Welcome to Pleasantville.xxx and the TLD dilemma
I’ve made the leap and I’m not turning back. And no, it’s not the leap you’re thinking! I’m not getting into porn…
For those of you unfamiliar, the .xxx TLD was finally approved and released by ICANN a couple years ago. It’s intention is/was to serve as a place for porn domains. It make sense after all, right? Porn, XXX, .xxx, why not?
Well, yes and no. Sure, on the surface .xxx makes sense. We’ll just get all the porn sites to register .xxx domains and in turn not index their .xxx websites in traditional SERPs. Then businesses can blacklist the domains on their routers and more. It’ll be a perfect utopia. We’ll all move to Pleasantville!
The issue is pretty multi-faceted though. Firstly, nothing on the internet, or in this world, is black and white (Pleasantville parallel). Let’s take a few examples here that should be incredibly obvious to debunk this lunacy:
- If I’m running a porn studio, why would I want to register a .xxx domain that isn’t going to be indexed by the traditional SERPs and is banned by default by many content filters?
- Oh, there is this XXX movie.
- Many extreme sports companies brand along side the xxx theme, XXX Race Co, Moto XXX, XXX Motorsports, and many others.
- There are beer brands, Molson XXX and XXXX, an Aussie beer, to name a couple.
- How about some Triple XXX Root beer and a family restaurant!
- WrestleMania XXX, ZZ Top had an album, or how about some Vitamin Water XXX.
- Who knows, maybe you’re referring to the Triple X Syndrome, Amsterdam’s Coat of Arms, or Agent XXX of James Bond.
- it goes on…
The information varies and there doesn’t seem to be an authoritative source on the subject. But it’s thought that it originated as a mark on beer casks. According to Brewers on the subject:
"X on beer casks formerly indicated beer which had paid the old 10s duty, and hence came to mean beer of a given quality. Two or three crosses are mere trademarks intended to convey an impression of its extra strength."Later as it came to be, the NPAA adopted X-rated as a signal of “extra strength” again in terms of content rating. And thus, you can see how the XXX has been tied to porn. But, in short it stands for strong and strength, intensity, etc. This is clearly seen by the use within the extreme sports industry and branding along side sports drinks, wrestling, etc.
Given all of this though, and the more loose coupling of the TLD with porn and legitimate companies and brands, it’s difficult to draw a clear and distinct line with the TLD and porn itself. And, therefore, as a result, I never see this fully taking hold as a TLD to become synonymous with porn. Furthermore, due to it’s easy remembrance, simplicity and personal appeal, I find the TLD extension an attractive asset.
I’m putting myself out there. I’ve registered the .xxx domain for my family name and intend to use jacob@thomason.xxx as my personal email hence forth. Or at least until ICANN launches affordable custom TLD registrations.