XXX

So after a nice family post, I’m going to talk about porn.

Domain names in the .xxx TLD go on sale today. This has been in the works for a long time. It was proposed in 2000, then again in 2004, but opposition from politicians and conservative groups prevented its implementation. I never understood why. The sites are out there and stopping the .xxx TLD won’t stop them. Granted that pornographic web site use of the .xxx TLD is voluntary, but it seems to be a useful tool. You can go there if you want porn, and you can block it if you don’t. The sites that choose not to use the TLD (or that keep their current web address and add an .xxx address) will remain where they are. The situation would be no worse than before, and potentially better, so what’s the objection? Pretending pornography does exist doesn’t magically make it disappear.

I suspect the real reason it keeps coming back is money. Domains in the .xxx TLD will cost about $100 per year while stalwart .com addresses typically go for about $10 per year. Keep following that money and you’ll also understand why ICANN will also begin selling TLDs next year. Not only do you get the bragging rights that come with your own TLD, but you can sell domain names in that TLD. The only downside is that the cost of applying for a TLD is $185,000, and if your purchase is approved, it’ll cost you $25,000 a year to keep it.

The plan of reserving .com for commercial sites, .net for network related sites, and .org for organizations, as well as all the country-specific TLDs, was good, but it didn’t work out. It would have been much better to simply use a single TLD. A TLD with no name at all. Do you want to go to Microsoft’s web site? Could have been as simple as typing http://microsoft without a TLD. That would be simpler than the situation we have today, where Microsoft has purchased microsoft.com, microsoft.net, and microsoft.org and they all take you to the same site. Or more commonly, the same name goes to three different sites depending on the TLD.

It could have been much simpler, but not only is it more complex than it needs to be … it’s getting worse.