MARINA DEL REY, Calif. — ICM Registry's application for .adult has passed its initial evaluation and was given approval today to move forward in ICANN's gTLD screening process.
So far, 1,100 applications for gTLDs have either passed, failed or qualified for extended evaluation in ICANN's filtering process, which began earlier this year. Today, 95 applications were given the green light.
Applications that pass ICANN's Initial Evaluation stage and that do not face any objections or string contention are eligible to proceed with execution of a registry agreement.
ICM Registry announced last year that it would apply for additional TLDs beyond its .xxx sTLD, including .sex, .porn and the tentatively approved .adult.
ICANN, so far, has not yet decided on .sex and .porn, but Stuart Lawley, ICM Registry's CEO, told XBIZ, he's optimistic they'll get the green light.
".Porn which is an identical application will now undoubtedly achieve the same passing grade as .adult when its evaluation is dealt with under its higher draw number and also has no contention or objections so will also swiftly follow through to testing and delegation," Lawley said. "Given the excellent search engine positioning for keywords that .xxx sites are getting, we expect .porn to perform very strongly for SEO when launched.
".Sex also an identical application is expected to pass also and has no objections filed against it. There is however one other bid for .sex that is subject to an objection from a third party that has not been adjudicated yet. If the other other bid survives the objection then we will be in a 'contention set' with the other bidder and will likely proceed to auction to secure the string.
"Apart from .xxx which we see and have always seen as the strongest and premium adult identifier and brand we see .porn as the next strongest of the three supplementals adult TLDs we have applied for and , as mentioned, expect it to perform well for SEO as users most often type in 'keyword porn.'"
Lawley noted that .adult passed the financial and technical evaluations and has no contention or objections "so it will pass through to testing and delegation along ICANN's timetables."
".Adult passed the financial and technical evaluations and has no contention or objections so will pass through to testing and delegation along ICANN's timetables," Stuart Lawley, ICM Registry's CEO, told XBIZ.