Let’s say you have a daughter that will soon celebrate her 7^th birthday, so you ask her what she wants, she cheerfully shrieks, “A new Barbie doll!”  Since you don’t know the latest in Barbie’s world, you do an internet search with your daughter so she can choose what doll she wants.  You type in “Latest Barbie Dolls” and you were presented with Barbie.xxx, not thinking too much about it, you clicked on the site and voila!  You and your daughter get a shocking sight of what’s “new with Barbie” – what horrific way to scar your daughter for life.

And this is exactly the dilemma of legit, non-porn companies with the upcoming release of the .xxx domain on December by the ICM Registry.  The ICM Registry offers sponsored top-level domains (sTLD) for the global adult entertainment industry thus making adult websites end with .xxx.  This actually makes it easier to identify porn sites since they’ll be ending in .xxx.  Unfortunately, anyone can create and use any domain names they want, making non-porn brands or companies fall victim to x-rated rip-offs.  So ICM is giving these legit companies time to buy their well-known domain names so that it can be blocked, and won’t be used to mislead product patrons for a fee.

The privately held ICM Registry was founded by British tech investor Stuart Lawley, who will provide a “sunshine period” from September 7 to October 28 to allow trademark holders to secure or block domain names from being used by others for $199.99 for 10 years of blocking to$209.99, plus $99 per year for a domain name.  By October, members of the adult entertainment industry can start purchasing their .xxx domains for $199.99, plus $99 per year and by December, the general public can purchase their .xxx domain for $99.99 per year.  ICM assures paying clients that if they file certain domains to be blocked, typosquatters will be included in domain blocking, and that the fee they are paying will guarantee the quality of their service.

You’d think that people belonging to the adult entertainment industry would be happy about the .xxx domain launch, but not all of them are not embracing this change. Many think that this will just make it easier for the government to shut down their sites or add further regulations around the industry.

Nevertheless, Manwin and Hustler, known for being the top sellers in the porn industry in Canada and the US respectively, both wrote to ICM with a list of their legitimate domain names and demanded ICM to take their list off the available .xxx domain list and block it from being used by others, for free and will pursue legal actions if ICM refuse to follow their demands.  Since they have been notified, ICM becomes liable if any of Manwin or Hustler’s domains are used.

But there are also some known names who will be receiving a special treatment, like the Red Cross, whose domain names will be blocked from being used in the .xxx domain for free.  While most are scampering to block their domains from being used, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will pay for the PETA.xxx domain so they can draw attention to the plight of animals used in pornography.

In the coming years, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will be allowing companies to apply for their own domain extensions like .facebook or .apple, making it easier to identify whether sites are legit.

Though many are fighting against .xxx, it will still happen.  If you don’t want to see any of these on your computer, just be careful of the things you search, and use the best of filters.  And if it has .xxx, don’t click on it, simple as that.