YNOT – Dot-xxx registration opened to the public at about noon ET Tuesday, approximately one hour after the scheduled launch. According to published reports, a technical glitch somewhere in registrar ICM Registry’s system caused a group of domains that already had been claimed to show up as available for general registration.

Once the gremlin was shooed from the gears, however, the system hummed along as expected.
Also as expected, ICM began promoting the new adults-only sponsored Top Level Domain as “the responsible alternative for sites that offer adult entertainment and related services…. Internet users can surf the internet with more confidence.”

“The public response has been overwhelming, as consumers and adult entertainment providers are excited about the benefits and infinite possibilities of dot-xxx,” said ICM Chief Executive Officer Stuart Lawley, adding that ICM’s Buy.XXX promotional website received nearly one million visitors per day during the lead-up to general availability.

Of particular value for both site owners and surfers, Lawley said, is a daily McAfee scan of every dot-xxx site for malware. Dot-xxx is the only domain space to offer the free service, he added. Each dot-xxx site also bears a MetaCert electronic Family Safety label, allowing individuals and organizations to restrict access at the browser level, provided they download and install an extension for Firefox.

Site owners also may employ the Restricted to Adults website labelling protocol developed by the adult-industry specific Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection, but that solution is neither mandatory nor automatic within dot-xxx.

Because no domain space yet has been free of catfights over contested URLs, ICM has secured the services of the National Arbitration Forum to handle dot-xxx disputes. On Monday, the forum launched a program called Rapid Evaluation Service, designed to protect trademarks from infringement. Director of Internet and IP Services Kristine Dorrain called the program “a streamlined process” that should result in dispute resolution within weeks instead of the months often required for a similar matter to work its way through the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution process established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. UDRP cases most often are administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization, but the National Arbitration Forum has mediated 17,000 of the disputes in its 12 years of existence.

The forum also will administer ICM’s Charter Eligibility Dispute Resolution Policy in cases where web users wish to challenge the eligibility of a dot-xxx domain name owner.