ICANN rejects “.xxx” domains

The internet regulatory authority ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has formally rejected the approval of the new “.xxx” domain that would have created a red-light district on the internet. This decision comes after massive protests, including from the adult entertainment industry.

The proposal was rejected 9-5 and the ICANN attributed that to results of much public comment and detailed discussion.

This is a total reversal from the ICANN’s stance from one year ago. Last year they had opened technical discussions for this new top-level domain with the .xxx extension. They claimed that it would be self regulated and would support the adult-themed area of cyberspace.

The aim was to separate the adult sites from the regular ones by shifting them to one single domain extension. However, it seems like the idea would continue to remain on paper for now.

Paul Twomey, ICANN’s president and chief executive said in a statement on this new development: “This has been quite a controversial application; it had a lot of discussion, a lot of people arguing for it and a lot of people arguing against it for various reasons. The board received at least 200,000 communications by e-mail and other means.”