An article at the New Statesman about age verification implementation on the Internet, asserts that ICM Registry gTLDs account “for a huge proportion of online porn.”
The article references dot .XXX, dot .porn and dot .sex, leaving out dot .adult for some reason.
The article’s claim that the ICM Registry commands the majority of online pornography, is most definitely inaccurate.
There are more than 124 million .com domains, and many are used to display, serve or promote adult content, including pornography. We’d place the total number of porn-related .com domains to well over a million, and that’s a very conservative figure.
Adult Domains: Get one, or two, or three.
By comparison, there are fewer than 100,000 .XXX domains, according to data from ZFBot.com, and less than 10,000 each for .sex and adult. Dot .porn has a little over 13,000 domain registrations. It is therefore impossible for all four ICM Registry gTLDs combined to contribute to online pornography more than .com does.
So who is doing this research and for what purpose?
According to the article:
“Dr Rachel O’Connell, government adviser and founder of tech consultancy Trust Elevate, says her consultancy now has a license to develop a version of Verify for the commercial sector. This could be used by porn sites, but even for retail sites when they deliver alcohol or sharp objects, for example.”
And further on:
“”Verify” was created to allow government websites cross-check your identity with bodies like the Royal Mail or insurance companies. You probably used it when you filed your tax return. “
Keep in mind that the New Statesman is a British political and cultural magazine.
For the full article titled, “Could age checks really keep kids away from online porn?” click here.
