YNOT – Almost one month to the day after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers approved the dot-xxx sponsored Top Level Domain, on Friday the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority added dot-xxx to the web’s root name servers. Dot-xxx domains began resolving worldwide over the weekend.

“We are pleased to bring dot-xxx into the adult marketplace, and the positive response since approval has been overwhelming,” said ICM Registry’s Greg Dumas. “This is definitely an exciting time.”

ICM Registry initially pointed five domains — Search.xxx, About.xxx, Sex.xxx, Porn.xxx and XXX.xxx — to placeholder sites, both for testing and so the public could see the domain space in action. On Monday, all five were nothing more than identical billboards for dot-xxx, although ICM Registry chief executive Stuart Lawley told YNOT the sites will remain in registrar ICM’s possession for the foreseeable future.

“They probably will be developed as industry portals,” he said. “We will use some sites to generate traffic for the industry — sort of directory style sites, plus-plus.”

Dumas indicated pre-registration of dot-xxx domain names remains brisk.

“The excitement has been building since [dot-xxx’s] approval by ICANN on March 18 in San Francisco,” Dumas said. “Many adult companies have been inquiring, and some are already securing premium domains and matching domains via the Founders Program.”

Dumas also said the Founders Program has been extended. The program will end as the Sunrise periods begin, tentatively scheduled for early this summer. Landrush and general availability periods will follow. More about the expected timeline is here.

Lawley told YNOT he is relieved to see things moving forward at long last.

“I think my line has been one from a favorite movie of mine: ‘It’s been emotional,’” he said.

The line is from Guy Ritchie’s 1998 twister Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, in which four London working-class stiffs lose a half-million pounds during a crooked, high-stakes card game and subsequently engage in deadly machinations to repay the debt within one week.