Creators of .xxx porn web domain seek decision on site’s fate

LONDON - The group that created a web domain solely for adult content has demanded for a decision to be made about the fate of their .xxx address.

Net regulator Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which oversees web addresses, had given the domain the go-ahead in 2005.

But it retracted the decision two years later following protests from conservative groups, and now it has been delaying its vote.

Proponents have said that having an .xxx domain will make the web safer.

“This has been a 7million dollar process, costing us 5million dollars in legal fees and Icann 2million dollars,” the BBC quoted Stuart Lawley, chairman of ICM Registry, which has proposed the .xxx domain, as saying.

“Originally, the decision was politically driven but now for Icann…it is about not wanting to admit they were wrong,” he said.

A spokesperson for Icann said the body was a “global entity” and “actively seeks the comments of as many people as possible in our community, on important issues like this one”.

The history of getting a specific adult entertainment web address has been a long and complicated one.

Icann said it was worried that it may have been asked to police content, something which is not its job, and it also said that not everyone in the adult entertainment industry wanted such a domain.

In February of this year a panel of US judges ruled that its reasons for withdrawing the domain were not valid.

Icann accepted those findings and asked its general counsel to lay out the reasons for and against such a scheme. The process is open to public debate until May 10.

An Icann spokesperson said that the public comments will be presented to the board on June 12, but did not say when a decision on the fate of .xxx would be made.

Lawley said he was getting increasingly frustrated with the process, and argues that having a specific address for porn sites will make it easier for parents and others to block access to them.

“One of the requirements of anyone registering a .xxx domain is that the site carries meta-tags that will be automatically picked up by the popular browsers and allow people who want to avoid the content to easily do so,” he added. (ANI)