WSIS

So I think there is a real chance that the Internet extension .xxx will appear on the Internet some time this year.

Of course, you really can never know since overseeing body ICANN is a complex beast, but following the first use of the organization’s Independent Review Process (IRP) and the resulting panel declaration [pdf], I don’t actually see that many obstacles in the path of .xxx: all the arguments have been had and pretty much rejected by a very distinguished set of judges. And of course the current chairman of ICANN was emphatically of the view that dot-xxx should have been approved at the time it was officially rejected back in 2007.

My personal feeling is that dot-xxx is a good idea. It gives a place for pornography to reside online – and allows for pornography-specific rules to be created; it allows for companies and even countries to block access to it if they decide it is against their laws or policies; and it makes it possible that pornography could be pulled out of other top-level domains, so you don’t have it scattered all over the Internet.

As someone who has a little bit of knowledge about the adult industry and the Internet through researching my Sex.com book (although I would not put myself forward as an expert), I would say this is but an inevitable next step for pornography on the Internet. The history of sexually explicit media shows the same pattern over and over again.

Anyway, that’s an aside. I have written a lengthy story for The Register on this issue that includes the views of ICANN’s current CEO, Rod Beckstrom; ICM Registry’s (company behind .xxx) chairman Stuart Lawley; ex-ICANN chairman Vint Cerf; and Internet governance expert Wolfgang Kleinwachter.

You can read the three-part story on El Reg and I have posted it below for those too lazy to click a link.

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