Thousands of celebrities and politicians have had their names permanently banned from the new .xxx adult pornography internet domain.
The move means that cybersquatters will be unable to register domains such as Beyonce.xxx or MargaretThatcher.xxx to drive traffic to their websites.
More than 4 000 celebrities, from Angelina Jolie to Donald Trump, have had their .xxx web address blocked by ICM Registry, the firm managing the new adult entertainment domain.
The company has reserved 15 000 “dot triple-X” domain names on the request of international governments and child protection agencies.
This includes commonly used underage sex terms and the names of cities and well-known politicians, such as the US president, the British prime minister, and former prime ministers, according to Stuart Lawley, the chief executive of ICM Registry.
“That would include David Cameron, Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher,” he said.
Lawley could not say whether all British MPs would have their names permanently reserved on the register. Nor was he able to confirm which celebrities were covered by the ban, or what the criteria for their inclusion was. But he said there would be a rapid take-down process for anyone targeted by .xxx cybersquatters.
“There’s a prohibition on anyone registering a first or last name that doesn’t belong to them,” he said.
Red light district
Companies can register to avoid being associated with what has been dubbed the “online red light district” from Wednesday until October 28. They will have to pay $200 to $300 to buy .xxx addresses containing their trademarks before they go on general sale.
Lawley said: “The reason we banned the celebrities’ names was because it’s very difficult for them to trademark their names. We didn’t want to have the embarrassment of AngelinaJolie.xxx coming up at the launch of the new domain.”
About 1 500 .xxx domains have already been allocated to 35 porn companies, and many could go live ahead of the official general launch on December 6. A preregistration period found nearly 900 000 “expressions of interest” for 650 000 names.
“We hope to sell 500 000 domain names by January/February,” Lawley said.
The .xxx domain was approved by the international Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), which administers millions of internet addresses. It had been pending since 2003 and was resisted by the Bush government but progressed unopposed by Barack Obama’s administration.
Use of the domain name is voluntary and is designed to shut out child sexual abuse images and incorporate heightened security barriers, making it harder for children to stumble on sexual content online. – guardian.co.uk