The Freename Forum

The internet administration ICANN has waved through the extension of the registry contract for the red light domain .xxx. On 10 November 2024, the Board of Directors decided to extend the contract with ICM Registry LLC, which belongs to GoDaddy and expires on 30 November 2024. The parties had been in negotiations for four years. The main point of contention was that ICM wanted to separate from its sponsoring organisation, the International Foundation For Online Responsibility (IFFOR), as the feared increased risk of a red light domain had not materialised. Instead, there should be a large number of ‘Public Interest Commitments’ (PICs), i.e. voluntary commitments to prevent the distribution of child pornography, for example. ICANN has now complied with this request so that the same rules apply to .xxx as to .adult, .porn and .sex. It is noteworthy that even ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) had no objections to the cancellation of the sponsor obligation. This will make it easier for users to register .xxx domains as they no longer have to be a member of the ‘sponsored community’, which never really existed anyway. According to the latest available figures from July 2024, 44,853 .xxx domains are registered.

Source: https://www.icann.org/