porn domain

The domain extension ".porn" is a top-level domain (gTLD) under which pornographic content is offered.

The top-level domain ".porn" was founded by ICM Registry in 2015 and, together with ".adult", already had around 4000 sub-domains within an hour of its creation. Currently, the registry is waiting for an approval to replace the older top-level domain ".xxx" with the domain ".porn". This would result in a free relocation of numerous adult entertainment services.

Christian groups such as "Morality in Media" also caused controversy with the ".porn" domain. In particular, the argument is that the providers of pornographic content would not leave older domains such as ".com" or ".xxx" through new top-level domains, but would instead be encouraged to generate new domains in order to be able to offer more pornographic content. As part of this initiative, the group "Morality in Media" approached the US government and ICANN as early as 2012 to prevent a split of the ".xxx" domain into the domains ".porn", ".adult" and ".sex".

The independent observer Alain Pellet, on the other hand, comes to the conclusion that the new top-level domain ".porn" neither promotes the consumption of pornographic content nor encourages the distribution of illegal content. On the contrary, pornographic content could be much better monitored if it were distributed via obviously declared domains than via inconspicuous endings such as ".com" or ".de".