Company Looks to Add .Sex, .Porn, and .Adult Domains to Internet
The company behind the controversial .xxx Internet domain has filed applications to add .sex, .porn and .adult to its generic top-level domains.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit organization that coordinates the Internet's unique identifiers, held a press conference in London, England on Wednesday to release a list of generic top-level domains (TLD) that organizations around the world have applied for.
Included in that list are ICM Registry's pornography-themed domains, which are much like the .xxx domain the company became the registry operator for in 2011.
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"We are dedicated to protecting interested stakeholders by providing the latest technology and the best domains which is why we created the .XXX TLD," Stuart Lawley, CEO of ICM Registry, said in a press release in April. "We chose to submit applications for additional TLDs to spare .XXX participants from needless expense and to ensure the TLDs will be run in the same trustworthy and appropriate ways that .XXX is today."
ICM Registry says it has invested nearly $2 million into these applications, and, should it be approved by ICANN, it will offer the new domains for free to those who have already purchased .xxx domains. Currently, approximately 215,000 domains use the .xxx top-level domain.
Morality In Media (MIM), the organization behind pornharms.com, opposed the .xxx domain and says adding others like it is harmful because they only serve to help increase the amount of pornography on the Internet. MIM argues that adding domains for the adult entertainment industry could also be costly to non-porn companies, schools and other organizations, which may feel obligated to purchase them for the purpose of protecting their own reputations.
"Many of those that bought protection from ICM Registry paid thousands of dollars to assure that their good name would not be attached to a porn site on .XXX, but they did not know that ICM planned to roll out more and more porn-related domains," Patrick Trueman, president of MIM, said in a statement. "ICM Registry stands to make untold millions of dollars from additional porn-related domains but one has to wonder what new porn domains ICM will propose next year."
According to MIM, research on pornography shows it can lead to addiction, depression, family dysfunction, violence against women, damage to normal brain function and more.
In addition to the highly controversial porn domains, some Christian-themed domains are also being considered. These include .bible, applied for by the American Bible Society, .cbn, applied for by The Christian Broadcasting Network, .catholic and .church. The evaluation process for all of these domains can take anywhere between nine and 20 months for ICANN to complete.
