The net's authority over names is now set to add .xxx to the set of global top level domains like .com and .net, thanks to a June 25 board vote that looks to put an end a five-year battle over the controversial addition to the net.

ICANN originally approved the proposal in 2005, then later rejected it after political meddling by the U.S. Last week, ICANN reluctantly said it would approve the proposal following an arbitration panel ruling that found ICANN failed to follow its own policies and changed its mind on the domain only after the U.S. government threatened its control over domain names.

The .xxx domain is opposed by both religious groups and much of the porn industry. The former consider it an endorsement of morally repugnant material, while the latter fear that governments will try to force porn sites off of other domains like .com into a porn ghetto.

Even when .xxx is finally approved, new or existing adult sites will not have to use .xxx. Any legislation in the U.S. to compel such a move would likely be struck down by the Supreme Court on free speech grounds, given how the court ruled on a website-labeling provision pushed by the U.S. government in the Clinton administration.

Now certainly, the internet doesn't need any more porn. And it doesn't need a .xxx domain.

But ICANN's ruling on June 25 to push along the application is the right one – ICM Registry, which is sponsoring .xxx, followed the rules, as an independent arbitration panel ruled (.pdf) in February. Now, ICANN staff will quickly make sure the application is still valid, that ICM is financially stable, and then move to contract negotiations and likely final approval by the board.

ICANN's scope of power is limited – making sure the net's naming system works well and safely. It controls and publishes the root file, which tells the net's directory where to find the authoritative lookups for top-level domains such as .com, .tv, .uk, etc. When the Bush administration told ICANN it would not let .xxx into the root file, ICANN buckled and changed its mind, instead of standing up for its independent authority.

The neutral body overseeing the net needs to demonstrate that it plays no favorites and will not tolerate meddling from governments, even the U.S. government, which still retains oversight authority over the name group. ICANN doesn't seem particularly happy about it, in no small part because it is publicly having to reverse itself again, and in part because it thinks it ought to have the power to decide what's in the public interest.

This is especially true now that ICANN is looking to radically expand the number of top-level domains, in part to alleviate the crunch.

Most likely, it will become, like .info, a low-rent home for sites run by hackers who want to infect your computer with malware.

But oddly, that's actually all right.

An easily avoided, bad neighborhood in a big, big world run on principles of openness and fairness is better than having the net devolve into a Disneyland run by the whims of whomever happens to be in charge or who is swayed by threats from whatever country happens to have the most carrier fleets.

So here's to .xxx. May it live and be mostly ignored.

Photo: PinkMoose/Flickr

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