Unofficially, the VentureBeat staff files any post related to sex under a nonexistent “PornBeat” category. But this doesn’t mean these aren’t legitimate tech stories. It does, however, mean that we’ve worked harder to legitimize sex-related stories by reaching out to the entrepreneurs or creators responsible — all of whom were very eager to chat.

The stories listed below don’t quite prove the old theory that pornography drives all technological advances, but they do show that wherever innovation thrives, you’ll find a pornographic application or element to it (aka the Internet’s Rule 34).

Bateflix: A Netflix search engine for finding nudity

Billed as Instant Watcher meets Mr. Skin, BateFlix provides you with a way to search for nudity within the films available on Netflix’s streaming video library. I reached out to the creator of the site, who said he was shocked more people weren’t using Netflix’s API to do interesting things like this. You can search for specific sexual acts, nudity of men or women, and more. It even has a rating system to tell you the quality of the movies in regard to the nudity.

PETA buys an .XXX domain, launches unsexy site

Animal-rights activist group the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was among the first crop of organizations to stake its claim on a new .xxx top-level domain last year. The .xxx top-level domain is (in theory, anyway) intended to be popular among adult-focused sites that offer pornographic content, but that’s certainly not a requirement. This year, peta.xxx went live. It really, really was not all that sexy, according to VentureBeat’s Meghan Kelly.

Sex.com & Snatch.ly: Pinterest for pornography

Pinterest’s mega-growth in popularity spawned dozens of copycats and inspired many companies to apply its design principles to their own sites. As VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig writes, Pinterest is largely popular with a female demographic, so a large opportunity exists to find a way to make it appeal to (more) men. Enter both Snatch.ly and Sex.com. Sean interviewed the founders of both sites about their decisions to become a “Pinterest for pornography.” Will they succeed? We’ll just have to check back in 2013.

3D printers and the future of sexy toys

By my observations, the advent of 3D printing technology (using plastic and other materials to create things from a device similar to how you would print a document) came with a gross overreaction that a flood of fake guns would overwhelm authorities. Fast forward months later and the news cycle has shifted to another touchy but far less violent subject: 3D printers and the sex toy industry. VentureBeat’s Ricardo Bilton interviewed the creator of MakerLove, a website whose operator posts sex toy designs for 3D printer owners to try out. It might seem like a ridiculous concept, but read the story: It’s much more clever than you might think.

Reddit tightens its rules on pornography

In February, community news-sharing site Reddit started to crack down on the underbelly of sexual fetish communities that had set up shop on the site. One of Reddit’s steps included banning anything that was questionably illegal, which was brought to a head by CNN’s Anderson Cooper calling out the JailBait subreddit for implying that it held nude photos of underaged teens. The site’s managers went back and forth on the decision a few times before ultimately deciding that it wasn’t worth ruining their reputation to keep it up.

A full eight months later, Gawker uncovered the identity of one of the unnofficial “police officers” of these seedy subreddits: Michael Brutsch, who went by the username ViolentAcrez on Reddit. In a followup interview, Brutsch proceeded to drag Reddit’s name through the mud, but the site’s previous stance on the issue gave it some protection against claims that Reddit proper was working to keep this questionably indecent sexual content flowing on the site. Reddit dodged a bullet for now, but sexual misconduct on community news sites is an issue we’re likely to encounter again in the future.

Microsoft bans pornography (and nudity) in the cloud

Did you know you’re not allowed to send or share anything with nudity on Microsoft’s cloud service, Skydrive? Well, you can’t, and the company routinely performs scans to ensure you’re not violating the rules, which it insists it does to prevent illegal activity. What’s worse, though, is if you get banned from your Skydrive account for breaking the rules, you also lose access to any other Microsoft service that’s connected to Skydrive (Outlook/Hotmail, Office 365, and so on). VentureBeat’s Sean Ludwig even put together a list of competing cloud services’ stances on sharing pornography and nudity.

Search.xxx: The Google of pornography search engines?

ICM Registry, the company responsible for managing the new .xxx top-level domain addresses, launched the pornography search engine Search.xxx back in September. We spoke to the ICM, and it said it intends to intends to make looking for online adult entertainment safer and easier to access. And if you’re managing a top-level domain targeted at the adult industry, such as .xxx, why not do something to cater to that specific client base? Check out the article for a full explanation.

Honorable Mention: Microsoft apologizes for sexing up the cloud (video)

In a world full of motion-sensing Kinect technology, iPhones, and smart thermostats, it’s hard to make something like a cloud-computing platform exciting. But that didn’t stop a European marketing firm hired by Microsoft from trying to make its cloud-platform Azure seem sexy at the Norwegian Developers Conference in Oslo earlier in the year. The marketing firm hired dancers and played an inappropriate, developer-related rap song that ruffled some feathers and prompted a public apology from Microsoft.

Robot bumping & grinding photo by Tom Cheredar/Flickr

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Google has modified its popular image search to block many explicit pictures, a move that could be a big win for competing search engines.

While you used to be able to turn SafeSearch off to easily find questionable material, Google now only lets you “filter explicit images” or “report offensive images.” As you can see in the image above, a search for the word “porn” brings up some questionable material but nothing explicit.

Users on Reddit first noticed the changes this morning, and several were quick to label the move as “censorship.” VentureBeat can confirm that common searches in the U.S. and U.K. have blocked steamy images from showing up in image results and that SafeSearch is on permanently.

A Google spokesperson told us and other outlets the following statement about the changes:

We are not censoring any adult content, and want to show users exactly what they are looking for — but we aim not to show sexually explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them. We use algorithms to select the most relevant results for a given query. If you’re looking for adult content, you can find it without having to change the default setting — you just may need to be more explicit in your query if your search terms are potentially ambiguous. The image search settings now work the same way as in web search.

Essentially, Google’s decision makes it much harder to find porn using Google. This is a big win for competing search engines, especially Microsoft’s Bing and ICM Registry’s Search.xxx. If Google doesn’t want the traffic, the underdogs certainly will take it.

Microsoft’s Bing, the No. 2 search engine on the web, still offers a robust image search, and we can confirm that it works perfectly well for looking at all kinds of explicit images. (Which is sort of funny considering how Microsoft has serious problems with nudity and pornography being hosted on its servers.)

Search.xxx is another winner. While it does not offer a full-fledged image search, Search.xxx does offer a safe browsing experience when you are looking for adult material. Plus, you know exactly what you’ll find when looking for video or images on it. As we’ve written before, Search.xxx only crawls online pages with the .xxx domain and it claims to be “safer” than using other search engines to find porn because all sites found through it are scanned daily by McAfee.

“We are still digesting exactly what this will mean in real-world search queries for the porn-searching consumer, but this seems to continue a trend we have seen in recent months by the major search engines towards adult content,” ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley told us via email. “Google’s decision only serves to reinforce the purpose and usefulness of what ICM Registry has been building: a destination for those adult consumers looking for high quality content.”

These companies, and plenty more, are asking ICANN, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, for no less than 1934 different top level domains …  a huge expansion of the 280 currently in use, which mainly consist of the familiar .com, .net, .org, and the various country domains.

This past week ICANN met in Toronto to discuss new top-level domains. Hundreds of companies want to own new top-level domains, and some want to own almost hundreds of. Amazon, for instance, has applied for 77 top-level domains — app, of course, but also .kindle, .movie, .music, .author, and .buy.

What is a company or brand to do in this massive, potentially confusing new world which promised to give us more than 2000 top level domains? VentureBeat talked to Liesbeth Mack-de Boer about what’s coming up, what’s hot, and what are some the pitfalls.

Source: Webfest.me

Liesbeth Mack-de Boer

She’s the chief sales officer for Sedo, the worlds largest domain marketplace. You may have heard of Sedo when the company processed the sale of Sex.com for $13 million two years ago. The company currently has 16 million domain names in its database for sale.

VentureBeat: Which of the new domains are you excited about?

Mack-de Boer: We really like some of the geos like .NYC. There are also a lot of generics, such as .app. Others that will do very well include .green and .eco, and even non-commercial ones like .hiv — we were really skeptical about them at first — have developed a really nice community spirit around them.

We’re also really excited about .pizza.

VentureBeat: Do we really need new domain names? Will companies buy them?

Mack-de Boer: I absolutely think that they will buy them. For instance, to promote their green presence, companies can buy their brand.green. We already have companies trying to do that.

There’s great added value in a lot of the new names. There are other ones that we don’t know how they will end up … we’re not enthusiastic about all of them.

VentureBeat: It kind of seems like a money grab, forcing companies to buy more domain names.

Mack-de Boer: Well, it’s all about marketing. Companies don’t need to buy every extension for every product … most companies already prioritize what they buy.

VentureBeat: If you don’t buy your brand.whatever, will your brand still be protected?

Mack-de Boer: Yes. Deloitte is building a trademark clearing house so brands can register and if someone tried to register a domain name that conflicts with their brands, they will be notified.

VentureBeat: What happens to .com in this new reality?

Mack-de Boer: .com is still the strongest domain by far, and we expect that it will stay king. But it remains to be seen what people will go to …

VentureBeat: Do you expect any consumer confusion when the new domains come in?

Mack-de Boer: Yes. There will be consumer confusion for sure. In fact, we’ve been discussing how to work around it. For example … how do you put it on a billboard?

If you use newyork.pizza, what does that mean to people? Some are going to have to bring back the www. in front to ensure that their new address is understood.

After meeting, it appears that no decisions on top-level domains will be made until an April 2013 meeting in Beijing. However, according to SEDO, most if not all of the domains will be making it through.

photo credit: Viktor Hertz via photopin cc

ICM Registry is the company behind the .xxx domain, and it’s launched a new search engine called Search.xxx that intends to make looking for online adult entertainment safer and easier to access.

Search.xxx works similar to Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, but it only crawls online pages with the .xxx domain. ICM says that it manages more than 240,000 unique .xxx domain, and its search engine scans more than 21 million pages to finds its results. Plus, at the top of the search page you can select between 19 languages and sexual orientation of the content you’re looking for.

“ICM Registry has worked for more than a decade to build .XXX into a globally accepted place for responsible adult online entertainment,” ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley said in a statement. “With a search engine dedicated to helping people find precisely what they want amid millions of pages of content, we’re providing an entirely new adult content experience in a safe, privacy protected, and trusted environment.”

Search.xxx claims it is “safer” than using any other search engine to find porn because all sites found through it are scanned daily by McAfee. These sites also carry a MetaCert Family Safety label that make it easier for parents to restrict access to these sites in their browser settings. Basically, the .xxx sites found on Search.xxx remove the worry of getting malware from looking for adult content and makes it easier to block sites.

“This is a safer, responsible environment where users aren’t subjected to potentially annoying images and offers that plague some porn portals,” Lawley said. “The site is also free of pop ups, pop unders and other unwelcome distractions.”

Palm Beach, Fla.-based ICM Registry opened up bidding for sites wanting a .xxx domain about a year ago and officially launched the domain last December. ICM charges a quite-pricey $60 a year for .xxx domains.

Animal rights organization PETA launched its .XXX domain website Tuesday. The site combines traditional porn and shocking images of animal cruelty, ready to turn you on and then make you feel guilty (so, really no different than any other porn site).

The company announced it was purchasing the domain peta.xxx in September 2011, soon after the triple-x domain option was offered to the public during a “sunrise period.” During that period of time, PETA had to apply for the domain name, alongside any other company that wanted to snatch up the rights to its name before it went up for grabs.

“A lot of organizations were gun shy about the triple-x domain, but when PETA saw it we thought this would be triple-extra effective,” Lindsay Rajt, director of campaigns for PETA told VentureBeat at the time.

PETA is known for using shock value to raise awareness of the abused critters of the world, and this website falls right in line with that approach. The .xxx domain and the promise of naked people in compromising positions attracts viewers to the site. After watching the salacious video or eyeballing sexy photos, visitors are confronted with disturbing images of animal cruelty.

A number of celebrities have been involved in PETA campaigns — particularly its “I’d rather go naked than wear fur,” advertisements — and this porn site is no exception. Famed adult movie stars Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson, along with a number of other celebrities, are gracing peta.xxx’s pages.

Ron Jeremy eloquently explained in a Q&A with PETA: “This is the perfect example of sex just being used to draw interest, and then once you’re there on the site, we’re going to hit you with facts that you need to know about the world of animals.”

Thumbnail cat image via Flickr/Gideon van der Stelt

“A lot of organizations were gun shy about the triple-x domain, but when PETA saw it we thought this would be triple-extra effective,” Lindsay Rajt, director of campaigns for PETA told VentureBeat.

Reuters reported the story, saying the anti-animal cruelty organization is staking its claim to peta.xxx, which will serve as an animal cruelty awareness and pornography site. Peta has pushed the limits of its animal cruelty ads often in the past with near-nudity, racy slogans and a lot of shock value. Indeed, shock value seems to be PETA’s way of waving its arms for attention. This porn site is no exception.

“As soon as people land on the site they will see some explicit content, those tantalizing images they they’ll be hoping for,” Rajt said of the site’s content. As they go deeper into the site, however, visitors will find graphic images of animal abuse. It seems the .xxx site will serve up both violence and sex.

“It can be a pretty depressing subject,” Rajt said about animal cruelty, “We hope it’ll grab people’s attention, get them talking, and ultimately get them to ask questions.”

Rajt believes that PETA generates awareness for all kinds of people, and thinks this is just one avenue to reach a subset of its potential audience.

The .xxx domains are open to the public in a “sunrise period,” where companies have 50 days to bid for its domains.

PETA has met a lot of opposition before, with anti-PETA groups forming around its cause. These groups include PETA Kills Animals and Vegans Against PETA, which is specifically “concerned about the misogynist…tactics used by PETA.” Even the Superbowl rejected a PETA advertisement claiming “vegetarians have better sex.”

Perhaps now we’ll find out.

See below for a PETA produced video of famed porn star Ron Jeremy talking animal cruelty.

[Photo provided by peta.com]

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

After a decade-long battle, adult entertainment sites today can start bidding for their own .xxx top-level domain, which will make porn sites easier to find for lonely souls.

Today marks the beginning of the domain’s “sunrise” period, a 50-day long stint in which companies and brand owners can apply for a .xxx domain, reports the Independent. It’s the start of a new era of porn on the web, as adult websites will be more easily recognizable, which will be helpful both for adult entertainment customers and for parents who want to keep naughty things away from their kids.

Registration for the domain will be handled by Florida-based ICM Registry. Stuart Lawley, who heads ICM, has been fighting to get the .xxx domain approved since 2000. It was finally given the go-ahead last year by the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The site Casting.xxx was the first to be approved in August, and since then 1,500 additional sites were approved as part of ICM’s founders program. Lawley expects that the domain will attract over 500,000 sites within the next few months.

Access to the domain will slowly relax over time. Starting November 8, a “land rush” period will give adult sites premium access to remaining domains. 17 days after that, the .xxx domain will open up for anyone to register, making it no different from registering a typical .com or .net domain today.

In addition to being easier to find, .xxx domains will make porn sites safer to visit. ICM has contracted antivirus company McAfee to scan all .xxx domains for malware, viruses, and other malicious content. Typically, porn sites are known to be breeding grounds for malware (Lawley notes there’s little evidence for this claim though).

The fight for the .xxx domain has cost ICM $20 million so far, but Lawley tells the Independent that it hopes to raise around $30 million in its first year. Its founders program has already made ICM around $4 million. ICM charges $60 a year for .xxx domains, but average folks will have to buy them via other registers who charge more: GoDaddy will sell the domains for $99 a year, while Domainmonster will charge $77.

Trademark owners can remove their names from the .xxx registry entirely, but they will have to pay $200 to do so. Still, the cost will likely be worth it to prevent cybersquatting.

After a decade-long review process, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) decided to grant final approval for the domain proposal for the porn industry. The whole affair shed light on both the politics and technology behind starting new domain names.

At its annual meeting in San Francisco today, ICANN voted 9-3 to approve the domain, which allows web sites to end their web addresses in .xxx, rather than .com or .biz.

The .xxx web sites will likely start appearing in the coming months. Sometime in the fall, a big land rush will take place for companies applying for .xxx domain names. The domain name application was originally submitted by Stuart Lawley, chief executive of ICM Registry, who said he wants consumers to make safe and secure transactions on .xxx sites. Lawley proposed the .xxx domain names in 2004, and he plans to make money selling domain names. A number of national governments, including the U.S., opposed the creation of the domains.

Adult sites won’t be forced to use the new domain. The Free Speech Coalition, which represents some of the adult industry, opposed the domain name on the grounds that it would raise costs for porn providers. The domain names cost $60 each, and the porn sites will have to register a lot of them to keep their brands from being hijacked. The FSC said the new domain would make it easier for filters to block adult sites and that it would appeal the decision to an advisory board consisting of government representatives.

Lawley said he has received requests to reserve more than 200,000 domain names. Here’s a partial chronology of the whole process.