Shake-up' for internet proposed
 

The net could see its biggest transformation in decades if plans to open up the address system are passed.

The net's regulators will vote on Thursday to decide if the strict rules on so-called top level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can be relaxed.

If approved, it could allow companies to turn their brands into domain names while individuals could also carve out their own corner of the net.

The move could also see the launch of .xxx, after years of wrangling.

Top level domains are currently limited to individual countries, such as .uk (UK) or .it (Italy), as well as to commerce, .com, and to institutional organisations, such as .net, or .org.

To get around the restrictions, some companies have used the current system to their own ends.

For example, the Polynesia island nation Tuvalu, has leased the use of the .tv address to many television firms.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), which acts as a sort of regulator for the net as well as overseeing the domain name system, has been working towards opening up net addresses for the last three years.

The plan would also allow for the new domain names to be internationalised, and so could be written in scripts for Asian and Arabic languages.

The full story here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7468855.stm

this debate has been going back and forth for some time... while some people may like the idea of a .xxx extension, many people in the adult industry are concerned and maybe rightly so, that creating a .xxx extension may "relegate" adult to the "backwoods' of the internet and would give lobbying groups leverage to then seal off .xxx to minors and force current adult sites using a keyword.com to adopt a .xxx domain instead, which obviously is bad news if you have a valuable adult .com, say like adult.com

i preregistered a really good .xxx a few years ago,i wonder if ill ever get to use it

Yep it will be bad news for a lot of website owners

oh no the sky might fall again!? Winds of change.. big typhoons everywhere lately.

If it's trademarked or already registered in any other namespace, they get first dibs on the .xxx regardless of when you pre-registered for it. :2 cents:

This was the news on 23rd June 2008!!! :)

You could still have non nude content on that web property and funnel it to a .xxx though.

Pls insert time line pic. i do not have it.
Duke

The vote already happened a year ago. It passed. The rules were relaxed. The sky is still above us.

i see a whole lot of nothing happening. the sheep who buy into these new tld's will be fleesed as usual. the corps that buy them will have spent 100k on something no one will type in ( who is going to type www.coke? no one types www. anymore..) icann will be richer for it and .com will remain the number one extention out there.

www. sucks it makes the url look ugly.

We here are all about keeping people under 18 away. Most of us spend a ton of money doing so..

But .xxx and it being a law that we all use it, will give the ISPs and easy and fast way to stop us from promoting at all. They will simply filter out .xxx and then say sorry we are protecting children.

This would almost literally be building an online ghetto and making all adult reside in it.

For example, the Polynesia island nation Tuvalu, has leased the use of the .tv address to many television firms. Ha ha...