They were dammed if they didn’t and they are now dammed for what they did, now the Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers, is facing being sued for simply creating a top-level domain .xxx for adult web addresses.The major gripe is that adult-content companies claim they will have to register addresses with the new suffix to prevent others from doing so with names identical or similar to their own trademarks.

According to the Financial Times, Adult Film Company Digital Playground and Manwin Licensing, a Luxemburg group that operates Playboy’s online sites, sued Icann in the Los Angeles federal court this week.

The suit points up one of the ironies of the long-controversial move by Icann, which is that neither much of the porn industry nor the overseer of the web naming system was really in favour of the .xxx branding.

It also gives an alarming indication of the legal free-for-all that might be in store with the looming debut of generic top-level domain names-everything from .hotel to .popcorn.