This is stupid. Why doesn't the ICANN just sell TLD's instead of domains? If you're going to make a million TLD's why even bother with the domains at all? The last thing I want in my root namespace is hard-coded categorical pigeon-holeing information. The com/org/net/geograpical stuff was bad enough.

Just stop.

They're already planning to do just that: http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/comments-5-en.htm

($185,000, with $5,000 down to apply.)

Meh, I understand their intent behind it but honestly it's too little way too late.

When Giuliani cleaned up NYC's Times Square (if I remember this correctly) he enacted a law that said adult establishments had to be X meters from main streets, etc. etc. Whatever the details were the net effect was he pushed them all onto the back streets and immediately Times Square turned into Disney Stores, etc.

For the XXX TLD to be successful the same thing would have to happen, existing domains would have to be pushed to the internet's red light district. The reason is that none of the existing 2 quintillion porn sites is going to voluntarily change their domain and obliterate all their existing traffic. Since there is no ruling body that can push them over there (let alone all the debate over whether that would even be legal) the number of them that are going to move by choice should be right around Zero.

Not such a bad idea, but really the new corral should have been build before the wild cows escaped, spread out across the wild west, got comfortable, and had several generations of offspring.

Yes, but it now allows for a plethora of new domains to be registered. Type anything marginally sex-related and put .com on the end and I assure you it's already taken; new websites would either need very long or non-obvious domain names.

Additionally, .xxx reinforces the point of the site: leather.xxx is pretty obvious, n'est-ce pas?

The problem is that anyone who has foo.com has right of first refusal on foo.xxx, so .xxx will mostly end up as a mirror of a subset of .com.

Over a long period of time (say 10 years) I could see this working as intended. All current .com domains would probably have to get their identical .xxx domain for free however so they could re-direct traffic to their new .xxx domain. Why would they do this? I don't know.

The purpose of the new TLD is not to segregate the internet, that's just what the porn sites fear will somehow happen.

What do you mean, the purpose of the new TLD is to segregate the Internet. It won't work, it's a bad idea and it will mainly open a lot of new adult domains but it been sold as a way to segregate the Internet exactly as people imagine.

And that's why a significant number of porn sites opposed the XXX domain as I recall (well, that and the devaluing of their existing domains).

I'd like to know who else is planning on using .xxx?

Domain squatters. SEO experts. Companies who want to protect their name.

I wonder how lot it took google.xxx to get registered?

Anyone involved in pornography who would've previously bought a .io, .fm, .tv, or any other 'non standard' TLD just so they could have a meaningful domain name.

Now they can get a meaningful domain name, and have a TLD that emphasizes the point of the site.

The whole discussion about these domains being blocked is a ridiculous one---anywhere that would block .xxx TLD would also block any pornographic content in general regardless of the domain name.

Someone mentioned e.g. ha.xxx last time this came up on HN. (That is, yesterday, when ICANN actually made the decision.)

all-the-worlds-a-va.xxx

The .xxx TLD seems to be a mechanism to make the TLD operator a lot of money and is not likely to improve the Internet. It's a protection racket: If your businesses or organization is concerned your public face and image you will need to own and operate the .xxx version of their domains names (and variants) and probably hide behind the privacy feature of the domain name seller. If you don't some evil person will put up a website with material you don't want to be associated with your name. There may be come minimal legal recourse, but it is costly.

How does http://news.ycombinator.xxx sound?

A quick question: why xxx usually means sex-related?

Couldn't find much, but there's this: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1628/whats-the-orig...

duh, isn't this the very reason why .XXX was formed? They want to segregate porn from the rest of the web.

Yes it's the other sense of "allowed"

ie porn sites will be "enabled" to create and use a new .xxx domain rather than they will be "permitted" into it.

I realize this is offtopic a bit but there are quite a few HN postings on this topic.

s/Allowed/Required/