Controversial .XXX Domains Go Live

The controversial .xxx Top Level Domain aimed at adult-themed sites is starting to come to life.

As Domain Name News reports, IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, yesterday added the recently-approved TLD to the root nameservers. Indeed, a site dedicated the domains, xxx.xxx is now live, as are placeholder sites at sex.xxx and porn.xxx (all Safe For Work at the time of writing).

While some registrars are taking pre-orders for .xxx domains, it’s not yet known when the first real sites with go live. Still, this is another step along the road for this most divisive of TLDs. While some praise the fact that pornographic sites will be clearly marked as such in their domain names, some in the porn industry fear being ghettoized to a seedy corner of the Internet in the future.

There may be some truth in that – India has already said that it will block .xxx sites. That said, pornographic sites aren’t being forced to operate exclusively under such a domain – it’s purely voluntary.