Since the birth of Internet, Adult & Porn sites have attracted maximum traffic. Infact, it has been the only evergreen vertical on the internet, no bubble burst’s here. Its has always been boom-time for porn sites.
There have been talks about having a separate dedicated Top Level Domain for Adult and Porn sites for quite some time now. And finally, yesterday ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Board approved the proposal for the same.
But, you will not start seeing dot-xxx domains immediately – There still needs due-diligence to be done, before you start seeing these TLD’s on the internet. Also, as per the reports, it will not be compulsory for existing adult sites to move to new TLDs!
So, the question that comes to my mind is – Why a separate TLD for Adult in first place ?
I read a comment on Slashdot on this particular aspect and it completely echoes my feelings about it. Here is what the comment was
Getting .xxx TLD accomplishes only a few things that I can see:
- Puts pressure on all sorts of sites to operate only under a .xxx domain whenever a loud enough moral group insist that it should be categorised as dirty.
- Falsely creates a sense of safety amongst idiots who think they can block .xxx and filter out "the bad stuff".
- Creates a sense of unjustified expectation amongst a different set of idiots who immediately decide that just because ICANN has created this TLD, that any site they deem improper that operates outside the hierarchy is engaged in some terrible underhandedness for daring to do so, trying to expose innocent people to their content.
- Instantly tars anyone who visits a site in .xxx domain in the eyes of moralisers and authority groups, regardless of whether the site is donkeyporn.xxx or just some site that was pushed to register under .xxx because it deals with mature topics.
- Creates artificial segregation along lines decided by minority moral bodies. I.e. Adult content has to be treated differently. We don’t have a separate TLD for religion, or science – why must adult be so treated?
- Make pot loads of money for ICANN and registrars everywhere.
Would love to hear readers thoughts on this !