One of Vancouver’s leading domain registrars is still grappling with how to approach news last week that .xxx has been given an official online domain designation for websites carrying pornographic content.
Many critics fear the domain will expand the massive presence of online porn and result in the creation of a virtual red light district.
Cybele Negris, co-founder and president of Webnames.ca, told BIV via e-mail that the Vancouver company, which doesn’t allow objectionable material on the sites it hosts, likely would not sell sites with the .xxx suffix. But there may be exceptions.
"I wouldn’t want to be supporting the pornography industry – that does not fit with the Webnames.ca corporate image,” she said. “If our corporate clients wanted to register their names for protective reasons however – to protect their trademarks and brand names to prevent someone from putting porn on them – then we would need to look at that carefully.”
She added some people are claiming that by segregating adult content to .xxx domains, it will be easier to keep the Internet safer for children.
“There will be a lot of [top-level domains] coming in the future and while we always get an initial lift with any domain launch – like .co currently – we would not compromise our values to make a bit more money.”