ICANN Approves .xxx Suffix For Porn Websites
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An anonymous reader tips news that ICANN has officially approved the creation of a .xxx suffix for porn sites, confirming the rumors we discussed on Thursday. While this resolves a 10-year debate on the subject, the Guardian notes that "many pornography companies are unhappy with the idea of a dedicated space online because they expect that as soon as .xxx is implemented, conservative members of the US Congress will lobby to make any sex-related website re-register there and remove itself from other domains such as .com or .org." Others are more confident, like Stuart Lawley of ICM Registry, the company sponsoring the new TLD. "Mr. Lawley said more than 100,000 domains had preregistered. He said he expected that when the dot-xxx domains opened for business, nine to 12 months from now, some 500,000 domains would register, or roughly 10% of the five million to six million adult online sites."
100,000 preregistered? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that 90% of those preregistrations are by domain name squatters.
What is the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
All this will do is rake in registration $$$ and have zero effect on anything else. Take any site for example, like youporn.com. They will go register youporn.xxx so they have their name protected, and one will redirect to the other. If some other company tried to register youporn.xxx out from under them, the real site would just sue and claim it.
They won't give up their .com addresses, so nothing will change.
Wtf is xxx? (Score:5, Insightful)
it took me a while to figure this one out (Score:5, Insightful)
My question is, why did ICANN finally relent? Were they bribed? Did they just become impatient over the issue that they've said 'no' to for over a decade? Is it possible to get anything passed through ICANN if you just ask enough times? Why is ICANN supporting this blatant rent-seeking?
Terrible idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:it took me a while to figure this one out (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the ICANN board is chosen by domain registrars who stand the most to gain by introduction of a new TLD.
why do people think this is a bad idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
i'm not talking about the religious nuts, i understand their point of view: they think a .xxx domain makes porn legitimate. as if not having a .xxx domain means POOF, all porn disappears. porn is a part of society, and some can argue it actually serves a valid purpose (harmless release of sexual frustrations). get used to it, (hypocritical) social conservatives, you have a better chance fighting the rising and falling of the tides. its not going away, ever
but i'm talking about the porn purveyors: why are they fighting this? it's not a ghettoization, its a domain. yes, it makes it easy to censor sexual content. and what's wrong with that? if i have some kids in my house, and i want to black hole all .xxx domains, i should be able to do that. if a nation wants to blackhole all .xxx domains at a national level meanwhile: ok, this nation is retarded. as if not having .xxx means they won't engage in idiotic censorship? you make it easier for them? do you see iran and china quaking in their boots because censorship is hard? get real: a committed censoring asshole is a committed censoring asshole, the issue of easy or hard to censor is an issue for people who want to block the domain for legitimate purposes (kids in the house), not an issue for those who will censor no matter what
and finally, there's the red herring of sexual content that shouldn't be grouped with porn, like sexual health. well if its sexual health, like how to put on a condom, its sexual health, end of discussion. its not pornography. yes, some assholes will try to group sexual health issues with porn. the existence of such assholes does not mean sexual health issues deserve to be with porn, just that there exists assholes in this world with harmful ideas about sexual health that you need to fight, and the existence or lack of existence of an .xxx domain does not change their existence or the need to fight them. in fact, let them make fools of themselves by trying to group sexual health topics with porn, and reveal to the thinking rational world what ignorant assholes they really are, bring their idiocy to the forefront
the REAL point is that pornography is not some GOTCHA that tries to sneak up on innocent teenagers and corrupt their souls, this is social conservative bullshit (and fails to understand human nature). clearly defining and delineating pornographic content simply underlines the most important point here: pornography is something that people choose to consume, and if some hypocritical social conservative asshole doesn't like that fact, or is ashamed of that fact, then don't click on an .xxx domain, end of story!
because no one is trying to trick you into recognizing that you have sexual urges
fly the new .xxx flag loud and proud. its simply a healthy recognition of the fact that we are sexual beings, and we are happy and comfortable making a space for this material on our internet. LACK OF recognition of the validity of porn is the REAL problem, lack of an .xxx domain is an act of misplaced shame, and that's the real motivation behind ignoring the issue, and denying porn its own domain
giving porn its own domain is sex positive, and good for society. really. every rational, self-aware human should celebrate this
Think of the children (Score:3, Insightful)
Lawley says he expects to make $30m (£20m) a year in revenue by selling each .xxx site for $60, and pledges to donate $10 from each sale to child protection initiatives.
If he actually gives $6 million per year to child protection causes the universe will implode out of shock and amazement.
.xxx domain (or that .xxx can be blocked altogether), so now they're safe from porn? Because I'm sure that .xxx porn sites will never use pop-up loops or deceptive ads or auto-dialing trojans the way many .com porn sites have done forever. The new .xxx porn industry will be squeaky clean, with our children's welfare at heart!
.com, .net, and .org porn sites to re-register in .xxx and drop their old domains, which will not happen.
.com sites for quite some time, and that .com sites will simply register the same domain registered under .xxx and redirect people back into the .com site.
Also on children, are they supposing children will never stumble into a
Not to mention the whole thing won't have any damn effect unless you simultaneously force current
Furthermore, for the whole notion of giving adults an easy, consolidated place to access porn, let me give ICANN a big hint: whether it's porn, cracks, bomb making instructions, or whatever, the most obvious place to look for anything even vaguely taboo is always the one most flooded with scams, viruses, top lists, etc. which make the obvious places by far the most worthless places to look. I predict that absolutely all worthwhile porn will remain on
Re:why do people think this is a bad idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
-It is stupid to expect all porn to go to ".xxx".
-Therefore it doesn't make it easier to filter porn, it means your filters have to have one extra line for "block *.xxx". Technically, it is a little more work to block porn now than it was before.
-Who defines porn, anyway? What is it, exactly?
-The only reason it exists is to print money, and everyone is jealous that they can't do that
$60 a year of which $10 to non-profit (Score:3, Insightful)
"Each domain registration will cost $60 a year, with $10 going to a nonprofit organization promoting “responsible business practices” for the industry." Beside this being overly expensive for a domain name the fact that they donate $10 per domain to a nonprofit organisation is just wrong. Who are they to decide for us that this should be done? Aren't they supposed to be some sort of objective organisation when it comes to this?
Re:Wtf is xxx? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why do people think this is a bad idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. After all, these guys will be setting the Evil Bit, so it will be easier to filter them out!
To be fair... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pornography/erotica is a genre. So are Action, Romance, Documentary, etc. Is there a similar push to create the likes of .action, .docu, and .love ?
And of course, the argument that certain content is especially sensitive hasn't been wielded to lobby for creating .hate, .religion or .violence
Re:What is the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
There will be real effects. Consider - in the US we have had recent obscenity convictions against some porn producers seen as turning out content especially degrading to women (slapping, punching, spitting in faces, and faux rape.). We haven't had anything in well over a decade focused on non-violent porn, targeting gay porn selectively has apparently died out even in the south, and even such things as bondage and fisting videos get a pass, (but many of them are careful to have spoken discliamers from the submissives involved and various "no sluts were harmed in the making of this video" claims included to protect themselves). Scat probably would draw legal action, but the mainstream producers haven't tried that. The industry has been vocally extremely divided over violence for the last few years. .xxx to prove they are being responsible corporations and trying to keep their material out of the hands of minors, because that would be another way to protect themselves from prosecution, and they seem to be willing to go to some trouble over creating an image that they are not one of 'those' porn businesses, but rather one of the 'other' ones. Some will see it as a financial hit to move content exclusively to .xxx domains, but others will see it as another way to avoid being the rare porn producer singled out.
I'd just about bet real money that some porn producers will use
The bigest force actually working against this is the evangelical right, which usually sees no difference between a Girls Gone Wild video and Underaged Wet Mule Sodomizers part 83. If they focused their complaints on the companies that produce the kinkiest stuff, they'd get a lot more results from various justice departments, but then they would have to admit that some porn producers really do care if all the 'models' are over 18, really do show safe sex practices, or avoid violent sex, so don't hold your breath.
Re:100,000 preregistered? (Score:5, Insightful)
DNS is just a big extortion racket... I can imagine that Google will make sure to register google.xxx, gmail.xxx, youtube.xxx, etc. just like Facebook and any other big site. Celebrities are probably being advised to register their names (e.g. sandrabullock.xxx). It's the same as with the .net and .org domains defensive registering but much worse.
Ironically, big porn sites will probably want to keep their .com domain around anyway. I can't imagine Vivid leaving vivid.com to someone else, to name one.
Re:Terrible idea (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to admit to mixed feelings about this. There's an obvious danger of censorship, and I don't want to see anything on the internet, porn or anything else, pushed into a walled garden. But I'm old enough to remember when .org and .net actually meant something, and I'd actually like to see much stricter standards applied to who can register for those. The precedent is already set; it just hasn't been followed for years. It's a dilemma.
Re:Wtf is xxx? (Score:1, Insightful)
I think it's great that there will be a whole section of the internet dedicated to plus size clothing.
Re:why do people think this is a bad idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm just not buying that there is any economic incentive to the porn industry for having this.
do you buy cereal? (Score:3, Insightful)
is it easier for you if the supermarket scattered the cereal boxes all over the store?
or if they had one aisle labelled "cereal"?
it's a rather simple point that most people easily grasp: better categorization has all sorts of benefits for all sorts of reasons
Re:Yet another TLD (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why do people think this is a bad idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should pornographers want to hide themselves? Really.
They should want to make it as easy as possible for their customers to find them and there non-customers to avoid them.
Because there is a portion of non-customers who also want all their customers to be unable to find them as well.
Re:$60 a year of which $10 to non-profit (Score:1, Insightful)
That's exactly what they are doing. Obviously, their price is 50 bucks, a very round and "favorite" figure. The extra 10 bucks is imposed on everyone interested in buying a triple X domain. Donation is indeed forced. Should you disagree with the donation or anything about the beneficiary of the donation, you cannot opt out, you don't have a choice. That's not a donation, that's tax.
Instead of spending so much money on "child protection" (it ain't), maybe they should spend more on psychological research and treatment of why sex is so damn scary to some people, especially in certain countries, then educating people that sex is no big deal. There are countries where sex is not treated like a big deal, and I don't think they have legions of children turned adults scarred for life.
Maybe they should force the religious nuts to explain in a PLAUSIBLE way why pornography is wrong. Which they can't! They just keep repeating "it's bad, it's wrong, it's immoral," they never come around to specifying WHY. They can't, they just pulled that notion out of their ass.
Not being American, I often have fits of laughter when I see Americans using the words "safe" and "unsafe." Like what, the content is going to leap out of the screen and maul you? Or the person (child or not) is going to turn crazy and deranged right there on the spot because of some fucking image, like looking at Gomorra and turning into a lump of salt? Also laughable is the use of the word "adult." Give me a fucking break, I still enjoy porn occasionally, but I certainly was a LOT more interested in porn (and drugs, for that matter) when I was 13 years old and fapping every day. Children are CURIOUS. Once you learn all about something, a lot of the appeal just goes away. Maybe not all of it, but a lot of it does. I am actually saying that sex is just as interesting to children as it is to adults (since we never quite exhaust the subject in our lifetime). That whole "child protection" bullshit could only come from the country where a kindergarten kid can be SUED for pecking a classmate on the cheek (Google it yourself). A country that is terrified of sex, but is not afraid of building a pile of nukes and invading countries left or right to say "Fuck, Yeah!" A country that idolizes violence, otherness and contempt to the most obscene levels.
What children need is less mystery surrounding sex, and perhaps a little more supervision often times. Not hiding it. Hiding is stupid. History has proven that many times, you should only hide from people stuff that you really want to encourage.
A waste of everyone time. (Score:3, Insightful)
The porn sites don't want it, the anti-porn sites don't want it. Is not usefull for the purpose of a root domain. It will only serve to suck money from some sites that will register yet another domain and not use it.
The ICANN is adding weigth on the idea to deprecate the ICANN.
Re:right (Score:2, Insightful)
But, yeah, pretty much, those designations don't mean much of anything, and pretty much things are already not organized without search engines and indexes. Now you are learning!
With some exceptions, of course; for instance if a site has a
As for
Here's a serious question. Someone gets online, lotion in hand, and wants to find some porn. Not just any porn, but porn that is right for them, and really gets their juices flowing. Other than guessing, which you don't need a
Re:why do people think this is a bad idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
Only I can decide what is porn and what is not porn.
Re:To be fair... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I think it'd be a lot more useful to create a .kids domain and give people the walled garden they want.
Heck, I wouldn't be opposed to having a .christ domain either, that way I can filter it out through my firewall and never have to worry about accidentally stumbling upon it!
I'm not authoritative here, but I don't think walled gardens have done society much good where they've been tried. They certainly don't look very successful in China, North Korea, Utah, or anywhere else they've been seriously attempted.
I couldn't tell, really, if you approved of the whole idea, were joking about your Jesus-free garden, or anything, but I thought it was worth making a serious reply in any case. Shutting yourself off rarely helps.
Re:Wtf is xxx? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which kind of makes them the perfect sample for evaluating a TLD.
Re:100,000 preregistered? (Score:4, Insightful)