The two biggest misconceptions regarding .xxx domain names

News stories propagate fear over .xxx.

I’ve watched with amusement over the past week as the press has written story following story regarding defensive .xxx domain name registrations.

Almost every article I’ve read suggests two things regarding .xxx that I think are flat out wrong.

1. ICANN wanted .xxx.

I think it’s safe to say that ICANN didn’t want .xxx to become reality. Remember how it voted against it (following voting for it)? Remember how it spent money fighting it in arbitration? How it, for the most part, grudgingly approved it in San Francisco? How the CEO didn’t even vote?

ICANN knew it was between a rock and a hard place. It would have been sued had it denied ICM’s application. (Of course now it’s being sued by an adult entertainment firm.)

It’s safe to say this wasn’t ICANN’s idea and it didn’t really want this.

2. Modest businesses have to register their .xxx to protect themselves.

Here’s one example from Ecommerce Times: the owner of GreatApps.com felt that he had to pay the $99 to register GreatApps.xxx to protect his brand.

Why would the owner of an apps site need a .xxx domain name for defensive purposes? Given that other TLDs of “greatapps” are registered to other people, it must be concern regarding being associated with porn.

That makes little sense to me. Would a visitor to GreatApps.xxx (if it were a porn site) assume it was associated with the .com? If someone wanted to pop up for searches, couldn’t they just register GreatAppsxxx.com?

The odds of someone registering the .xxx version are low anyway. It costs as registrant regarding $100 to register a .xxx compared to just $10 for GreatAppsxxx.com.

I think it’s safe to say that most businesses don’t need to defensively register .xxx domain names.

Ought to businesses be aware of .xxx? Of course. But the risk is greatly overblown.