Fergie's Tech Blog

ICANN approves new TLD's: .XXX and .CAT

You know, at least one of these top-level domains (and arguably, both) show how out of touch with operational reality ICANN really is. Do people really expect online pr0n to simply pick up and move to the .XXX doman? And come on -- do we really need a whole TLD just for the Catalan language? I'll stop now before I really go off on a lengthy rant about the usefulness of some of the other TLD's that are used by virtually no one except for warez, phishers, and malware distributors.

An AP newswire article by Anick Jesdanun, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

The Internet's key oversight agency approved a domain name for the Catalan language Thursday while deferring final action on creating a red-light district on the Internet through a ".xxx" suffix.

Creating the ".cat" suffix for individuals, organizations and companies that promote the Catalan language and culture was relatively uncontroversial. Though the language is spoken largely in certain regions of Spain, backers say a domain name could unify Catalan speakers who live in France, Italy, Andorra and elsewhere. The name could begin appearing in use next year.

As for ".xxx," the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers deferred final approval for the second time in as many months.

The board decided to seek changes to a proposed contract with ICM Registry Inc., the Jupiter, Fla., that would run the domain name for voluntary use by the adult entertainment industry. No details were immediately available on the changes sought.

The ".xxx" domain has met with opposition from conservative groups and some pornography Web sites, and ICANN postponed a final decision last month after the U.S. government stepped in just days before a scheduled meeting to underscore objections it had received. ICANN had given a preliminary OK in June.

posted by Fergie @ 9/16/2005 06:05:00 AM