work the way they are doing it now

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HAHAHAHA oh wow "Consumers will be able to purchase the new domains for $60 per year."

I maintian my .com (no xxx on it btw except for a few funny pictures I have in the gallery) for 15 bucks a year, and I hear of it being as low as 8.

Though when you rake in the cash that most of the big XXX sites do I guess they can afford it.

But don't forget people are cheap for the most part as well.

It's also going to be funny when 80% of the internet moves to the new domain.

Can we put all advertising under .ad too?

Lets try to widdle it down to the 1% of usefull information on the net.

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You all have valid points. But if the amount drops. Which of course it will. Then I would think it would be easier to find the sites. Searh engines, and s***, which connects all of them . Could work better. And the domain name is kinda cool. I really think this is cool. And a step in the right direction. To a safer internet.

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Personally, I'd rather have all pornographic and adult content sites moved to a different infrastructure. Free up my damn bandwidth. You would have to institue fines and such to deter hosting sites at .com .org .net etc...
Also, don't even think about charging $60 for registration, let them register for free and get the payment from subscribers to the 'adultnet'

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