You may have heard that a .xxx domain is on the way. Maybe. It’s not a done deal, but an application has been approved. WorldNetDaily has a good article about it.

Everyone knows online porn is out there. Everyone knows it’s big. Did you realize how big? Well, here are a few stats according to Internet Filter Review (which, one would think, has something of a vested interest in these numbers; still, I have to think they’re not that far off):

The online porn industry generates $57 billion worldwide … Porn revenue is larger than all combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises … 12% of all web sites are porn sites … 25% of all search engine requests are porn-related … 90% of kids 8 to 16 have viewed porn online …Here’s a particularly nasty one: Child porn generates $3 billion annually.

Yep, this is the world we live in. As an online marketer and a parent, I support the creation of a .xxx domain, and I hope efforts to segregate online porn to that domain are successful. This will make it easier for libraries and parents to filter out porn (not that filters can’t be circumvented, but that’s a separate issue). It will also help raise the level of confidence the average consumer has about the Internet in general. Because let’s face it: This can be a skanky neighborhood where we do business, and everyone knows it. Let’s clean it up a bit.

It’s not a question of morals or free speech. It’s common sense.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 21st, 2005 at 8:14 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff.