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Nod for .XXX Porn Ghetto

Kompas.com - 06/07/2010, 10:43 WIB

KOMPAS.com - Stuart Lawley has Hustler magazine and the distributor of Paris Hilton's sex tape up in arms.

The 47-year-old British Internet entrepreneur's ICM Registry is roiling the $13 billion pornography industry after last week winning a preliminary nod for the .xxx domain from The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, which approves Web addresses.

If his bid passes later this year, Lawley could sell Web addresses to adult sites for $60 each. Although not mandated, many Internet sex sites said they'd register with .xxx to prevent their brand from being stolen.

Hustler and Vivid Entertainment LLC, the porn company that released sex tapes from Paris Hilton and reality TV stars Kendra Wilkinson and Kim Kardashian, say .xxx would corral the industry into an “online ghetto,” making it easier to censor.

“.xxx would basically be an avenue for authorities to try and push all adult websites into a certain segment and then get rid of .com,” Michael Klein, the president of Hustler, the brand behind websites like Barelylegal.com, said from his Los Angeles office.

An unlikely alliance has formed in opposition to Lawley. Adult content providers see lost revenue from software blocks, increased stigmatisation and possible censorship, while conservative groups such as the Family Research Council argue .xxx legitimises porn. More Control

Lawley, who reckons his Jupiter, Florida-based ICM stands to earn $200 million a year from .xxx, says the domain gives parents more control and allows Internet users to filter out unwanted pornographic material.

“There's a noisy little section of the adult industry that's not happy about this, but the majority is,” he said.

With already more than 153,000 registration requests for the domain, Lawley said he's planning a “PayPal for porn,” an online system across .xxx that could process $1 billion a year in transactions.

Kink.com, which shoots bondage films in a San Francisco armory, has begun registering .xxx versions of thousands of its Web addresses with ICM, said John Sander, the company's vice president for marketing and business development.

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