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The Internet Networking Technology

Final Decision Deferred On ".xxx" Domains 127

Hugh Pickens writes "The Associated Press reports that the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has deferred a decision until June on whether to create a '.xxx' Internet suffix as an online red-light district, beginning a 70-day process of consultations on a domain that could help parents block access to adult sites. ICM Registry LLC first proposed the '.xxx' domain in 2000, and ICANN has rejected it three times already since then, but an outside panel last month questioned the board's latest rejection in 2007, prompting the board to reopen the bid. Backers of '.xxx' have billed the proposal as a way for the adult-entertainment industry to clean up its act, though some adult sites worry that governments would wind up mandating the use of '.xxx' and that sites with the '.xxx' suffix could easily be blocked by government web filters in the future. 'I am very concerned and fearful of censoring adult material that should be made available for adults. It scares the hell out of me,' says Malcolm Day, head of AdultShop.com, adding that if adult websites weren't allowed to have '.com' domains and could only register under the '.xxx' address, then 'many governments (across the world) would try to block them.'"
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Final Decision Deferred On ".xxx" Domains

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  • Exactly backwards (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Angst Badger ( 8636 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @10:25AM (#31464070)

    People who want a "kid-safe" Internet should create a G-rated TLD for their material and block everything else. Having an adult-only TLD is just asking for trouble. I am reminded of the effort in the 80's spearheaded by Tipper Gore to label record albums. It started with profanity and sex, and before long, they we're trying to put "occult" warnings on anything that deviated from (their version of) orthodox Christianity. Ghettoization always leads to extermination.

    It's high time we called out the censors for using children as human shields.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      No I think they got this going the right away around. The Internet will finally reach its full potential once everyone can filter out everything except .xxx domains.
      • by TheLink ( 130905 )
        Yeah. Having a .xxx domain is a good idea technically. It will make it easier to search for porn without getting too many false positives.

        It certainly is a better idea than those stupid .biz and .info domains which are just "yet another dot com to milk".

        The fact that the ICANN approves crap like .biz and .info and is taking so long to decide over .xxx just shows they aren't a technical organization ;).

        Note: I am still a bit sore with the ICANN since they ignored my proposal years ago to reserve a .here (or
        • Actually if you are running your own DNS server on your intranet you can use whatever TLD you want, so as long as they don't approve the plan of letting large company register their own TLD anything non in the standard ICANN naming system would be considered a private TLD.

          • by TheLink ( 130905 )
            I'm talking about doing things properly. What if the ICANN later approves the TLD you are using locally, for "yet another .com"?

            You then need to spend resources to migrate your stuff to a new domain. All because the ICANN isn't doing a good job.

            In my eyes the ICANN are a parasite. They allowed crap like domain front running and tasting.
      • What would be X-rated and what would be G-rated?

        Everybody has a different idea about what these ratings mean, and in what context.

        Some people would find a picture of a woman breastfeeding to be educational, others would say it is obscene.

        And I guess there would also be a "Great Firewall of the USA", because the ROW wouldn't bother following along.

        Even the stupidity of the Apple store, which required applications containing images of people wearing bikini's to be rated NC-17, containing explicit nudity, whil

        • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @08:02PM (#31468504)

          The answer is to make the kid-friendly domain a .kids.us domain
          Then anything that is considered "G rated" by the US (i.e. what would be G or safe for kids if rated by the MPAA, ESRB or TV ratings people) would be allowed.

          • Mod parent up ! This is exactly the right way to go about it: each country has its own rules about what is suitable for children, and not just in terms of nudity. Many places have laws regarding advertising for children, profanity, drug and alcohol use, and so on, and these are so varied it would be impractical to choose a set of rules which are suitable even just between the Western nations, let alone the rest of the world.

    • I like the idea to create a kid friendly TLD. How about .kid? It would make the net nannying a lot easier.

      • by tverbeek ( 457094 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @11:31AM (#31464494) Homepage

        What happens when someone puts sex-ed info on a web site in the .kid domain, and American Puritan Society objects? Or someone creates www.heatherhastwomommies.kid and the anti-homosexual lobby cries foul? Who decides whether it's OK?

        If people want to create a walled garden online for their kids to play in, and use software to keep them there, I'm perfectly supportive of that. But the top level of the domain hierarchy is the wrong place to do that. Do it at the second level. Let private independent agencies or communities or whatever create walledgarden.org or keepmybabysafe.com or ohlookabutterfly.net, let them manage the content there according to their own standards, and let parents choose to use any of these sites (or none) to entertain their children. Restricting one's children to *.walledgarden.org is no more difficult than restricting them to *.kid. And meanwhile, the rest of us, who are not children, are free to use an internet that doesn't make decisions about content for us.

        • by Bozzio ( 183974 )

          You make an interesting point... but wouldn't that raise quite a few technical issues? I can think of the following:

          • Sites stemming from walledgarden.org will no longer be able to references external dependencies (e.g. for javascript, media, etc...) which don't stem from walledgarden.org.
          • Authenticating website traffic might be more difficult or more susceptible to attack.

          I'm no expert in this domain, so I expect the list is much longer. Any authorities care to jump in?

        • Re:Exactly backwards (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Ernesto Alvarez ( 750678 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @01:33PM (#31465338) Homepage Journal

          Actually, having part of the hierarchy solely for kids would be a great idea, but not for the obvious reasons.

          You should allocate kids.us (if you yanks are so worried about it, that's where it belongs, the rest of the world doesn't give a damn about it) for such content.

          Then you could create penalties for posting "indecent" material into this subtree of DNS. Since we're talking about DNS, the penalties should go to the owner of the DNS domain. The meaning of "indecent" is irrelevant and can be anything (you'll see as I present my reasoning).

          Now, when someone comes trying to do censorship "for the children", you can just point that there's a perfectly child-safe domain protected by laws, with very harsh penalties for not respecting its intended purpose. All of that would be true.

          However, if you've had read the literature [rfc-archive.org] you'd know that making such guarantee is impossible. Therefore no sane person would get a subdomain of "kids.us". However any busybodies can be easily told they should stop complaining and use the tools given to them (after all, the subdomain would indeed be protected by laws, and they should really be enforced). If they balk at the prospect of having such punishments applied to them, telling them that they are obviously not that interested in the children and are clearly hypocrites (maybe they would be tempted to put something "indecent"? or maybe they just talk but aren't trully willing to take the responsibility to make a clean web for the future generations, blah, blah).

          In the end, only extremists will be willing to get .kids.us domains, no sane people would be even interacting with that thing, parents would get to choose if they let their kids out of the walled garden (and if they fail to do so, when they wanted, then they're irresponsable parents), and everybody else gets to browse porn without being distracted by the think-of-the-children crowd.

          I even have a slogan for the domain: "kids.us, the clean place for kids that sucks".

          The most that can happen is that a few extremists get punished (or whatever) when the sites are inevitably hacked.

          Problem solved.

        • by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @02:04PM (#31465592) Homepage

          I completely agree with all the problems you cite for a .kids type domain, and I completely agree the correct thing to do would be for people to use second level walledgarden.org type domains. However the world sucks, stupid people routinely demand idiotic and destructive things, and politicians all too often give it to them.

          So while I agree with everything you say, I support a .kids type domain to the extent that it can be used to siphon off these people and their bad ideas. It provides an outlet where these people can satisfy their crusade-compulsion and they can play out their bad ideas. A place where they can fight with each other over all of the problems you list, a place they can do all the dumb things they like and cause all the damage they wish, all within a contained area. All without causing any harm or damage outside their pointless harmless .kids domain.

          You're right the correct thing for them to do is just apply for a routine second level domain where they can do whatever they like, but obviously they already can do that, and obviously they are not going to be satisfied with that. These activists don't actually want to set up some kid-safe area, they don't actually want to do anything themselves, they are fighting to make the do something. They don't want to solve their problem, they want the government to solve it for them. And their "problem" isn't that they don't like what they are accessing on the internet, their problem is that they don't like what other people can find on the internet. They don't want something fixed for themselves, they are crusaders who want to forcibly impose their "help" upon everyone else. They are fanatically "helpful" people who want to run around forcibly applying leaches to everyone in order to prevent fictional diseases.

          I say a bad idea such as a .kids domain might be a useful idea if it gives these destructively-helpful people the illusion that they are successfully helping their intended victims.... err I mean helping their intended beneficiaries.

          Now I admit that it may lead to a problem with these people making demands that schools and libraries have some sort of mandatory filter restricted to the .kids domain. And yes, I acknowledge that some children (and adults) may become victims of that sort of idiocy. However I believe that attempting to impose that sort of filter would be completely unworkable and it would be an almost instantaneous blatant failure. I believe it would result in far less harm than their current efforts to impose upon students some ideological-candyland version of the full internet.

          Hell, in an ideal world I would fully support a .xxx domain. In theory it's a great idea. Let porn sites or anyone else grab a .xxx domain if they like, cool. The only reason I don't support it is because in the real world idiots view .xxx as some sort of "fix" for their "problem", and then they obviously expect that "fix" to actually work for solving their problem. They expect "bad" stuff is supposed to be in the .xxx domain, and only within the .xxx domain. So they expect laws to make that true, they expect laws to force things to actually work the way they want and expect them to work. They start demanding stupid destructive and unworkable laws to imprison anyone who puts "objectionable" material on a normal general website. And then all of the problems you list in your post become a catastrophic plague upon the internet itself.

          The only problem with your post is that you offered a reasonable rational solution. You often can't fix an unreasonable irrational fanatical people-problem with a reasonable rational fix.

          -

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by S.O.B. ( 136083 )

        A kid friendly TLD is another way of saying pedophile friendly TLD.

      • I used to run 30 sites years ago and suggested the .kid TLD. At the time, disney had managed to make www.disney.kid active and I thought 'Good on them'. IRL we try to keep children away from the negative elements of society by herding them in to schools, playgroups etc - why not do the same with the internet? I'll tell you why, the pay-per-click promoters freaked out! Without innocent netters randomly clicking banners, their revenues would drop :( Arguing about the .kid TLD would attract pedo's is nonsense.
    • by wisty ( 1335733 )

      People who want a "kid-safe" internet could insist in embedded ratings. Some HTML tag with "xxx, violence" or whatever else they want to put in. Easy to block. Easy to implement. And people don't have to worry about domain squatters trying to register slashdot.xxx to shake down established sites.

      • How, exactly, would you enforce the requirement to embed ratings? There are already such systems in existence, but for reasons that I wish were obvious, they cannot be enforced.... any more than a segregation of "adult" material into a separate domain.

      • by hitmark ( 640295 )

        no different then the "enter date of birth" or "warning, naked titties beyond this point" front pages.

      • by Arccot ( 1115809 )

        People who want a "kid-safe" internet could insist in embedded ratings. Some HTML tag with "xxx, violence" or whatever else they want to put in. Easy to block. Easy to implement. And people don't have to worry about domain squatters trying to register slashdot.xxx to shake down established sites.

        Sadly, this used to exist and W3 eliminated it, but I'm not sure why.

        PICS [w3.org] was first. Then came POWDER [w3.org]. Then both were dropped. I haven't found a replacement for either.

    • In most places erotica is legal for adults, so a complete ban on xxx sites seems unlikely. Even most countries that have web filtering havent't tried to block all erotica, because the sex industry does actually have lobbying power. Frankly, I like clear labelling. If I want erotica I'd like to be able to find it. If I don't want erotica then I'd like to be able to avoid it. Same as hydrogenated fats, and same as some people with GM soya. Why is the sex industry almost as bad as the food industry over trying
  • by twisteddk ( 201366 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @10:31AM (#31464088)

    I dont get this kind of thinking. Creating a toplevel domain surely would make it easier for people to find the porn they're looking for. Nothing less, nothing more
    But BANNING domains on that note, would as far as I can see only lead to the downfall of the toplevel domain, as porn providers would stop using it as it's not good business.

    And in any event, I dont really see the currently invested xxx providers as being willing to give up their lucrative .com or .org domains. So at most we'll get another toplevel domain that you need to register to "own" your own brand. Anyone for slashdot.xxx ?

    • by sopssa ( 1498795 ) * <sopssa@email.com> on Saturday March 13, 2010 @10:33AM (#31464106) Journal

      Anyone for slashdot.xxx ?

      Not a bad idea, we could use it to have nude pictures of slashdotters.

    • by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @10:55AM (#31464286) Homepage


      But BANNING domains on that note, would as far as I can see only lead to the downfall of the toplevel domain, as porn providers would stop using it as it's not good business.

      Until countries make laws requiring "all websites with adult content in them are required to register under the .xxx domain". No big deal you say. I certainly don't go to sites like that.

      Ever go to Amazon? Amazon sells adult videos. They also list a wide variety of sex toys, vibrators, etc that many people object to. Amazon doesn't sell this directly, but they do sell it through another company that lists on Amazon. Does that make Amazon belong under .xxx? Should the stuff that some people don't like be moved to a special amazon.xxx?

      Creating the domain is but one step in the process of segregating the internet into various categories. Once you require everything to be in neat little categories you can start to control access to those categories, track them, etc. More insidious is creating these dividing lines is an attempt to make adult products which are already mainstream and have been for at least 40 years if not more into something not mainstream.

      • I whole heartedly agree with your assumption.

        IF the internet (mind it IS international in nature, and heavily affected by cost driving factors, same as any other services) should ever "grow up" and force people to give up sex.com, whitehouse.com, etc. then Absolutely, you're right. But with so many domains under each toplevel domain, how do you decide who gets "sex.xxx" ? Is it the guy who owns sex.com, sex.org, or the majority of "sex.country_identifier" domains ?

        I just dont see a plausible scenario for th

        • I whole heartedly agree with your assumption.

          IF the internet (mind it IS international in nature, and heavily affected by cost driving factors, same as any other services) should ever "grow up" and force people to give up sex.com, whitehouse.com, etc. then Absolutely, you're right. But with so many domains under each toplevel domain, how do you decide who gets "sex.xxx" ? Is it the guy who owns sex.com, sex.org, or the majority of "sex.country_identifier" domains ?

          I just dont see a plausible scenario for this type of transition, certainly not with the current structure, ownership and division of the internet, internet names, trademarks, copyrights etc.

          Well, they should not just stop at the .xxx TLD. They should do subdomains, so sex.com gets sex.com.xxx, etc. Then as a transition, allow sex.com to redirect to sex.com.xxx. Let the porn sites keep their domains, but they can not host any porn on them.


        • I just dont see a plausible scenario for this type of transition, certainly not with the current structure, ownership and division of the internet, internet names, trademarks, copyrights etc. As you mention yourself, this is or will be an international endeavour. And getting the current 174 countries (or there abouts) to agree on simple stuff like national borders, official languages etc. has taken the better part of 10.000 years

          Why would you have to get ALL 174 countries to agree? Sure, the internet is in

          • Why would you have to get ALL 174 countries to agree? Sure, the internet is international, but having a presence in a country isn't. You think Amazon is just going to pull up stakes and move to Canada just so they can sell some dildos? Often times having a physical presence is a country makes you subject to the laws in that country. The point being that the way commerce and business work are far more involved than just looking at the laws of any particular country. I'm betting if only a few key countries passed such laws, it wouldn't really matter than the other 160 didn't have them

            Obviously, it's the other way around. If only a few countries pass laws that says that vertain content has to be in certain top level domain names, then presumably, a large provider, like say, amazon would move their domain registration to a country where they can avoid problems with having to move around.
            Case in point: Assume that in country A, it's illegal to watch people ride a bicycle, or to provide any such amusement to the citizens of the country. Me, being in country B, cannot be prosecuted for said

      • The internet was designed to be segregated into different categories. Com = commercial, org = non-proft, gov = government, edu = educational. The problem is that the TLDs controlled by the US exercised no control over assignments to those domains, .com became a buzzword, and everyone grabbed for a .com, even if their content was better suited to another TLD.

        In Australia, you have to have an ABN (Australian Business Number) to register a .com.au (it's not hard to get one, takes one phone call). You need to b

      • Do sex toys even belong under .xxx? If a vibrator is put into an ordinary rubber ducky, does that make it ban-able?

  • I'm all in favor of a .xxx TLD, but it does no good unless accompanied by laws that mandate that obscene sites use only that TLD. I look forward to "goatse.cx" moving to the much more obvious "goatse.xxx", and I wonder... is there a waiting list to register the "se.xxx" domain, or is that already reserved for Swedish porn?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tverbeek ( 457094 )

      And who, exactly, would determine what is "obscene"?

      (I'd offer to do it, but I'm a bit busy.)

    • by ardor ( 673957 )
      Yeah, right. And who will decide what "obscene" means? The religious right? See the Tipper Gore comment above.
      With .xxx, expect it to become opt-in. And then people know you watch porn. They have it in written form. This would be even worse if you had to apply for accessing specific .xxx pages.
    • It does plenty of good, if you create a .xxx TLD and a .kid TLD. You can be *reasonably* assured of the content of sites using those TLDs. Now I don't expect that a site that has a majority of adult content to be forced to register a .com domain for those pages that contain absolutely no adult material, nor would I expect them to be forced to register a .xxx TLD, but being on .kid wouldn't be appropriate. .xxx -> almost guaranteed adult material .kid -> reasonably child safe .com/.net/.org -> Any

  • by WrongSizeGlass ( 838941 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @10:32AM (#31464102)
    Enough already. Clearly they are afraid to make a decision which is in and of itself a decision. If I keep putting off deciding to do something then I am in fact not doing it - only under the guise of indecision, procrastination or requiring further consideration. Shit or get off the pot, guys. Either way a lot of people won't be happy.
    • Clearly they are afraid to make a decision which is in and of itself a decision. If I keep putting off deciding to do something then I am in fact not doing it - only under the guise of indecision, procrastination or requiring further consideration.
      Uh oh, you've figured out how the government works. Some men in black suits will be by shortly to dispatch you.
    • by DMiax ( 915735 )

      Shit or get off the pot, guys. Either way a lot of people won't be happy.

      You got some weird fetish, man... May I suggest a .crp domain for that?

      • .crp? .crp?? How did you know I was into carp? Man, I'd better make sure those new privacy settings on Facebook are working. I'd hate for my mom to see this - though, my birthday is coming up and I sure could use a few more coy for my pond.
    • I don't know, if I were the ICANN, I would be annoyed that this issue keeps coming up. They already rejected it three times, give it a rest already. I would be tempted to just keep 'considering' the issue indefinitely, so I don't have to deal with it again.

      It's also possible that they are required by their bylaws to consider such proposals for a certain number of days before deciding. I really can't imagine they will hear any new arguments they haven't heard before.
    • It's worse than not doing it. It's not doing it, but then lying about making the decision to not do it.

    • Well, according to the wikipedia article linked, they HAVE made that decision some times before. They have already said NO to it, it's just that people keep reopening the case for them to consider with "new evidence".

      In my opinion, they're just giving a fair and thorough consideration of every bit of information given to them... before they say No a fourth time, hopefully.
    • Clearly they are afraid to make a decision which is in and of itself a decision

      No, ICANN is willing to make decisions. They just aren't willing to make decisions that make any fucking sense. They have already decided some time ago to start selling TLDs outright, which will inevitably result in .xxx being sold outright to someone if they don't establish it first. And being as it would make sense for them to establish it first so that they could make some small revenue from it, they will instead continue to table the issue until someone else sells it and it no longer matters.

      Somet

    • by gmhowell ( 26755 )

      Or as Pert, Lifeson, and Lee put it: "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

  • and that sites with the '.xxx' suffix could easily be blocked by government web filters in the future.

    It's already very easy to block adult sites. This is pointless to mention and the real issue is not how easy it is to block these sites but that censorship in general is never a good idea, no matter how easy or hard it is.

    • I'm not sure the push is completely about censorship. I'd bet my stock in SCO that they want to charge a hefty registration fee for anything with the .xxx TLD. It's about funding ICANN't for the next year or two as much as it is "for the children" and "easy domain blacklisting".
  • And it is unheard of for organizations to block .cn .ru. Still though I agree with most this would be ineffective and create more trouble then it alleviates. It is too bad parents cant use something along the lines of websense to filter out adult content.
  • It seems to me that a government could not legally block the TLD unless porn was actually illegal in that country. Therefore the only argument that I am hearing is that the porn industry worries that this TLD would make it too easy for the government to restrict them from operating illegally.
    I'm not speaking out against porn, just trying to think logically. Porn doesn't bother me much. I'd rather some potential sex offender spend all his time looking at porn then go out and rape some poor woman.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by tverbeek ( 457094 )

      "It seems to me that a government could not legally block the TLD unless porn was actually illegal in that country."

      You do realize that in most countries it's the government which creates the laws making things illegal?

    • by cyn1c77 ( 928549 )

      It seems to me that a government could not legally block the TLD unless porn was actually illegal in that country.

      But your internet provider could choose not to serve that content, saying that it was a company that respected family values and that those sites had high potential for malware infections.

      I'd rather some potential sex offender spend all his time looking at porn then go out and rape some poor woman.

      Potential sex offenders will become sex offenders regardless of their access to porn.

      The real question for me is "Does an ".xxx" provide the public with any value? The only value I can see is that it will make it easy for groups to censor adult material. So I am totally against approving the existence of ".xxx" sites

    • The jerk off vs rape logic is myth. Jerking off is about sex drive, rape is about power over another person.
      • The jerk off vs rape logic is myth. Jerking off is about sex drive, rape is about power over another person.
        That seems to be the pop psychology thought and one that is a helpful assumption to womens' rights groups, but the idea that rape is an act of violence and not a sexual act doesn't seem to be accepted by the professional psychology community. For one thing, rape and sexual violence are not necessarily the same thing, although again it is helpful for certain agendas to group them together.
  • Putting aside the entire debate on what qualifies as adult material, you still have the fact that the undisputed pornographic websites aren't going to change TLDs unless forced to hence defeating the entire purpose. It would also lead to the somewhat embarrassing situation of big companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple having to buy .xxx domains to protect their trademarks.
  • YRO? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by goldaryn ( 834427 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @10:36AM (#31464132) Homepage

    It scares the hell out of me,' says Malcolm Day, head of AdultShop.com, adding that if adult websites weren't allowed to have '.com' domains and could only register under the '.xxx' address, then 'many governments (across the world) would try to block them.'"

    They better not try that here, we have the Human Rights Act

    (I don't care what anyone else says, fapping is a human right..)

    I have the weight of the legal world behind me! (most of them are wankers :->)

    • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 13, 2010 @10:57AM (#31464294)

      Look at some of the ancillary companies that would be affected

      The Kao Corporation [The makers of Jergens Lotion]
      Kimberly-Clark [The makers of Kleenex brand tissues]
      HanesBrands [Worldwide distributors of gym socks]
      S. C. Johnson & Son [Manufactures of several cleaning agents, including Windex]
      Safer Networking Limited [Developer of Spybot - Search and Destroy]
      Chiquita Brands International Inc. [Grower of the famous Chiquita Banana]
      Maytag Corporation [World famous creator of Washing Machines]

      Won't somebody think of the private industry?!

  • So who's to say what is "adult" and what is not? Some things are pretty easy to figure out, but I know plenty of art sites like deviantart that allow uploading of nude photos. Does that make it an adult website? Somebody is going to have to make decisions about these things and I think it would be all too easy to simply turn it into a place for all "objectionable content", whatever that may mean, pretty much destroying the idea of the internet as a bastion of free speech. Then again, I can't remember how m
  • by ciderVisor ( 1318765 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @10:57AM (#31464304)

    "Backers of '.xxx' have billed the proposal as a way for the adult-entertainment industry to clean up its act,"

    Personally, I'd prefer if they kept the acts nice 'n' dirty.

  • do not confuse the issues.
    1) .xxx is a proposed domain for adult themed websites - not appropriate for children and ppl of a sensitive disposition - there is nothing wrong with this, it makes sense and is NOT censorship.
    2) filtering out certain websites at home or work is perfectly acceptable and is NOT censorship.
    3) the government or other ruling bodies prohibiting access to any sort of website IS censorship and it depends on your country if this acceptable/legal or not.
    whether or not to have a specifi
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by russotto ( 537200 )

      The issues aren't separate. Once you ghettoize porn into an .xxx domain, it makes it much easier (both technically and politically) to block. In fact, it's likely the default would become to block the .xxx domain. Not just for corporations, but for ISPs (at the urging of the more prudish members of the community). Oh, and when the company filters websites at work it IS censorship, just on a smaller scale (and perhaps more justifiable).

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        i think you are missing the whole point. they are separate - classifying data is not the same as restricting access to it. they are two separate points.
        they use .gov for government web sites and no one complains about that and it doesn't automatically imply censorship.
        if someone blocks a domain you are not happy with then change ISP - there are always choices.
  • My initial list of what organizations that would be required to use .xxx domains in the United States:

    • abortion doctors
    • anything gay related such as dating sites, gay marriage rights, etc.
    • hate groups
    • offensive TV shows, such as South Park or Family Guy
    • offensive art (meaning nude is just as bad as naked)
    • offensive literature- Lolita, Catcher in the Rye
    • offensive music such as music that glorifies violence or uses the N-Word(tm)(c)(patent pending)
    • fringe religions such as polygamists, etc.

    and for the coup de gr

    • Ouch, modded as flamebait? Do those who moderated my post not see the huge potential abuse for a .xxx domain in the US? Both Federal and State legislatures could have a field day with who's required to use a .xxx domain.

  • as usual... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hitmark ( 640295 ) on Saturday March 13, 2010 @01:09PM (#31465164) Journal

    i say the basic problem is the non-national TLDs, at least as long as this planet is not under one government.

    why? because as long as that is the case, there will be multiple, conflicting interests about those TLDs.

    and sadly, thanks to the dot-com era and similar, the economic sharks smell money in relation to trade in domain names, meaning it will be nearly impossible to dismantle the existing system unless someone pays the owners of the non-national domains at least as much as they payed for them in the first place.

  • You can't filter the Internet. Ain't gonna happen. No way in hell. If you think you can, take a look at the rather futile attempts done today. Websites and domain names are stood up by the hundreds every damn day, making the task pretty much impossible. You can't even filter it, and now you want to try and put "content"(as defined by whom, yet another issue) into TLD "buckets"? Riiiight. Give me a break.

    Trying to control or filter the Internet is like trying to make the freeway safe for your new teen

  • ICANN has already told us that they will move ahead with the plan to start selling top level domains (TLDs). If they don't establish the .xxx TLD themselves, someone else will buy the rights to it. They might as well establish it themselves now so that they can make slightly more direct revenue from it than if it is sold entirely to someone else who can then run it however they see fit.
  • So would the .xxx domain go only to hardcore porn sites, or would it also include anything with nudity, including nude art? What about drawings of stick figures having sex? I would hate to have xkcd blocked by the government.
  • Filtering at the TLD level is an all or nothing proposition: either all of an *.xxx website's content is filtered (along with all other *.xxx sites) or none of it is. As far as filtering systems go, it is the coarsest and least intelligent. While I'd be very much opposed to any kind of government-mandated tagging and filtering, if your goal is to filter based on a webmaster's idea of what's obscene then you're much better off using something like Lawrence Lessig's H2M tag.

    Of course, what I really want is fo

    • Go back in time, kill Abraham ( no, not that one. this one [wikipedia.org]) There problem solved. No more Christians, Jews or Muslims. We'll be all better off without them!

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. - Voltaire

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