.sexy is a
generic top-level domain
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of ev ...
owned by
Uniregistry. Delegated on 14 November 2013, .sexy was the subject of controversy due to opposition from the government of
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Arab ...
and privacy concerns regarding registering domains.
History
.sexy, along with
.tattoo, was one of the first two gTLDs launched by
Uniregistry on 14 November 2013.
Its
sunrise period
The sunrise period of domain name registration is a special period during which trademark holders may preregister names that are the same or similar to their trademarks in order to avoid cybersquatting. This occurs prior to the general launch of th ...
, during which pre-existing trademark holders may register URLs prior to general availability to prevent domain squatting, lasted from 11 December 2013 to 9 February 2014, and it entered general availability on 25 February 2014.
.sexy was one of the first hundred gTLDs to be delegated.
Prior to its release, .sexy was one of many announced gTLDs, variously reported as 31
and over 160,
that the Communication and Information Technology Commission of the government of
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Arab ...
objected to; other TLDs found objectionable included
.gay,
.casino,
.sucks,
.wine, and
.bible.
On the first day of .sexy's general availability, around 2,000 domain names were registered, which commentators described as a "disappointing" low showing. The domain had a comparable number of first-day registrations as unpopular domains from Uniregistry's competitor
Donuts such as
.gallery and
.estate.
.sexy's launch was hampered by a lack of support from and availability at major domain name registrars such as
GoDaddy
GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware.
, GoDaddy has more than 21 million customers and over 6,600 employees worldwide. Th ...
,
based in privacy concerns around Uniregistry's demands that registrants inform Uniregistry of their real names and identities to purchase domains.
A number of pre-orders of .sexy domains were also stymied by domain name collision, the phenomenon where a private (
intranet
An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in c ...
)
domain name system
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned ...
queries a public one,
and by names that had been pre-ordered being reserved by Uniregistry.
In 2015, a survey by
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespac ...
concluded networks in Iran were systematically blocking .sexy domains.
In 2017, Uniregistry CEO
Frank Schilling
Frank T. Schilling (born July 29, 1969) is a Canadian and Paper-Caymanian Internet-investor.
Personal life
Born in Germany, Schilling grew up in Canada and moved to the Cayman Islands 2003 (at the age of 34).
Career
Schilling founded his com ...
increased the price of .sexy and a number of other domains due to low uptake. Schilling stated that the costs of running a TLD demanded that low-use TLDs, such as .sexy, be sold at higher price points in order to turn a profit.
Usage
According to Schilling, .sexy domains are intended "for fun, for fashion, for recreation, as a novelty,
ndfor risqué content".
.sexy has also been associated with
cybersquatting, with cybersquatters purchasing .sexy domains for major companies who rejected having their trademarks associated with adult industries;
such misuse was predicted prior to the domain's release, with commentators describing them as potentially costing companies "serious money".
Explicit content is prohibited on the home pages of websites with .sexy domains, although sites are permitted to have a landing page with a warning button that needs to be clicked through to access such content.
, there are 6,109 registered .sexy domains, making up 0.02% of all domains.
NameCheap holds the plurality of the .sexy market share with 20.7%, although 35.9% of .sexy domains are registered by registries outside the top ten.
The domain's lack of popularity was described by domain expert Kevin Murphy as a failure of Schilling's own practices:
See also
*
Internet pornography
Internet pornography is any pornography that is accessible over the internet, primarily via websites, FTP servers peer-to-peer file sharing, or Usenet newsgroups. The availability of widespread public access to the World Wide Web in late 1990s ...
References
Top-level domains
Generic top-level domains
2013 introductions
Sexuality and computing
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