.xxx Domain

In news that has been welcomed and pilloried, a new .xxx Domain has been approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN. Now that ICANN has permitted adult entertainment sites to have their own domain, the .xxx domain, one wonders if this will create a virtual red light district.

.xxx Domain

The only problem with the .xxx Domain name is that adult sites currently on the internet are not required to switch over their existing domain names to the new one. Thus, while parent groups have welcomed the move, the fact that .xxx will remain entirely voluntary kind of defeats its purpose and many question the work that has gone into making it happen over the past five years.

Were the .xxx domain to be mandatory, many parents could immediately bar all that traffic from reaching their impressionable children. For adults this move won’t change much but at least there will be no doubt when someone tries to fool you with a link at work for a funny clip.

If there are no more appeals or discussions about the .xxx domain, then sites should be available with that suffix from 2011 and about 10% of the 5 to 6 million websites catering for that sort of thing are expected to move over.