The xxx-domains entered its sunrise phase on 7 September 2011 at 16:00 GMT.The sunrise period of xxx-domains ends 28th October 2011. The Landrush period of xxx-domains will start 8 November till 25 November 2011, and General Availability Phase of xxx-domains will begin on 6 December 2011.
The .xxx has been inspired by the former MPAA and BBFC "X" rating, now commonly applied to pornographic movies as "XXX".
The xxx-domains for sexually explicit material were proposed as one tool for dealing with the conflict between those who wish to provide and access such material through the Internet, and those who wish to prevent access to it, either by children and adolescents, or by employees at their workplaces.
Advocates of xxx-domains, Wikipedia tells, argue that it will be easier for parents and employers to block the entire TLD, rather than using more complex and error-prone content-based filtering, without imposing any restrictions on those who wish to access it Editors of explicit content sites are also afraid that the use of a single gTLD like .xxx would also make it easier for search engines to block all of their content.
Critics of the xxx-domains argue according to Wikipedia that because there is no requirement for providers of explicit content to use the TLD, sexually explicit material will still be commonplace in other domains, making it ineffectual at restricting access, and simply creating a new "landrush" towards xxx-domains as registrants of .com domains hosting explicit material attempt to duplicate their registrations in the .xxx domain, competing with operators who hope to register desirable names unavailable in other TLDs. There is also concern that the existence of xxx-domains will lead to legislation making its use mandatory for sexually explicit material, leading to legal conflicts over the definition of "sexually explicit", free speech rights, and jurisdiction.
Sunrise B is the time when trademark owners and other IP holders can apply to opt-out of xxx-domains. This period will run for 52 days starting September 7, 2011.
Sunrise B is aimed at applicants from outside of the adult Sponsored Community. These applicants are owners of a qualifying trademark registration, who seek to reserve names in order to ensure that those names are not registered as domain names by others in .XXX . At the close of the Sunrise Period, if no conflicting application by a Sunrise A applicant has been made, these names will will be removed from the pool of domain names available for registration in future phases of the registry operation.
Joseph M. DiCioccio and Susan Neuberger Weller explain:" In making a decision on how to deal with this new TLD, keep in mind that obtaining a defensive registration is a much more cost-effective method of preventing cybersquatting than is attempting to obtain the domain name later from a third party through, for example, the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy or the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.!"
Hans-Peter Oswald
http://www.domainregistry.de/...