Stuart Lawley, who fought for .XXX domain, has died

Lawley didn’t give up the fight for .xxx, which was a commercial success.

The former CEO of ICM Registry, which successfully pushed for an adult namespace on the web, has died at 61, AVN reported yesterday.

Lawley fought for many years to introduce .xxx as a sponsored top level domain name.

He took heat from both sides: conservative groups opposed the domain for legitimizing pornography, and adult site operators feared governments would force them to adopt .xxx domains so they could be restricted.

The top level domain finally launched in 2011, and it was a massive success for the registry. Companies feared their brands would be snapped up in the controversial extension, and they plunked down $10 million in the first five days of sunrise ($13 million total in sunrise before auctions for identical strings). That was much more demand than ICM Registry expected.

The registry also took in significant revenue from companies that merely wanted to block 70,000 domains from others who might want to register them, as well as from significant premium domain sales.

In many ways, .xxx’s early success created high expectations for applicants for new top level domains because they expected companies to flock to sunrise periods to protect their brands.

But .xxx was launched in a vacuum. It didn’t compete with hundreds of other sunrise periods and was uniquely positioned to stoke fear in trademark holders.

When ICM Registry later launched .sex, .adult, and .porn as new top level domains, none of them garnered more than 15,000 domains under management.

Minds + Machines acquired ICM Registry in 2018, and GoDaddy Registry acquired its top level domains in 2021. Last month, the .xxx contract was renewed as a non-sponsored top level domain.