ICM Registry, the registry operator for the .XXX top-level domain (TLD) exclusively used for online adult entertainment, announces today that IRIS SARL, based in Luxembourg, has secured an additional 25 Premium Domains in a deal worth $185,000.  This is the second significant order from IRIS who previously acquired $650,000 of premium names back in September 2012.

The new .XXX names include singles.xxx, sexvideos.xxx, adultchat.xxx and many more popular niche sectors of the adult market.

The Chairman of IRIS commented.” We have spent several months analyzing the key adult search terms and with our SEO experts and have chosen a further 25 Premium XXX names that are highly popular adult search terms. In addition, the recent changes by Google have seen a dramatic increase in traffic to our other .XXX sites and this is without doubt, a solid investment in the future”

Steve Winyard, ICM Registry Vice President, added, “IRIS have been diligent in their approach to launching their initial sites and have some leading technology and ideas which will make a huge impact when launched. We are once again delighted with this further investment and will work to support them and introduce them to the very best partners we know, in order to help them achieve their goals.

[via Press Release]

Some domainer owners watching the news about the new gTLD applications may have had a pleasant surprise today. Domain owners that own a .com domain that has a corresponding new TLD application may just have learned about increases in traffic and possibly value to their .com holding.

Clearly many of the applicants for new TLDs such as ABC, IBM, FedEx, or Google already own the matching .com domain names, but with this announcement we’ve learned of hundreds of new generic TLD applicants that do not own the corresponding .com.

New TLD proponents will argue that it is unneccessary and maybe even counter-intuitive for an applicant to purchase the .com corresponding to a new TLD that they are applying for, but others in the domain space point to confusion that already exists between other domain extension.  As new TLDs market themselves, a resulting confusion in the marketplace drives more traffic to the .com

A perfect example of this can be seen with the .xxx domain extension and the xxx.com domain name.  The .xxx sunrise ended October 2011. According to Compete.com the traffic to the domain began to increase shortly after the sunrise and has doubled from levels seen prior to the .xxx extension approval.

Domain name broker Andrew Rosener told DNN that the increased visibility, promotion & traffic going to xxx.com has significantly raised the value of his clients domain name. He also stated, “I have several clients with matching .com domains who were very excited to hear the news today.”

Elliot Silver weighed in recently with this prediction on his blog :

Owners of the keyword string .com names are going to be very happy. Some registries will feel the need to buy the corresponding .com names and pay a lot of money for them. In addition, there will likely be a ton of error traffic that pays well.

While millions of dollars are being pumped in to the domain space to set up new TLDs, a handful of .com domain owners may benefit as well. Those with comparable .com domain names should see gains in traffic and exposure from the marketing efforts of the new TLDs launching in 2013.

The most popular posts on DNN in April of 2012 by web traffic were:

1. XXX Goes Live in the Root Servers (04|15|2011)
2. Joichi Ito Joins Tucows Board (12|15|2008)
3. Frank Schilling’s InternetTraffic.com now powers 1,500,000+ domains (04|19|2012)
4. Will Marchex Sell iPanel.com to Apple? (04|05|2012)
5. First Brannans Domain Auction by Clements brothers yields $34,000 ( 04|09|2012)
6. Google settles Dispute over gmail.de after 8 years (04|16|2012)
7. Internet.bs Corp Responds to KnujOn Accusations (04|09|2012)
8. Keep Playing the Music . . . Really, The Ship’s Not Sinking (02|22|2008)
9. LeadRefs Announcing New Version of Domain Sales Lead Generation Tool (04|16|2012)
10. ICANN Issues additional statement regarding new TLD Application System Bug (04|14|2012)

Earlier today IANA added the .XXX Top Level Domain to the root nameservers. While the registry operator Afilias is still in their setup process for ICM registry, the zone is currently propagating. While a number of registrars have already been taking pre-registrations, the actual timeline for the launch has not yet been published. The Sunrise launch is a three phased approach. After much back and forth and protests against the sTLD the ICANN board had approved the application for the new TLD at their meeting on March 18th of this year.

[Update] As Kevin over at DomainIncite points out in his post on the same topic, the registry website, sex.xxx and porn.xxx (both placeholder pages, safe for work) are now resolving under the new TLD. xxx.xxx is resolving as well.

The delegation record for the new TLD can now also be found on the IANA website.

Below the output of the dig query:

dig ns xxx.

;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER< <- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 22036
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 6, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;xxx.				IN	NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
xxx.			300	IN	NS	a2.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	a0.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	b2.xxx.afilias-nst.org.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	b0.xxx.afilias-nst.org.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	c0.xxx.afilias-nst.info.
xxx.			300	IN	NS	d0.xxx.afilias-nst.org.

See the IANA record after the jump
(more…)

According to Kieren McCarthy ICANN’s general counsel read a statement at the start of the public forum at the current ICANN meeting in Brussel, stating that the Board had accepted the results of the independent review panel and thus would approve the .xxx TLD tomorrow. The board had delayed the decision until the 38th ICANN meeting in order to gather additional comments from the public.

The board would then enter the contract negotiations with application ICM Registry and then refer the contract to the Governmental Advisory Committee since they had raised concerns in the past.

This decision would ignore the lobbying of the adult industry against the new extension, however the registry might have some challenges selling domains under the new TLD.

While everyone involved in ICANN topics is gearing up to fly to Brussels for the 38th ICANN meeting, the travelers are joined by the Free Speech Coalition‘s (FSC, trade organization of the adult industry) Executive Director Diane Duke and FSC Board Vice President Tom Hyme. The two are attending the ICANN meeting to lobby against a potential approval of the .XXX sTLD by ICANN’s board.

“I am honored to be going to Brussels with Diane,” said Hymes, who traveled to Wellington in 2005 for the same purpose. “The fact that so much time has gone by has done nothing to diminish the dangers posed by dot XXX. Yes, it should never have been resurrected from the dead in the first place, but it was and now we need to be there, reminding the ICANN Board and staff at every turn that dot XXX has no industry support, and also that the last thing in the world they want to be is the ultimate arbiter of a policy-setting IFFOR (International Foundation for Online Responsibility). Believe me, that scenario would be hell on earth for ICANN.”

Diane had already spoken against the release of the .XXX sTLD at the 2007 ICANN meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, where the ICANN board rejected the application by ICM registry. ICM had then asked ICANN to have an independent review panel look over the decision. The review panel concluded that ICANN should not have rejected the application after first approving it. The decision was tabled again, but delayed at the 37th ICANN meeting in Nairobi, Kenya earlier this year in order to ask the public for additional comments.

Conservative oriented organizations have been speaking out against introducing a .XXX extension as well as the adult industry.

[via AVN]

In today’s ICANN board meeting at the 37th ICANN meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya, the board postponed a decision regarding the .XXX sTLD application and directed to solicit public comment for this application within 14 days with a comment period of no less than 45 days, allowing the board to reconsider this issue at the 38th ICANN meeting in Brussels. ICANN has to reconsider the issue after their rejection of the application was reviewed by an independent panel.

Please note that the following is a parody intended for April Fools day 2011.

After countless attempts to block ICANN approval of the .xxx extension, the Free Speech Coalition announced a new strategy today. “We’re applying for dot-quintuple-X” says Executive Director, Diane Duke. “Until now we have been forced to work within the constraints of the ICANN process. FSC is now free to explore all options and we believe this is the best option possible.”

In a poll held on the adult industry website ShoveItUpYourHooHa.com, adult industry insiders voted unanimously that five Xs was a much better representative of adult content than a mere three.  Four Xs wasn’t enough and six was considered over-the-top by the insiders.  “What’s better that Triple-X ?  Quintuple-X !” exclaimed webmaster Mike Oxlong.  “It might be a longer extension, but in our business, a longer extension is always better.”