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New domain means legal pornography sites can be found in a single grouping. Photograph: AP The internet could soon have its own red light district after the ".xxx" suffix was approved – though pornography companies are not keen to use it. Icann, the organisation which determines what "top-level domains" (TLDs) such as .com or .uk can be added to the internet announced today that it will begin the process of registering .xxx by making checks on ICM Registry, the company that wants to run the domain and sell registrations. It marks the closing stages of a 10-year battle by ICM Registry, now run by the British internet entrepreneur Stuart Lawley, to get the .xxx domain set up so that legal pornography sites can be found in a single grouping.

Exactly 25 years ago, on March 15 1985, computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc registered the first .com web domain ever: symbolics.com. By today’s design standards, and considering how web sites looked back in the late eighties and early nineties, it’s quite decent, although a bit short on content. However, its content and even the (now defunct) company that registered it are far less important than the boom it ignited: in 1997, one million .com web domains were registered, and in 2000 the dot-com bubble peaked, resulting in an inevitable meltdown.