Porn industry gets green light for .XXX domain

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM: Now the multi billion dollar online pornography industry will have a top level domain name of its own.

The board of directors of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the Internet on behalf of the U.S. government, today voted in favour of the proposal to give .XXX domain name to pornography sites, which would literally create an online 'red-light district'!

Though ICM Registry’s chairman Stuart Lawley had made this proposal ten years back, it was not approved at that time.

Even now, many board members are reportedly apprehensive about the move, while others said during the debate that mistakes had been made in denying approval before.

“It's been a long time coming. The decision should soon bring to fruition our six-year effort to create a specific Web address for online adult entertainment, and comes on the heels of an independent review that declared that ICANN's previous decision to deny dot-xxx was wrong,” Stuart Lawley said in a statement.

He said this decision could make ICM an annual revenue of $30 million by selling each .xxx site for $60. He also pledged to donate $10 from each sale to child protection initiatives via a nonprofit he has set up, the International Foundation for Online Responsibility, or IFFOR.

It is expected that the first .XXX domains would go live in early 2011. ICM has already received more than 110,000 pre-reservations for .XXX domains.