There was a buying frenzy following the release of the new .xxx suffixed domains. Pornographers, Internet marketers and entrepreneurs competed to secure the hottest and rudest of them. The first of the .xxx websites have now gone live, there has been further talk about compartmentalization of the Internet, with the possibility of all pornographic websites being confined to those sites with a .xxx suffix. However, will the .xxx domains make web filtering pornography any easier?
ICAN releases .xxx domains for sale
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names or ICANN as it is better known, created the new top-level Internet domain specifically for websites of an adult nature. The long term view was to eventually move all pornographic websites to the xxx domains. This could clean up the Internet and make it much easier for parents and businesses to block pornographic websites. It is, after all, much easier to block a single domain type than to implement web filtering to prevent all websites containing pornographic material from being viewed. IT security professionals and individuals who want to stop porn from being accessible via their computers, phones, and tablets could therefore just block the xxx extension.
There is a problem of course. Owners of adult websites have been buying up new domain names in the thousands, but will they redirect their current .com, .co.uk, .org and .net sites to the new .xxx domains?
Of course they won’t. They’ve just been given even more domain names to fill with pornography, and any redirects are likely to come from the .xxx domain names back to their main, well-established websites.
Unless laws are introduced to force purveyors of adult content over to the new domains, the online adult entertainment industry will simply not make the switch. Some firms will undoubtedly activate their new xxx websites, but unless everyone does, the initiative will be seen to have failed and web filtering pornography will be no easier.
Will the XXX domains make web filtering pornography any easier?
Potentially, the creation of the new domain will make it easier to filter some adult sites, so it will make the job of web filtering a little easier. Advocates of the new domain claim that the creation of these sites is a step in the right direction. The .xxx domains will make it easier to filter adult content (and easier for people who want access to the sites to remember the correct suffix). At some point in the future, laws can be introduced to force adult content into an easily blocked section of the Internet.
However, cynics will quite rightly point out that current website owners who have invested a considerable amount of time, resources and money into promoting their .com sites and building links are not going to let all that effort and investment go to waste. The new domain suffix may therefore just have given pornographers the opportunity to create a lot more websites.
There is another problem. Many individuals and companies make a living out of buying up domain names in the thousands. These cybersquatters purchase domain names at a low price, at $10 a pop for instance, and then list them for sale for hundreds or thousands of dollars. They buy up existing companies’ brands and will only sell them on if their asking price is met. Many companies will therefore not be able to buy the .xxx equivalent of their current site.