In the upcoming months, you’re going to start seeing a much greater variety of domains names appear on your url bar.
This year, Internet domain name overlords ICANN have made two important votes – first, they decided to lift almost all restrictions on generic top-level domains (gTLDs). This means that along with your basic .com, .gov, and .net, private citizens and companies are soon going to be able to register almost anything they want – .josh, .Pepsi, or .food.
Some organizations are speaking out against this decision, saying that it could lead to disaster for brand owners.
ICANN is set to start accepting applications for new gTLDs in January of 2012. The second big decision made by ICANN this year is set to go into effect much sooner. The age of dot-xxx is upon us. Although the official “sunrise” registration period doesn’t kick off until September 7th, domain operator ICM Registry is accepting early applications from organizations who wish to control their names.
It took ICM Registry over 10 years to finally convince ICANN to allow the .xxx domain. And with the new adult domain on the horizon, companies are going into defensive mode. According to Reuters, ICM Registry has received over 900,000 requests already from companies that want to preregister a .xxx domain.
Many are doing this to block others from snatching up the domains in the future. For instance, a company like Stanley Steamer or Coke would want to register StanleySteamer.xxx and Coke.xxx – not to use the sites but to make sure others do not. You don’t want grandma doing a Google search and stumbling on something that’s going to turn her off Coke forever.
MTV has apparently already requested domains like spongebob.xxx and others to prevent cybersquatting. They have no plans to actually operate the site, however.
But one high-profile organization does. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is planning on not only registering PETA.xxx, but actually running it as a pornography site. According to Reuters, they will use the new .xxx porn site to “draw attention to the plight of animals.”
Of course, this shouldn’t be too surprising. PETA has been asking celebs to strip down in support of their cause for years. Their “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign has featured notable celebs, all in the buff. A whole site dedicated to this type of advertising seems quite logical.
Yesterday, GoDaddy announced their pricing scheme for the new .xxx domains. Early registers will need to shell out $210 at first and then $100 each year in renewal costs.
PETA will probably attempt to avoid GoDaddy, however, as the two companies haven’t exactly see eye to eye in recent months. PETA called for a boycott of GoDaddy after their CEO Bob Parsons killed an elephant and threw the video online. It doesn’t look like it worked, however, as GoDaddy registrations actually went up following the elephant killing.
Would you visit a porn site run by PETA? Let us know in the comments.