Call it progress, or a porn ghetto. Either way, the new xxx “weblight district” is under foot, thanks to a vote by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers last week. The group decided to allow the Florida-based ICM Registry to create a special dot-xxx suffix for adult entertainment sites. And regardless of what you think about it, the porn industry is actually upset.

From The New York Times,

“The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers on Friday agreed to move forward on a long-standing proposal from a Florida company to create a specialized dot-xxx suffix for adult entertainment Web sites. But the plan upset much of the adult entertainment industry. It joined hands with religious groups in lobbying against it, arguing that the new domains would lead to regulation and marginalization.”

Despite the odd-couple rebellion, thousands of adult websites have already pre-registered for their new suffix domain names, indicating ICM’s vision of an online red light district is receiving a good amount of support. It opens up a huge opportunity for a web-based company to generate a lot of money around adult entertainment, with the blessings of legitimacy.

Is it time to clean up online porn?

As idyllic as an online porn ghetto sounds, the fear of regulation is something the porn industry should not fear. It’s managed to rule most corners of the web for over a decade now, forcing us all to get heavy-duty ad blockers and spam filters. The biggest problem around a potentially regulated red light district is that the adult entertainment industry would be less able to rely on its adverse tactics to get our attention and mislead our web clicks. But couldn’t that be a good thing?

Perhaps online porn wouldn’t be so loathsome if it had to rely on dirty tricks to lure people into the dark side of the web. Making the Internet a more upfront environment for the adult entertainment industry could be an online revolution, akin to Amsterdam, or the Bunny Ranch. The Girls Next Door have managed to successfully cross over. Can’t domain names do the same?

I say most of this with a twinge of sarcasm, because the fear around a regulated online porn ghetto seems utterly ridiculous to me. Current web regulations haven’t slowed porn down yet, and the social media trend towards user-generated content has even helped porn become readily accessible online. Even if an adult entertainment site were to get a xxx suffix, its publishers could still turn to its old ways to redirect traffic if need be.

It worked for cable

While the web may be the bloodiest battle scene for the adult entertainment industry, other areas of the digital media revolution have been affected, too. Television has reached a balance of sorts with porn distribution, while the mobile landscape is largely subject to Apple’s regulations. Continued attempts at controlling and taxing online porn are inevitable, and will only force companies deeper into the mobile realm, particularly in the Google camp where there’s far less red tape.