.XXX Porn Idea Leaves A Bad Taste In Your Mouth

If you've been on the Internet for longer than 10 seconds, you have encountered something called pornography. It's rampant. It's close to impossible to avoid unless you use some serious filters and even they aren't 100%. It's been announced that porn sites will have the right to use a domain name with the .XXX domain extension. The voluntary initiative for the porn industry to differentiate its web site URLs with the .XXX domain name is heralded by some as being a good first step to end confusion over which sites carry adult material and which do not. However, being a voluntary measure, this will not stop porn sites from using common .com, .org or .net extensions and of course there is this problem...

The .XXX domain idea would allow the porn people to move from easily mistaken sites to more appropriate digs where you know what you're getting. It would also allow people and companies to better block web traffic to and from these domains. This all sounds swell, but here is the snag. Even though the pornography industry soaks up $12 billion a year off the Internet the projected cost for an .XXX domain name will be upwards of $60. This price is approximately ten times higher than the standard Internet name. I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Why should we care if they have to pay a bigger price for porn? They're the ones making $12 billion. They should be able to afford it, right?"

Well which domain would you buy? The one that will put you in the mainstream and capable of generating more revenue that costs only $6 or would you do the "kind and gentle" thing and fork over $60 for a label that will get easily filtered out of many of the revenue streams throughout the world? I wouldn't be surprised if whole countries would filter a .XXX domain. So the big question is, will the .XXX catch on and work? I'm very doubtful. I think it's just one of those things that some will not want to swallow, but rather spit out.