.XXX plans to spend $15 million in the first year to promote the new domain.

The registry has ambitious plans to make its existence known to all web surfers.

ICM Registry, the owner of the .xxx registry, has very ambitious marketing plans.

Ambitious Marketing

One of the striking differences between .xxx and the new TLD launches of ten years ago is how much the registrar plans to spend to advertise .xxx to the world. The company will spend $3 million by the end of the year to promote .xxx and $15 million in its first year to win over web users.

"I haven't seen many registrars do this," said Stuart Lawley, CEO of ICM Registry. "We create advertising for users."

The main message to users is that .xxx exists and is "safe" (thanks to the agreement with the antivirus scanner for all .xxx sites), so people looking for adult material can simply search and find what they are looking for.

Protection of rights

But registrars aren't just advertising their domains to users. Loli said his company spent $1 million during the sunrise period promoting its domains to trademark owners. It will also offer a "lifetime" domain name reservation service for companies not associated with the porn industry. The price of this service is just $165, and the company is only working to recoup costs. It's estimated that about 10,000 domains will be "locked" using this service.

Software compatibility with new TLDs

Search engines like Google and Yahoo already index .XXX websites. However, it will take some time for some software developers to recognize it as a top-level domain.

There are still a number of programs that don't recognize .xxx. ICM is working to resolve these issues with companies like Skype and Google.

New TLD operators should carefully study ICM Registry's experience with .XXX to understand the challenges they will face.