Dot-xxx domain ‘invites online red light district’

The decision to set up a dot-xxx web domain dedicated to porn sites has been greeted with dismay not only by the adult entertainment industry, but also its opponents and sex addiction counsellors.
 
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has finally approved long-standing plans to create the special suffix for adult sites. But there are concerns that it will create an "online red light district".
 
The porn industry is worried that the new domain will lead to over regulation and marginalisation while anti-pornography groups fear the opposite. They believe the dot-xxx suffix will make it easier for internet users to access porn, describing it as a "one stop shop".
 
Diane Duke of the Free Speech Coalition, which represents more than 1,000 adult entertainment businesses, told the New York Times that opponents of the idea "made for strange bedfellows, for sure".
 
The company behind the idea, ICM Registry, says the plan is to create a corner of the internet dedicated to sex sites that is well-policed and free of spam, viruses and credit card thieves. The addresses will cost $60 a year, with $10 going to an organisation promoting "responsible business practices".
 
The dot-xxx suffix was first suggested in 2005 but was rejected by ICANN after protests from conservative groups and over fears that it would be asked to police the content of xxx sites, something it was not created to do.
 
However, that decision has now been overturned and ICM expects the first sites to go live in early 2011. It says it already has more than 110,000 registrations. By next year it believes there will be as many as 500,000 sites using the special addresses. But that figure represents just 10 per cent of the five to six million sex sites currently in existence.
 
Observers also point out that many of the registrations so far have been from companies anxious to prevent their site name from being hijacked. Furthermore, adult sites will not be forced into using the dot-xxx suffix, and Duke said that most members of the Free Speech Coalition plan to carry on operating out of the dot-com domains for which they have already paid.
 
The idea does have some supporters. "Never mind the self-serving flannel about censorship," wrote Barbara Ellen in the Observer, "dedicated space online will result in an online porn ghetto, with sex sites filtered out more efficiently, loss of passing traffic and plummeting revenue." ·