Over 100,000 XXX Domain Names Are Going Live Tomorrow At 11 EST
The next generation of online porn launches tomorrow at 11 AM EST. — We asked the guy behind XXX domain names who stands to benefit from the changeover. — ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley has been working …
Context & Ripple Effects
The .xxx rollout has been moving in stages all year: ICANN approved the suffix in March 2011, and the strings went live in the root servers by April. Tomorrow's batch of 100,000+ registrations under ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley is the moment the neighborhood actually fills up.
It also lands mid-rush: as the Washington Post reported in February 2011, applicants were already lining up for custom domain name suffixes beyond the legacy generics, making .xxx the first big test of whether a themed registry can sustain itself on volume alone.
First-order effects
- Adult-site operators gain a dedicated namespace overnight, and ICM Registry converts each of the 100,000+ registrations into recurring renewal revenue rather than a one-time land-sale.
- Trademark and brand owners outside the adult industry face an immediate decision on whether to defensively register their names in .xxx or leave them exposed to squatters.
Second-order effects
- The adult-domain aftermarket gets a fresh layer: with premium generic names like Porn.com having sold for $9 million back in 2007, speculators will price .xxx equivalents against that history from day one.
- Other prospective registry operators watching the launch get real demand data for the custom-suffix wave, sharpening the business case — or lack of one — for their own applications to ICANN.
Third-order effects
- If .xxx sustains meaningful renewal rates, it validates the model of vertical registries as standalone businesses, accelerating the shift from a handful of generic suffixes toward hundreds of themed ones.
- A successfully segregated adult namespace also hands regulators and filtering vendors a cleaner technical handle for age-verification and blocking policy than the scattered .com landscape ever offered.
The trend: The web's namespace is expanding from a few generic suffixes into commercially run, theme-specific registries, with .xxx serving as the first large-scale proof of demand.