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The Internet Government Politics

ICANN Rejects .XXX Top Level Domain, Again 134

Posted by Zonk from the third-time-is-the-charm dept.
eldavojohn writes "After yet another contentious vote on the .xxx concept, ICANN has finally rejected the pornography TLD. The debate has gone on for quite some time, and the 9-5 decision was the third time a decision was reached on the subject. This is the second time the body has ruled against the idea, and is likely the last time we'll see it come up for vote any time soon. One member abstained from voting. From the article: 'Many of the board members said they were concerned about the possibility that ICANN could find itself in the content regulation business if the domain name was approved. Others criticized that, saying ICANN should not block new domains over fears like that, noting that local, state and national laws could be used to decide what is pornographic and what is not. Other board members said they believed that opposition to the domain by the adult industry, including Web masters, content providers and others, was proof that the issue was divisive and that .xxx was not a welcome domain.'"
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ICANN Rejects .XXX Top Level Domain, Again More

ICANN Rejects .XXX Top Level Domain, Again

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  • Good news for porn companies (Score:5, Funny)

    by dour power ( 764750 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:04AM (#18542061)
    Rejection is what keeps 'em in business.

  • An important thing to note (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jimstapleton ( 999106 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:04AM (#18542063) Journal
    Is that classification does not equal regulation. It can be used to assist regulation, but usually classification serves a lot of good purposes outside of regulation. That being said, I don't know that .xxx would be the only place the target material could be put (if it were, then it would be regulation), but honestly, unlike a '.adv' (advertisement), I would think they would like the TLD themselves (the content providers) because it would make them just that little bit easier to pick out.

    • Not quite... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by brennanw ( 5761 ) * on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:12AM (#18542119) Homepage Journal
      From the article:

      Other board members said they believed that opposition to the domain by the adult industry, including Web masters, content providers and others, was proof that the issue was divisive and that ".xxx" was not a welcome domain.


      It sounds like not everyone in the adult industry was happy about the domain.

      Actually, it sounds like, this time around, there were more people against it than for it, but the people against it didn't really find a consensus on why they opposed it, only that they did. Which is interesting. At least this time around it doesn't look like a case of "the Republicans told us to reject this."

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by avronius ( 689343 ) *
        See, there's an interesting thing that people seem to fail to realize.

        There's nothing preventing you (or any industry / company / entity) from using .xxx as your TLD. Just point to your own "root" servers.

        If you, as a content provider, wish to allow people access to a TLD that doesn't exist, you need only write a simple application that points to a different set of root servers. Your new list would likely include the "standard" root servers *after* your set of root servers had been checked.

        It's not like thi

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rs79 ( 71822 )
          Ay, carumba. For the record I was there the day xxx was born and have followed this with interest although I have no relationship with the xxx people other than I've men them and we tal every couple of years. They're locals.

          Putting .xxx in alternaitve roots was an idea that was tried for a while. The xxx people feel than their inclusion ni alt.roots jeopardizes the "icann process". Never mind the icann process means getting bitch slapped because other world governments (through the "GAC") have told icann ni

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tverbeek ( 457094 )
        The reason there's no consensus about why it was rejected is because there are so many different reasons, coming from entirely different perspectives. People in the porn industry didn't like it because using it would require submitting to regulation from the registry administrators, and because not using it might open them up to criminalization. Social conservatives didn't like it because they felt it would legitimize porn. Porn consumers didn't like it because they wouldn't be able to get their fix at w

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 )
      Correcting a typo:

      I would think they wouldn't like the TLD themselves (the content providers) because it would make them just that little bit easier to pick out.

      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by brennanw ( 5761 ) *
        Oops. Please ignore my post, then. :)
      • Actually, that is /not/ a typo. Easier to find = easier to get customers. That's an industry where they could care less about the people who don't like them, therefore they could care less if those people know where they are online. And if such sites aren't required to have the TLD, then they could also have a .con address as well.

        So, really it is to no disadvantage to them for this to be available if it is not required.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Luscious868 ( 679143 )
      I would think it's a win / win for all involved. Those who want to get to adult content would have an easier time finding it and by the same token those who want to filter it out would have time doing that as well. Where is the downside?

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by ohearn ( 969704 )
        Except that half the people looking for it are high school and college students and this would allow schools to filter sites a lot easier. If you've ever had the "fun" of running a college computer lab you know that you have to watch some of the computers in the back sorners even in the middle of the day at times.
      • Those releasing it would want to be able to get past the filters. The new TLD could be filtered, but if they still have access to the .coms as well, they only need to register an additional DNS entry, not expensive.

        So, in the end, there no /down/ side for anyone, but the only ones with an up side are the adult industries.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by k_187 ( 61692 )
          So, in the end, there no /down/ side for anyone, but the only ones with an up side are the adult industries.

          And that's a problem because?
        • Yes, but how would it be enforced? The top level adult sites, yes, they'd go to .xxx. But that won't stop the less legitimate sites from trying to sneak around... not only will those sites ignore the .xxx domain - and by extension, the filtering of it - those sites are that much more likely to have malware and viruses.

          It's a great idea in theory, but I don't see it being properly executed.

      • Re:An important thing to note (Score:5, Insightful)

        by plover ( 150551 ) * on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:40AM (#18542411) Homepage Journal

        Where is the downside?

        Regulation and control. If there was an .xxx domain, it wouldn't be long for the Christian* Firewall Network (CFN?) to spring up trying to block it everywhere, and there would be demands to block it at ISPs, etc. It wouldn't be long before legislation was passed requiring all adult content to be "moved" to this domain. (Of course, we're just thinking of the children.)

        The mis-perception is that all porn would somehow magically be labeled .xxx, and people would naively think like you did: it's easy to find and easy to block.

        Meanwhile, the technological reality is that such blocking would do nothing to stop porn originating from domains outside of the U.S. It also would not stop dotted decimal addresses from working. But because there would be this new "law" requiring porn to be hosted in the .xxx domain, the CFN idiots would be confused as to why their teenaged sons could still access porn even though it was supposed to be blocked, and would demand more regulations to stop this "illegal porn".

        Voluntary industry classifications have almost always turned into regulations (movie and video game ratings, light truck emissions, organic foods, etc.) It's just that on the internet, that idea doesn't work worth a damn, so why encourage it?

        (*Feel free to replace 'Christian' with the intolerant fundamental religious idiots of your choice.)

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by XxtraLarGe ( 551297 )

          (*Feel free to replace 'Christian' with the intolerant fundamental religious idiots of your choice.)
          I hope you realize the irony of your comments. You could have easily made the same point WITHOUT insulting anybody, and your argument would have been that much stronger. As it is now, when I look at your post the most striking thing is intolerance on your part...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mdwh2 ( 535323 )
            I hope you realize the irony of your comments. You could have easily made the same point WITHOUT insulting anybody, and your argument would have been that much stronger.

            Well, it's certainly true that many if not most Christians are fine on this issue, but it is true that much of the pro-censorship lobby on this issue comes from religious (mainly Christian, perhaps simply because there are more of them) groups. At least, that's certainly what's happening in the UK (e.g., a recent issue involving churches an

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by plover ( 150551 ) *

            You could have easily made the same point WITHOUT insulting anybody, and your argument would have been that much stronger.

            Perhaps it would have been stronger to you, and to the adherents of whatever religious mythos you follow. But my target audience is not you, it is composed of the people who are scared sh!tless of the tyrrany of the religious right in this country (and specifically the fundamentalist Christians since Bush the Failed and the Republicans claim to be them.) I'm scared of their constant

            • Perhaps it would have been stronger to you, and to the adherents of whatever religious mythos you follow.

              For the record, I am a Christian.

              But my target audience is not you, it is composed of the people who are scared sh!tless of the tyrrany of the religious right in this country (and specifically the fundamentalist Christians since Bush the Failed and the Republicans claim to be them.)

              So what are you trying to do then, rally the troops? The fact is, you're just preaching to the choir, if you'll pardon the expression ;-)

              I'm scared of their constant attempts to undermine our Constitution and to impose some forms of their religion or religious beliefs on all of us. These people want tax-funded vouchers for religious schools. They can't see what's wrong with posting the 10 commandments in the courthouse.

              I'm not so certain I understand what is wrong with posting the 10 Commandments at a court house, any more than the Code of Hammurabi or the Magna Carta. Do you stand for freedom of speech, unless that speech pertains to religion? The Constitution does indeed provide for a Seperation of Church and State, but only to the extent that there

        • If there was an .xxx domain, it wouldn't be long for... and there would be demands ... It wouldn't be long before legislation...
          Can we say, "slippery slope" fallacy?

          • Can we say, "slippery slope" fallacy?

            Can we say, sometimes slippery slopes are very real? GP's scenario seems not only reasonable but almost inevitable.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by SquareVoid ( 973740 )
            The Slippery Slope Fallacy stops being a fallacy when the person arguing the point provides evidence that there is a slippery slope. In his argument, he stated that movies/video games/emmissions/organic food all started off as voluntary labels and ended up regulated. I don't know how true this is (I always thought movie/game ratings were voluntary) but it is left as an exercise to the reader to prove that the slippery slopes given were in fact false. If they end up as true, then he has a valid point.
            • Evidence?

              Having your movie rated is optional (and obviously
              hasn't caused any reduction in the production of
              porn movies!): http://www.filmratings.com/questions.htm#Q6 [filmratings.com]

              I'm not sure what the reference to organic foods is
              about... Obviously you're not allowed to advertise a
              product as something it's not. How is that different
              from any other food product on the market?
              • Rating of films is "voluntary" only to the extent that distribution through the American cinema network is "voluntary". While this hasn't bothered the porn industry, it has been a major impediment to the non-porn independent film industry (and even Hollywood studios to the extent that this applies), who are forced to compromise their artistic vision to get a rating that will enable them to A) be carried by theaters, and B) get a large enough audience to break even and/or make money. If you want to distrib

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by plover ( 150551 ) *

                I'm not sure what the reference to organic foods is about... Obviously you're not allowed to advertise a product as something it's not.

                "Obviously"? Obviously you imagined the existence of regulations where none existed. The food industry had been free to call anything they produced "organic." It wasn't until just five years ago that the United States government actually enacted a Federal standard for the production of foods labeled organic. Prior to that time, organic was a voluntary label that mean

        • And who classifies this stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @09:38AM (#18543195) Homepage Journal
          The other, and I feel even more important, issue is.. who gets to decide what "porn" is? The definition of what is and isn't acceptable changes from year to year, country to country, state to state, and household to household. People have been arguing over what's acceptable for (literally) ages, and it's definitely not going to be solved anytime soon.

          So, if we did get the .xxx domain, what has to be moved there? One person's obscenity is another person's fine art, medical diagram, or even religious iconography. Everything from Gray's Anatomy to cultural studies to the contents of any art museum could end up sequestered to .xxx because someone somewhere doesn't want the kiddies to accidentally see naughty bits.
        • The mis-perception is that all porn would somehow magically be labeled .xxx... like all .com addresses are for commercial sites, .org's are for non-profits and so on? pfft. The porn industry is at the forefront of filtering, cataloging and organizing information. You can find just about any fetish you can think of [also - fun thing to do when you're bored...].
          You're right on two counts - the law won't stop porn, and legislation will probably be passed. But you fail to follow your own logic to it's conclusio
        • It's one of the fundamental paradoxes of responsible government.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by owlnation ( 858981 )

        I would think it's a win / win for all involved. Those who want to get to adult content would have an easier time finding it and by the same token those who want to filter it out would have time doing that as well. Where is the downside?

        As someone in the adult industry, I do agree that those are upsides to the .xxx domain. The downsides that concern me would be:

        1. whether we would be in some way coerced to use this domain exclusively (actually quite easy to do if the US and UK governments (being the mo

      • I would think it's a win / win for all involved. Those who want to get to adult content would have an easier time finding it...

        Because finding porn on the internet is currently soooo difficult.
      • The downside is that it wouldn't work. There would still be oodles of porn in the .com TLD, because no sane porn peddler would stop using his established domain and risk letting it fall into someone else's hands. As for making it easier to find for those who want it... what, like it's somehow difficult now?

  • More drama plz (Score:3, Funny)

    by Wiseman1024 ( 993899 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:09AM (#18542103)
    So they add retarded domains such as .biz or .info and reject .xxx? Way to go. Perhaps we could get .enterprise and .xml approved instead.

  • The horses have left, who cares about the barn.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ip_freely_2000 ( 577249 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:10AM (#18542109)
    ...door?

    Having a .XXX domain would make a simplistic filters only effective for simple people. I doubt a porn domain owner is going to drop chickswithhorses.com and move everything over to chickswithhorses.xxx. He'll just use redirection and have two front doors to his domain.

    ISP's and government authorities will NEVER be able to move porn off of .com. There's simply too may jurisdictions out there in our wonderful world.

    All of the .XXX media attention and effort seems pointless to me.

    • Re:The horses have left, who cares about the barn. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cerberus7 ( 66071 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:19AM (#18542193)
      See, that's why I think TLDs are redundant. There was a proposal some time ago to abandon TLDs, and restructure DNS. Since nobody seems to care about what a TLD means anymore, aside from perhaps the US Gov't still using .gov, why keep up with the charade? .com, .net, .org seem to have very little relevance to the content of the actual sites.

      • Not all TLDs are redundant (Score:5, Insightful)

        by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keirstead . o rg> on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:36AM (#18542367)
        Country-level TLDs are significant. For example, I KNOW that http://www.toyota.ca/ [toyota.ca] takes me to Toyota Canada's page, while http://www.toyota.com/ [toyota.com] takes me to the US page. Using country-level TLDs for this purpose is correct and should be encouraged - it is a lot better than the alternatives like having a stupid URL like http://www.hyundaicanada.com/ [hyundaicanada.com], or forcefully re-directing people based on their geographic location (what if I am using a proxy? Or what if I want information on the American prices for comparison?).

        The "generic" top level TLDs however (.com, .net, and .org), are indeed irrelevant.

        Personally, I think the answer is not to *abolish* TLDs, but to make them *optional*, and abolish only .com / .net / .org. Then a company doesn't have to register 3 domains, and they only have to register country-level domains in contries where they actually have a presence.

        But how would you implement it - how do you reconcile those domains if different people own them, who gets the new TLD when they are amalgamated?
        • Country-level TLDs are significant. For example, I KNOW that http://www.toyota.ca/ [toyota.ca] takes me to Toyota Canada's page, while http://www.toyota.com/ [toyota.com] takes me to the US page. Using country-level TLDs for this purpose is correct and should be encouraged - it is a lot better than the alternatives like having a stupid URL like http://www.hyundaicanada.com/ [hyundaicanada.com], or forcefully re-directing people based on their geographic location (what if I am using a proxy? Or what if I want information on the American prices for comp

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by brunes69 ( 86786 )

            There's no obvious solution. You could do it by lottery between the holders of the current .org/.com/.net domain, or start a new registry as a free-for-all or one of several other ways. I think it would be worth it, but it's never going to happen.

            I don't think either of those methods are fair. For example, I own keirstead.org (my last name), and have for over 10 years. I have always had the same email address (my first name at keirstead.org). Keirstead.com and Keirstead.net are also registered by other K

            • True. OK then, org, com, and net get registered as domain names. Anyone owning a .com, .org, or .net get an automatic right to a subdomain of those domains. The owner of keirstead.org gets the right to org.keirstead, and so on. keirstead as a top-level domain is available to the first person to register it.

              Not that I can see it ever happening.
          • Take a domain name "domain" with a tld (.tld), and rename the domain "domain.tld". The .tld would just be part of the name. All you would have to do is retain a list of the 'old' tlds so a domain is not interpreted as a subdomain. This would all be done through DNS; completely transparent for the user. Eventually old URLs would become redirects to new ones w/o tlds.
          • >Lots of companies redirect country TLDs to one website, such as www.example.co.uk -> www.example.com/uk/. It's just as convenient a standard and I don't see what advantage a TLD gets you.

            Sure, it's not difficult to remember to append "/uk" to the URL, but the problem is that there is no standard. It could be example.com/uk, example.com/world/uk, uk.example.com, and countless other combinations.
            • Sure, it's not difficult to remember to append "/uk" to the URL, but the problem is that there is no standard. It could be example.com/uk, example.com/world/uk, uk.example.com, and countless other combinations.

              Yep, but since those are already all used, the .co.uk domain just adds to the confusion. It would be reasonably nice to have a standard though.
        • I thought about saying something about country-level TLDs, but decided against it. I agree with everything you've said about those domains. As for making the transition away from the .com et al domains, keeping the existing structure in place while the transition happens shouldn't be too big of a deal. ICANN should still be the central repository for managing the new structure, but they should also be a little more discerning in who gets what domain. For instance, if you have a company named "Coca Cola
        • Personally, I think the answer is not to *abolish* TLDs, but to make them *optional*, and abolish only .com / .net / .org. Then a company doesn't have to register 3 domains, and they only have to register country-level domains in contries where they actually have a presence. But how would you implement it - how do you reconcile those domains if different people own them, who gets the new TLD when they are amalgamated?

          Why does the USA always have to be special? Just move all "generic" TLDs to .us and let

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sremick ( 91371 )
          "Country-level TLDs are significant."

          Yep, because everyone with a .tv domain is based out of Tuvalu.
        • The "generic" top level TLDs however (.com, .net, and .org), are indeed irrelevant.

          Speak for yourself. It's just that the American method for handing out domain names didn't have any criteria attached to it. To get a .com.au name, you need to have an ABN (Australian Business Number), or an ACN (Australian Company Number) - that is, you have to be commercial. To get a .org.au, you need to be a registered charity or non-profit. .net wasn't really well enforced - it's under the same conditions as .com. The
          • Someone needs to integrate the standard /. theme here: "Think of the AverageUser!".

            I think even fewer people know about .ca .uk .au than even the existence of linux! Web 1.0 worked tremendously to make ".com" the place to be. ".net" and ".org" became known as slightly more "reputable".

            I think this poses a small security risk, because "Ford.cx" is not the same as "Ford.com". I can see the hordes of mis-clicks into phish sites.

            I've used Redirectors for years, because "fun.at/home" type addresses are always cr
        • I KNOW that http://www.toyota.ca/ [toyota.ca] takes me to Toyota Canada's page, while http://www.toyota.com/ [toyota.com] takes me to the US page. Surely ca.toyota.com would be better? I mean it's commercial, it's Toyota's and it's their Canada site, it's also cheaper. Domain names are open to allot of interpretation...
        • And this depends also on how well countries regulate them. .ca has become less strict, but is still good, in that you must have a physical presence in Canada to register a .ca domain. Some countries, however, use their TLD solely as a revenue generating device and sell domains to whoever will pay (.to is an example).

        • I KNOW that http://www.toyota.ca/ [toyota.ca] takes me to Toyota Canada's page, while http://www.toyota.com/ [toyota.com] takes me to the US page

          actually it should be http://www.toyota.us/ [toyota.us] (which doesn't seem to exist) that brings you to the Toyota USA page according to your line of reasoning, there are plenty of .com sites that refer to non-US-based businesses after all.

        • >Country-level TLDs are significant. For example, I KNOW that http://www.toyota.ca/ [toyota.ca] takes me to Toyota Canada's page, while http://www.toyota.com/ [toyota.com] takes me to the US page.

          But why is that? Shouldn't toyota.com get you to their corporate international page, and toyota.us to the US page?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by asninn ( 1071320 )

          while http://www.toyota.com/ [toyota.com] takes me to the US page.

          How do you know? Or, more precisely, how would you be able to tell (without actually loading the page) if you didn't already know that toyota.com is the US page? The US page should be at toyota.us, not toyota.com.

          That being said, I don't think that the generic TLDs are all irrelevant. Sure, .museum, .biz, .info and so on definitely are, and so are .gov, .edu. and .mil (those should be .gov.us, .edu.us and .mil.us); I suppose you could argue that .ne

      • The best structure IMHO would be to have only one main TLD which would be int (for International or Internet, your pick) and country TLDs subdivided as each country wishes. So there could be a .us.com in which the US could enforce the commercial nature of websites if they wish so or .us.gov or dot us dot whatever they want. Same for each country.
      • This would basically wipe out the internet; bookmarks, URLs hard-coded into scripts, and e-mail addresses, amongst other things, would stop working. If you're going to rebuild the internet from scratch...well, good luck.
    • are the ones this is for.

  • Between a rock and a hard place (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:11AM (#18542117)
    In the absence of an international treaty governing pornography, any decision to create a .xxx domain would probably violate the laws in one country and the civil rights in another. Avoiding the problem was a wise choice.

    We have international treaties on things like trade and maritime law but something on pornography is unlikely because it's a moral issue. What is viewed as harmless erotica in one country will get you executed in another. Anyone trying to get the .xxx domain is just trying to get someone else to do their dirty work for them. Sorry dudes.
    • and get rid, as many have suggested, of most of the TLDs. .com --> [ .com.us (.co.us?) | .com.intl ] .org, .net, .gov, .biz, etc., etc., likewise.

      Except that .gov.intl should not exist. In the place of that, .un.intl, .nato.intl, etc. Having a .gov domain is a really scary concept, if you think about it.

      One might consider domains such as .un and .nato, but making them come under a TLD that specifies "international" is a little easier on my sense of propriety. On the other hand, the concern about who is
      • How did the line that started with .com get joined to the line above, across a blank line? I'm pretty sure that top line was originally three lines.

        Guess I obviously don't have as much experience with /. as some.

  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I wouldn't personally interpret it like that. It could be that all of them are for porn and that only 9 are willing to be associated or it could just mean that only 5 of the 14 think that this would do anything other than move the activity completely offshore.

      In the end, the likelihood of this making any difference is quite small for the cost involved. A better focus if we want to regulate the porn industry is to keep them from spamming. I remember I set up a fake account once and was inundating within a we

  • Romans (Score:5, Funny)

    by jlebrech ( 810586 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:18AM (#18542175) Homepage
    As soon as this is finally accepted im buying the domain MM.XXX with the hope of cashing in, in 2030.
    • See, and now I don't think that I'll be able to watch that M&M's commercial again - you know the one - they're playing strip poker with a couple of young ladies, Peanut loses and then blushes because he doesn't want to show his peanut...

  • Who decides (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sskinnider ( 1069312 )
    ICANN was right to reject the .xxx TLD. If it had been implemented, we would see a rash of laws designed to utilize by classifying not only porn, but other material deemed objectionable by just about anyone. These days you cannot use medical terminology without offending someone. Congress would start mandating that all objectionable material be moved to .xxx and they would likely be the body that creates the rules by which objectionable material is classified, WebMD would soon have to be moved to .xxx be

  • Yeah right (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bytesex ( 112972 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:24AM (#18542245) Homepage
    Because having .com .net .org and .museum means you're _not_ in the content regulation business.

  • Erecting XXX domain faces stiff opposition (Score:5, Funny)

    by JackMeyhoff ( 1070484 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @08:26AM (#18542261)
    Erecting XXX domain faces stiff opposition

  • alt root (Score:1, Informative)

    by harry666t ( 1062422 )
    People, please stop using ICANN root DNS servers. Use OpenNIC instead:

    www.opennic.unrated.net

  • Okay, if the TLD isn't the answer, and I'm pretty sure it isn't, what about this: If you serve content that you should reasonably know is age or otherwise restricted you are compelled to mark it out as such in your url. Failure to do so would impede your ability to legally accept US funds / bank with US partners / etc. If you are incorrect in your assumption you'd first be assessed a small fine, like a parking ticket. And just like parking tickets, you'd be expected to pay remotely, or show up in court.

    • The interweb police (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Grashnak ( 1003791 )
      Um, so who gets to decide what should be age restricted? What age should it be? Why should I submit my content to the demands of your arbitrary rules? Who exactly is going to US banks not to do business with a website that refuses to participate in this scheme? And of course, who gets to decide what kind of content should be age restricted? I, for example, think that no one under the age of 95 should be exposed to websites promoting crackpot extremist christian views like intelligent design. Can we add

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by BobMcD ( 601576 )
        Age-based restriction of content is not the issue here. It exists, and has existed for a LONG period of time. It isn't going anywhere. There is no need to change this structure to deal with this issue.

        Individuals are free to determine whether or not they feel they should abide by the laws of a given jurisdiction. Likewise, the authorities in power over those jurisdictions are free to pursue those they deem to be offenders with the powers they have been granted. Again this is how 'things are' and is not
        • if I had mod points, I would.

          A lot of problems we have with the current internet are derived from people and corporations that asserted that the current laws shouldn't be applicable to the internet simply because the courts would not be technologically savvy enough to apply them properly.

          (Big Microsoft corporations that want to market software before its ready, and who (not surprisingly) turn out not to be able to control its evolution in the ways they brag that they can.)

          The concept of a separate virtual r

  • RFC 3675 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kevin DeGraaf ( 220791 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @09:12AM (#18542821) Homepage
    ``Periodically there are proposals to mandate the use of a special top level name or an IP address bit to flag "adult" or "unsafe" material or the like. This document explains why this is an ill considered idea from the legal, philosophical, and particularly, the technical points of view.''

    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3675.txt [ietf.org]

  • It's about time to stop flogging this dead horse.

    Now, do I put that comment on www.blog.bestiality, www.blog.necrophilia, or www.blog.sado-masichism? Life would perhaps be easier with www.blog.xxx
  • I'm for it - if only because it's worth the experiment. Anxieties over prejudices from US lawmakers or some such don't mean much to me. I'm not from the US and I very much doubt that even those that _are_ from the US can do much more than express those anxieties. Nobody can prove anything. Besides that, the reasons given by ICANN are bogus. 'Not in the content-business' ? We're talking about the same organisation that sanctioned '.museum' ?! And even if porn were regulated in there, it would take _ye
    • From RFC 3675 [faqs.org]:

      Periodically there are proposals to mandate the use of a special top level name or an IP address bit to flag "adult" or "unsafe" material or the like. This document explains why this is an ill considered idea from the legal, philosophical, and particularly, the technical points of view.
  • ...first level domains should not exist at all... ehr...

  • The inverse always seemed more likely to work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by billtom ( 126004 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @10:01AM (#18543517)
    The inverse (a domain exclusively for child appropriate sites) always seemed much more practical and effective to me. Let's call it .kids.

    Let's put it this way, if you were starting a club, would you A) make the club undesirable for people to come to and then try to force them into it, or B) make the club a place where people wanted to be and then only allow in the people you wanted.

    Well, .xxx is that undesirable club that you have to force people in to. The pornographers don't want to be in it because they know that it will get filtered out at a lot of places. So it cuts into their business.

    But a .kids domain, is the place where everyone who produces child appropriate material will want to be because they know that a lot of parents will filter out everything but .kids. So you set up .kids and put in place a gatekeeper who monitors to make sure that only the material you want is in it.

    Of course, the companies pushing .xxx want to run .xxx and not .kids because running .kids will be a lot more work (with the content monitoring and all) so they won't make as much profit.

    And the moral crusaders prefer .xxx to .kids because their ultimate goal isn't just to prevent children from seeing pornography. Their goal is to prevent you from having any access to pornography. And that will be easier if it is all in one place.

    Now, that "gatekeeper who monitors" bit about .kids will admittedly be challenging (I would suggest putting librarians in charge of that, they have experience with classifying material and setting up child-appropriate sections). But it won't be that challenging because companies would have a very strong incentive to follow the rules. So isn't .kids a much better idea?

    (If you're really going to pursue porn filtering at the network infrastructure level, that is. Personally I think the whole idea is stupid. I'm just saying that if you're going to do it, isn't .kids better.)

  • If the goal is to protect children?

    Rather than argue over what is and what isn't pornography, why not just setup a .kids domain which is explicitly for children?

    That way, those seeking to register a .kids domain would have the onus of proving their material was appropriate for kids. (Not that this is difficult). With the .xxx domain, every .com .net .org, etc... site has the burden of proving they don't belong in the .xxx domain. But, if the opposite approach is taken, only those sites specifically

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spyrral ( 162842 )
      The first thing I would do if a .kids domain was created is set up a site about evolution and natural selection targeted at improving children's understanding of these basic principals of biology.

      I feel that this content is entirely "appropriate for kids". Do you think everyone would agree with that statement?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Sorry, but ICANN just sucks. I mean it's one of the domains that is most desired by a great many of users. They refuse. No, it's not censorship. It's zoning and marketing.

    It would simply create a "redlight district" on the web. That doesn't mean porn wouldn't exist anywhere. Just as strip bars and what not exist outside of redlight districts. However, most such entities will locate in a red light district so that they can be more easily found. (And yes, more easily avoided.)

    I'd wager $100 bucks the ICANN v

  • Beware this ploy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Friday March 30, 2007 @10:24AM (#18543837) Journal
    In general, beware this manipulation of a democratic process; it happens on national scales, too. Take a close vote and just keep voting on it until the resolution passes. Then, once it passes, generally you don't have to vote on it again.

    Due to the nature of random processes, even the exact same population that has the exact same opinions will have different voting outcomes on each vote. Now, if you take just one vote on an issue, it works out in the end; some things get overvoted, some things get undervoted, some things are enacted that "shouldn't" be and some things aren't enacted that "should" be. (Also, it's really hard to know which is which, so resist the temptation to point to your favorite close election and hold it up as an example; you can't prove that the election was 51% instead of 49%, it may well have been 51% instead of 54%.)

    By holding votes over and over again, and taking it if it passes even once, you secretly lower the pass threshold. Add in some simple, traditional games for keeping certain groups out (like polling times or other things) and you can muck with another couple of percentage points, and you can keep trying until you get it right.

    Unfortunately, there's no real way to prevent this; people simply need to be aware on some level that this is cheating. .XXX has lost. Put it away for a decent time period before trying to ram it through again.
  • Allow the xxx domains, but don't require that it is porn. If someone wants to put their site they can, if not the rules are the same for all the other domains. I think a lot of adult content sites would move there for the promotional value.

    After seeing what sex.com sold for, I would want to have it just to sell sex.xxx, or maybe se.xxx would be worth more. Either way, whoever gets it would make a killing.
  • A far better answer than a single classification (XXX or not XXX) is a system like ICRA, with its self-reporting and multiple parameters. The problem for me as a parent, though, is that there's not a built-in system for using it in most OS/browser combinations. Or is there? Is there a way to use ICRA cleanly with Macs or Windows, esp. without having to buy some piece of software for all of my various machines?
  • The debate over the .xxx domain should have died years ago. If you're really anal about protecting children, the .kids domain idea is a much better prospect.

    ICANN hasn't done enough in being a domain name regulator, IMHO. What's the purpose of a TLD if it doesn't really mean anything? If .orgs aren't non-commercial organizations, and .nets aren't network-related, then why bother? The only domains that are reasonably well-regulated right now are the various governmental domains, plus .edu.

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