Plans For .xxx Domain For p0rn Scrapped

William Robinson writes "ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has once again scrapped the plan for a new internet "domain" .xxx for pornography. Supporters of the .xxx address suffix argued that it would have helped to protect children and others from accidental exposure to internet pornography, particularly if stronger filters were used to screen out explicit material from other internet domains. Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year to put off introducing a new ".xxx" domain for pornography on the internet. That drew international complaints that the US exercised too much power over the internet and added to a European-backed movement to shift control of the online medium to an international group."

Comments

Once again, why?

[heinousjay]

I've not yet seen a reason to have the .xxx domain. I'm not opposed, per se, but I have a hard time understanding the point to it. It seems more like a fun hot button to oppose the US. If that's the case, cool, enjoy tilting at that particular windmill.

Re:Once again, why?

[mopslik]

I've not yet seen a reason to have the .xxx domain.

I guess the main argument is that it should be fairly trivial to filter out any domain ending in .xxx, as opposed to trying to determine is a particular .com domain is pornographic based on domain name, copy, images, etc.

But then, I guess it depends on whether you buy into the "existence = encouragement" argument put forth by some of the other groups.

Re:Once again, why?

[modmans2ndcoming]

filter all .xxx domains..... done.

Re:Once again, why?

[mwvdlee]

Encouragement to move sites to a .xxx domain merely due to it's existence would be an ideal scenario.

Either way, it's a moot argument to make because, as you mention, it would be trivial to filter these sites out.

The only argument against .xxx I can think of is that it wouldn't really encourage porn sites to move at all. Just look at the .info and .biz domains; no serious site would be caught dead on .biz, and .info pretty much goes unused too.

Re:Once again, why?

[kwanbis]

you could make it a requisite if you are in the porn business, to register only xxx domains.

Re:Once again, why?

[Dr.MiNDKiLLER]

Or, give every existing porn site a free .xxx with the same name as the .com they already have. Then encourage them to put their "You may only preceed if you are over x years old: ENTER, EXIT" at their .com address and everything else on .xxx .

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I've not yet seen a reason to have the .xxx domain. I'm not opposed, per se, but I have a hard time understanding the point to it.

Why do we have any TLDs? We can just shove everything into .com right? The point is to organize the internet into usable chunks both for content providers and consumers. Now I don't know about you, but I'd say porn makes up a significant chunk of the internet. Porn providers want consumers to easily be able to find them. They don't want young children to find them since kids generally don't have credit cards and if they do their parents look at the bills and likely will complain. They don't want people who don't like porn visiting them since it costs them bandwidth and is more likely to result in outrage/persecution of them.

Having an XXX domain gives porn purveyors a place to go where no one can complain they "accidentally" stumbled upon them. It will stop all of the "please think of the children" emotive pleas, since anyone concerned can just filter the XXX domain. This is the whole reason the domain system exists.

As to the reason some people oppose it. Certain religious wackos and the con-men who prey upon religious wackos like having an enemy. Most of them say that "porn is evil" and needs to be stopped. They aren't interested in letting everyone make up their own minds, or easily have a choice. Their concern is in telling each and every one of us what we can and can't do based upon their weird religious interpretations. As a result, they want to increase, not decrease outrage. This means they want children and other people who might accidentally access porn to do so as much as possible. They hope that by making it more difficult for people to find what they want, more difficult to avoid what they don't want, and more difficult to filter based upon easy categorization that they can outright ban porn in the entire world, rather than just let those who to see it do so and avoid it themselves.

Since a lot of these religious wackos and con-men are involved in the US government, which in holds ICANN's leash, they are using ICANN to push this agenda upon the world. That, understandably, makes much of the rest of the world less confident that the US will not use ICANN to push other agendas that conflict with global interests.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how exactly do you propose that adult-oriented websites be forced into this new TLD? *MANY* of these busiensses exist entirely by the domain name they registered when they started out. For some, forcing them to the .xxx TLD would be akin to forcing Intel to change its name.

Is there some guarantee that those webmasters would be able to get ilovetohumpgoats.com converted over to ilovetohumpgoats.xxx? Who would manage that transition and ensure that the rightful owners of the .com version were the ones able to get the .xxx version?

Don't get me wrong, I would love nothing more than to see adult content organized under the .xxx TLD, but until each and every site out there with such content abandons its .com/.net/.org/.moocow TLD in favor of .xxx, it's gonna be a bit challenging.

Re:Once again, why?

[Khaed]

There is no way short of regulating it to make sure porn stays in the .xxx domain. And then it gets back to, "What qualifies as porn?"

Not having a .xxx domain sure as hell hasn't slowed down the growth of pornography on the web. Anyone who can't find any porn they want is just stupid. As for the please think of the children pleas, that will never stop. After porn is segmented and moved away and there's nary a tit on .com, .net or .org, then they'll move on to something else. Violent flash animations maybe. Something. Those people have existed and will always exist -- think Tipper Gore and her bored Congresscritter Housewives club -- and the internet didn't start it.

I love how you blame it on religious people in the government. Some of us have other objections to .xxx. Like that it's stupid. All that will happen is current porn sites will also buy a .xxx and ICANN will make a fortune as companies have to buy yet another domain name to make sure they own their domain name with every TLD.

Re:Once again, why?

[modmans2ndcoming]

By Fiat.

Re:Once again, why?

[teklob]

I think it makes alot of sense, depending on how it's implemented. It doesn't make sense to restrict all adult content to the .xxx domain, because then there will be a huge argument over what constitutes adult content and therefore must be limited. Nobody will want their content to be on the new domain, because access to it will be restricted. On the other hand, if the domain was implemented for whoever wanted to use it, maybe with some sort of incentive for putting your 'adult' content on the .xx domain. Perhaps increased priority in adult search engines? Some sort of master directory? I think it's a plausible and valid idea, but not as an attempt to cordon off the entire adult section of the internet to make filtering easier.

Re:Once again, why?

[voice_of_all_reason]

If you're not with the Christian Death Squads, you're with the enemy.

Re:Once again, why?

[Gunny101]

Why? It's to classify porn sites properly so when kids try and get information on the Whitehouse, they don't find information on something much much worse.

Granted, most people ignore classifications and register domains under any root they feel like, but it should still be a provided option.

ICANN should be renamed to ICANN'T

Re:Once again, why?

[jandersen]

I've not yet seen a reason to have the .xxx domain. I'm not opposed, per se, but I have a hard time understanding the point to it. It seems more like a fun hot button to oppose the US. If that's the case, cool, enjoy tilting at that particular windmill.

You're right, there's no particular reason for wanting an xxx domain other than it might seem 'cool' to some.

And it is not the reason why people in the world oppose the US. There are many arguments why USA shouldn't have the control over the TLDs, but I suspect at the bottom of it all is the pervasive feeling that USA has for too long seen themselves as the obvious owner and ruler of the world, and that USA has little more than contempt to spare for other countries, cultures and people. I am not saying that this is how people in USA actually think, but it is the concept that seems to best sum up your foreign politics. On top of that the US are widely seen as superficial, hypocritical, selfish and untrustworthy.

And that, I think, is why everybody digs their heels in - people on all levels are very much beginning to have had enough, simply.

What I don't understand is why the nation that once seemed to be something like the guardian of the world has now become such a monster, to put not too fine a point on it.

Re:Once again, why?

[soft_guy]

You make the most persuasive argument for .xxx that I have heard so far. Congratulations.

One problem I see with it is that lots of pr0n companies do in fact get paid per impression for ads. Therefore, they are likely to continue to try to get around filters. Many pr0n companies try all sorts of things to get people to "accidentally" view their site. I don't see how .xxx will stop that.

I think that there are lots of pr0n sites that make their money off of subscriptions, etc. and I could easily imagine those sites voluntarily moving to .xxx. And furthermore, I consider those types of sites to be more "legitimate" and "responsible". OTOH, there are lots of pr0n spammers and other tricksters who will not voluntarily move and who would continue to be a problem.

Re:Once again, why?

[NegativeOneUserID]

I've not yet seen a reason to have the .xxx domain.

It says so right in the post. "Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US" ..... If that Evil Bush administration and the fundamentalists that back him say that it is a bad thing, that is clearly a sign of oppression.

Why oh why are they blocking our freedom to have a .xxx domain?

Re:Once again, why?

[jyoull]

This all presumes that there's universal agreement (across cultures and legal regimes) and a completely clear definition/dividing line for what is and is not porn. Think about it for a second and you will, I hope, realize that there is as much gray area in this matter as there is any any other case of trying to divide expression into clearly delineated categories. Appearance of an xxx domain presumes that content can be easily segmented into "porn" and "not porn" but I'd argue that except for the obvious cases, that's not really easy to do. What about a porn site that also hosts a "safe sex" discussion forum? A personal site with an R or PG picture of a porn star on it?

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh fuck you, moderator, the story is redundant itself.

Re:Once again, why?

[Blue Stone]

Or better still ... create a .christ, a .kids, or a .inoffensive domain where people who don't want to see certain stuff, can surf in (realtively) absolute safety, worry-free, without it affecting everyone else.

In other words, regulation should be for those who want it or need it (in the case of children), leaving everyone else the hellalone.

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

As for the please think of the children pleas, that will never stop. After porn is segmented and moved away and there's nary a tit on .com, .net or .org, then they'll move on to something else. Violent flash animations maybe.

Your logic is flawed. It is the classic "the world will never be perfect so why make any improvements" logical fallacy.

I love how you blame it on religious people in the government. Some of us have other objections to .xxx. Like that it's stupid.

It was religious lobbyists that were behind stopping .xxx via a strongly worded letter from government officials to ICANN. Are you arguing that this is not the case? I did not know anyone was still questioning the chain of events.

All that will happen is current porn sites will also buy a .xxx and ICANN will make a fortune as companies have to buy yet another domain name to make sure they own their domain name with every TLD.

This is possible, but I don't think it is probable. First, that behavior is a symptom of the ".com is all there is" mentality of the Web today. It will become less severe as more young, internet savvy people grow up. Second, the more domains exist and are in common use, the less important it will be to squat on inappropriate domain names in the wrong TLD. Third, unlike general purpose commerce sites and organizations who want as many hits as possible no matter what, porn sites have a vested interest in reducing hits from the wrong places. Bad publicity, lawsuits, and wasted bandwidth hit their bottom dollar. The existence of a .xxx domain makes it that much easier for a porn site with a name like "shoes.com" to be sued for misrepresenting themselves and under various morality acts. Fourth, a .xxx domain opens up room for new sites. feet.com is probably taken by podiatrists, but they would never register feet.xxx. This makes room for both podiatrists and foot fetishists. Finally, given that .com has been handed off and will be facing ever increasing registration fees, many sites might like the option to drop it altogether and move to a cheaper domain. Trademark laws should be adequate to stop new porn vendors from trading on their name by grabbing the domain later on.

So you think a .xxx TLD is stupid, huh? And the arguments you provide apply equally against the creation of any new domain, or any domain other than .com. Is it your opinion that we should just scrap the TLD system altogether and move everything into .com. I'm sure Verisign would love that. I think your opinion is shortsighted and wrong, but it is duly noted.

Re:Once again, why?

[typical]

Yes, some conservative Christian groups oppose it, for the reason that they feel that it will "legitimize porn". I also oppose a .xxx TLD, for completely different reasons:

(1) .xxx sucks from a technical standpoint. Using DNS to categorize sites allows anyone else to set up a non-.xxx address that points at the same address. .xxx is useless for blocking, for this reason. .xxx allows only a single bit of information to be encoded about a an entire domain (is it "adult", whatever that means, or not?) There are better, existing systems to embed metatags in web pages. These approaches are far more powerful ("contains REALISTIC_VIOLENCE and NUDITY" and lets the user or ISP choose how to filter based on these content flags), provide better granularity (you don't have to stick an entire domain in .xxx if it contains one adult page), and can't be bypassed as blocking systems just because someone uses a proxy or something similar.

(2) .xxx sucks from a policy standpoint. We sorta-kinda can get away with saying "This is adult content, and this isn't" in the United States, because we've got a *somewhat* universal standard of acceptable content. Even then, there's friction (in San Francisco, it's been ruled legal to do nude yoga on a city street -- try doing that in the Deep South). But it's not nearly as much as the differences between countries and continents. Remember that this is not xxx.us -- this is a .xxx *TLD*. It applies to *everyone*. In the UK, it's considered perfectly harmless to show topless women on television. In the US, we consider that unacceptable and obscene. In some conservative Islamic countries, a woman in regular business wear (or worse, a bikini) would be considered completely unacceptable. How do you do a good job of reconciling all these various wildly-differing social values into that single bit of information? No matter what happens, an awful lot of people are going to find your classification completely unacceptable. A .xxx TLD promises *years* of culture wars and infighting.

There are two main groups pushing for a .xxx TLD. First, there are a lot of people who simply don't have the technical background to understand the drawbacks of a .xxx TLD, but know that they want to be able to filter porn. They aren't familiar with the alternatives, and a .xxx TLD is easy to explain to them. The other group is the domain name registrars, which are absolutely salivating at the possibility of having people have to pay for a new domain based on the kind of content they are providing. Heck, get past the initial big step of getting people used to paying a domain name registrar tax to serve a particular type of content, and you can do it with all *kinds* of content. There's nothing that a domain name registrar would like better than something along these lines.

And that's why I really don't think that most people actually want a .xxx TLD. They may want to be able to filter porn, but they don't want a .xxx TLD.

Reposted from an earlier post of mine here

Re:Once again, why?

[hypergreatthing]

Come on. That's a horrible argument. Why would a safe sex site be located on a .xxx TLD?
It's not like there are any current requirements to be a .com/.net/.org. I'd think i would be a great way to seperate without obtrusive filtering (which will filter out safe sex sites).

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This all presumes that there's universal agreement (across cultures and legal regimes) and a completely clear definition/dividing line for what is and is not porn.

Not at all. I'm in no way advocating laws mandating this. Every Website can decide for themselves if they are "XXX" based upon what they think their audience is looking for. The dominance of the search engine allows people to find "safe sex" discussions or "porn" with ease. The real issue is allowing people to easily filter for the majority of dedicated porn sites and giving porn purveyors more space and easier advertising. Short, easy to remember names are limited. feet.xxx is easy for foot fetishists to remember and would be prime new real estate. Given that their main purpose is selling porn, I don't think it s unreasonable for said site to expect to be filtered already (most porn sites already submit themselves to all the filter programs they can). If they also want to host a discussion on "safe sex" that they want minors to access they are better of hosting it elsewhere, with or without a .xxx TLD.

Re:Once again, why?

[TheLogster]

As a Christian (aka "Religous wacko") I can see a _very_ good reason to have a .xxx domain. Porn is degrading to women, and it does destroys relationships

No more - "sorry honey - I didn't know what I was doing" crap.

By having a ".xxx" domain, I can set my firewall to instantly block all of the porn in the world. Thus stoping temptation and at the same time protecting my children from seeing things that they are too young to understand..

Admittly - having a .xxx domain would make a lot of software filtering package redundant ... I wonder if those businesses voted "no to .xxx"

Re:Once again, why?

[General Lee's Peking]

You haven't really answered the original poster's question. It seems likely that the obvious sequence of events will be first and most obviously, providers of pornography will get .xxx sites to makes themselves easy to find. Next and just as obivously, a lot of people and places will filter out .xxx sites. And finally, people providing content that some consider pornographic will be forced to put their web sites in the .xxx domain thus causing serious issues concerning free speech. An alternative to the first extreme outcome that's just as bad is that if it isn't on .xxx then companies that provide filtering services may be forbidden from filtering it for fear of impeding someone's freedom of speech thus impeding someone else's freedom of choice. It seems this is just an incredibly stupid idea. So the original question comes back. Why would you want to do this?

Sellers of porn do not need a .xxx domain to identify their content anymore than providers of any other kind of information need a special domain for their data. There are far better ways to identify what they do outside of the domain name, and by doing so they have a much better chance of lessening government meddling in their business.

Re:Once again, why?

[g_goblin]

Here in the U.S. we have age limits and certain guidelines to follow when buying/selling pornography. Typically, movies/videos are located on the lower shelf behind the counter or in a separate room where access is monitored or a pornography store. As far as I know, you have to be 18 years of age or more to buy it as well. I don't see anything wrong with selling pornography this way and I agree with it. As a parent, I don't want pornography readily available to my children. Whether you want to believe it or not, pornography is a lot easier to obtain off the internet than anywhere else.

Take for example the website http://www.nick.com/ (Nickelodeon). Say your child is typing in the web address and accidentally types in http://www.dick.com/ because of a typo. They have just went to a website that is not suitable for a child. Having the website http://www.dick.xxx/ is more suitable under this scenario. I can filter the website/domain as not suitable at the fwl/rtr level.

I've never been to Europe and observed the practice of selling porn there, but I don't see how this would kill the porn industry if all pornographic content was placed in its own domain. We do the same thing here in the states through normal retail outlets and I don't hear the porn industry complaining about that.

Am I judging pornography? Yes I am. I like it just like the next guy, but I don't think it is suitable for my 5 year old and 7 year old. I think there definately has to be a change made and right now having .xxx is the only solution I see so far.

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Yes, some conservative Christian groups oppose it, for the reason that they feel that it will "legitimize porn". I also oppose a .xxx TLD, for completely different reasons...

Of course people oppose it for differing reasons, I did not mean to imply otherwise. What I stated, however, is that the .xxx domain was stopped by religious lobbyists, which I think is pretty well documented at this point.

.xxx sucks from a technical standpoint. Using DNS to categorize sites allows anyone else to set up a non-.xxx address that points at the same address. .xxx is useless for blocking, for this reason. .xxx allows only a single bit of information to be encoded about a an entire domain (is it "adult", whatever that means, or not?) There are better, existing systems to embed metatags in web pages. These approaches are far more powerful ("contains REALISTIC_VIOLENCE and NUDITY" and lets the user or ISP choose how to filter based on these content flags), provide better granularity (you don't have to stick an entire domain in .xxx if it contains one adult page), and can't be bypassed as blocking systems just because someone uses a proxy or something similar.

There is a difference between blocking and filtering. Current attempts to scan content and use it to categorize sites as "porn" or "not porn" have thus far failed miserably. People don't include the metadata you advocate and I don't see them being universally applied at any point in the near future. You argue that the granularity is an issue, but realistically, lots of sites provide just porn and would like others to be able to easily determine that both for purposes of filtering and reasons of advertising. Those sites provide a whole lot of low-hanging fruit. This is the reason we have a domain system in the first place, to easily categorize large swaths of the internet for various purposes. Sure if content providers try to sneak by filters this will not stop them, but most don't want to and if they do, they can also avoid including the metadata you advocate and take other steps. If people are trying to mislead others, it is a whole different problem, but usually that is not the case.

Remember that this is not xxx.us -- this is a .xxx *TLD*. It applies to *everyone*.

Yep, different cultures have different opinions on classification. The same goes for other proposed and existing domains like .med (is homeopathy medicine in your culture?), .org (is a government an organization, what about businesses?). To account for this some sites will register with multiple TLDs. This is the proper behavior. In some countries the whole .xxx domain would be filtered and the system would route around the damage as porn purveyors register in the wrong TLD to reach their customers. All of these are real issues.

That said, it would be nice if I could go to foo.xxx knowing that I can find some type of XXX content there. It would be nice if I could filter .xxx for a school, knowing that I am not unintentionally blocking content the kids should see (unless it was improperly registered). The TLD system is global, and I don't expect each and every boob on the internet to only show up in that site, but I do expect most of the hardcore grannies on amputees anal action sites to be filtered, and I expect they would be. Those sites want to to know where they are and don't want people not interested. Each site would have to decide for itself, but I imagine a lot of sites would move there, which is good because it is just providing the end user with more granularity of classification. Having .xxx and .com lets me know something about the sites that are in one or the other (which is a subset of sites, admittedly). That really is why the TLD system exists, even if it is drastically underused today. Further, we have

Re:Once again, why?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

What's a porn site? How will you identify them? If it's opt-in, I can't really see a large adoption rate.

Re:Once again, why?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Now I don't know about you, but I'd say porn makes up a significant chunk of the internet.

The problem here is that cumsluts.com isn't in demand by anyone other than porn sites. Likewise, I can't see ibm.xxx being used for anything, so you aren't freeing up any sort of naming capacity.

Having an XXX domain gives porn purveyors a place to go where no one can complain they "accidentally" stumbled upon them. It will stop all of the "please think of the children" emotive pleas, since anyone concerned can just filter the XXX domain. This is the whole reason the domain system exists.

Yeah, and everything that isn't safe for the kids will be stuck there for the very same reason.

Re:Once again, why?

[redalien]

How about some pseudo-TLDs, like .com.18 .com.16 .com.15 .com.21, etc. Then, allow domains to have a date of birth selector to calculate your age, managed by the parents or the company involved to filter the content.

Say you visit www.cum-guzzling-monkeys.com.14 you'll see "I'm sorry, this website has specified that you must be at least 18 to view it"

Of course, this would allow all products to be filtered, so teenagers can't see alcohol and related websites if required. It would require sites to opt-in though.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the best idea I have heard in a while. I am so sick and tired of these nut jobs pushing their agenda on everyone else. I am getting ready to have kids in the next year or so, and was really looking forward to an easy way to block out all this crud for them. A .xxx would have been easy. But, now I have to do it the hard way since all these ignorant zealots keep nosing their business in areas they are too stupid to understand in the first place.

Re:Once again, why?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

org (is a government an organization, what about businesses?)

Org is for individuals and non-profits. Governments have their own tld, as do businesses.

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The problem here is that cumsluts.com isn't in demand by anyone other than porn sites. Likewise, I can't see ibm.xxx being used for anything, so you aren't freeing up any sort of naming capacity.

But there is overlap too. Foot.com hosts a podiatrist site. Are you telling me no foot fetish site wants foot.xxx?

Yeah, and everything that isn't safe for the kids will be stuck there for the very same reason.

Except, that isn't that way the rest of the world has worked. Children can still see nudes at the art museum. There would be pressure to move things there, but at least in the US it will be very, very hard to force anyone to use it. Porn sites will want to because it will be profitable. I don't see how the availability of this domain hurts anyone.

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

You missed the point. That is a very US-centric naming. In some places governments are organizations. In some places businesses are called "the foo organization." Why would an individual be an organization? My point was that TLDs can have different meanings in different cultures, but are still useful. Just because XXX means different things in different places is no reason not to provide that classification. Most of the world spoke out in favor of it.

Re:Once again, why?

[Just Some Guy]

As a Christian (aka "Religous wacko") I can see a _very_ good reason to have a .xxx domain. Porn is degrading to women, and it does destroys relationships

No more - "sorry honey - I didn't know what I was doing" crap.

As a Christian, your logic horrifies me. Do you want to live in a world were we also have ".liberal", ".atheist", ".evolution", or ".fishonfriday" and you're obligated to block all of them (after all, a good Christian wouldn't want to read all that secular stuff, right)?

How about this: I'm an adult and I'll read or not read what I damn well want based on my own morals and judgment, rather than what an external filter imposed upon me thinks I should see. I absolutely guarantee that if enough people willingly accept these artificial roadblocks, then they'll become compulsory (peer-group enforced) all too soon.

By having a ".xxx" domain, I can set my firewall to instantly block all of the porn in the world.

I think you meant to say "United States that goes along with this voluntary plan".

Look, I'm not pro-pr0n, except in the sense that I think it's up to each person to decide for themselves. However, if you don't want to look at it, though, then don't - and don't expect the government to stand in as a replacement for your own conscience.

Re:Once again, why?

[darcyb]

There's aesthetic/artistic pr0n and their's cheap/cumasfastasyoucan pr0n. Apple vs. Dell. Pr0n is like a knife. It's a tool that can be used for fun things like putting butter on sandwhiches, or bad things like stabbing/cutting wrists. Some try to accuse the tool and the tool makers when it's people who abuse the tool that are really the problem. Then again, this is the same argument used by gun manufacturers.... ;)

.xxx TLD stuff won't change a single thing and will just be YAFROTE (yet another fearful rationalization of the ego).

If kids are an undesirable demographic to the pr0n companies/sites, and pr0n content is undesireable to parents wishing to deny what parts of reality their children are capable of, they should really just never let them surf alone and then ALL subjects will be covered.

I don't believe technology should substitute personal attention and raising. Kids find a way to see what they're made to believe is seductive by first being made to believe it's off limits. I know some more astute parents will wrap it up in a context of, "not yet ok? Just not yet", but most are content with, "I said no, and if you don't like it, there's the door" or "while you live under my roof you obey my rules" or "you will go to hell." Kids test the BS they're shoveled, and then we punish them for it. Nothing is as alluring as something forbidden! And nothing is as boring as something that's common with no fuss made. Kids who have wine when their 13 with dinner along with the rest of the family find it to be quite boring and not worth getting drunk over when they're 21.

Kids will get to see pr0n no matter what is attempted. With the ol' fashioned, "just supervise your kids' use of media devices", reasonable protection will still be given. They'll end up doing the opposite of what they're told anyway while unsupervised at friends' houses which is where they'll be sneaking peaks at magazines, DVDs, and playing with alcohol and cigarettes. You can't hide the world from people no matter what age they are. The truth is persistent like that.

The only way to protect kids from pr0n is if the adults gave it up. It's the same with alcohol and cigarettes. Kids are brilliant and can smell a ruse when they hear all this "pr0n is bad!" and then they see a multi-billion dollar industry breathing and growing, showing them that their parents are the minority and that if the majority speaks that it's ok, why wouldn't it be? Do kids not gravitate towards what's popular, in, and socially probable to validate them if they too agreed?

The hypcrisy is that we try to tell our kids that pr0n is bad (sex/pleasure between consenting people) and that war (death/pain visited unto unconsenting people) is good. Why not bar kids from the military if death is so wrong? Because we don't REALLY see death as wrong. We see death machines as jobs, pride, career, growing one's person, fighting for values and so on. Who gets into the pr0n industry in the name of god? Many pick up a gun for it and are quick to use it though. We've been doing THAT for thousands of years. How fearful and desireous of killing someone of differing beliefs when they're having an orgasm or anal sex?

I'd prefer we all had more sex and risk our kids see adults exchanging pleasure than killing each other and our kids seeing the bloodshed. Not all sex is flowers and saxaphone music. Some of it is loud, sloppy and utterly animalistic. Funny, how in that more raunchy context, "god" is mentioned all the more often, and nobody dies. ;) Happy couples never forget those moments and giggle and tickle each other remembering them just as much. And yeah, sometimes couples mutually consent to things like facials and role playing. How boring would we be if we only ever did missionary?

Can all that be abused? Sure! But we abuse our bodies with junk food all the more. Do parents cry foul and turn off the TV each time there's a McDonald's commercial? Do they lobby organizations in religious groups wanting such fatty content to be aired after 9pm? Maybe all web sites promoting junk food should have the TLD .fat? We could do both until we run through all 26x26x26 possibilities.

Re:Once again, why?

[the chao goes mu]

Actually, most business I see register their name (and often misspelled variants) under all TLDs they can. (eg. foo.com, foo.net, foo.biz, and often fou.com, fooh.com, etc.) in order to prevent squatters and others from cashing in on alternate spellings and alternate TLDs. If .xxx comes along, I expect filthywhores.com won't give up their .com, .net, etc. but will just add filthywhores.xxx as well.

Re:Once again, why?

[Gunny101]

True, but I doubt Microsoft will buy microsoft.xxx and redirect it to their homepage ;)

Re:Once again, why?

[dlZ]

I like the sound of goatse.kids!

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

As a Christian (aka "Religous[sic] wacko") I can see a _very_ good reason to have a .xxx domain.

First, christian != religious wacko. There are plenty of reasonable, intelligent christians. The particular individuals to which I am referring are mostly televangelists, members of neo-conservative movements, and people who call themselves christian, but don't have any idea what christ was advocating and instead subscribe to a myriad of "common-knowledge" beliefs that have little to do with christianity.

Porn is degrading to women, and it does destroys relationships

I can respect your right to hold that opinion. Personally, I think materials considered by many to be pornographic can be quite beautiful and artful. Appreciation for the human form seems to me to have no conflict with belief and respect for the creator of that form. As for images "destroying relationships" well that just sounds like an attempt to escape from personal responsibility. Images are images and if just the presence/availablity of those images is too much strain on your relationship, then you may have other, more serious problems.

No more - "sorry honey - I didn't know what I was doing" crap.

Anyone who believes such a protestation of ignorance should hold themselves responsible for the consequences.

By having a ".xxx" domain, I can set my firewall to instantly block all of the porn in the world. Thus stoping[sic] temptation and at the same time protecting my children from seeing things that they are too young to understand.

And that ability is what it should provide. It should allow you and anyone else to easily understand whether the provider of content has classified it as "XXX' or not thus allowing you to be more informed.

Admittly[sic] - having a .xxx domain would make a lot of software filtering package redundant ... I wonder if those businesses voted "no to .xxx"

I doubt it. Many people will still want to filter out information on drugs, violence, and any number of other topics. Further, many people will disagree with the classifications of the content providers. This won't stop a .com in Europe from having topless images on their site, which a person in Kuwait may want to filter. It may decrease the market for such filters in some locations, though, which for public institutions would be a good thing. Too many of the filtering systems no are over-broad and filter content about everything from breast cancer to the communist party. It is my understanding that certain religious organizations spent a lot of money to lobby the government and that is what stopped the .xxx domain from being created.

Re:Once again, why?

[the chao goes mu]

No. but they may buy it and leave it unused to prevent microsoft opponents or anyone else from buying it and hoping to cash in on mistaken URLs or googlebombing or other tricks which the ms name would make much easier.

Re:Once again, why?

[Piazzola]

Porn doesn't destroy relationships. People destroy relationships. What is innately wrong or damaging about a picture of a naked human body? Nothing. It's when one partner or the other gets all freaked out about it -- that's when there's a problem, and ten to one that problem already existed, and porn merely provided an outlet.

Re:Once again, why?

[Alsee]

I guess the main argument is that it should be fairly trivial to filter out any domain ending in .xxx

What's the point in filtering out .xxx when every single porn site will simply spend an extra $35 per year to have their site appear at BOTH .xxx and .com?

-

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

It seems likely that the obvious sequence of events will be first and most obviously, providers of pornography will get .xxx sites to makes themselves easy to find. Next and just as obivously[sic], a lot of people and places will filter out .xxx sites. And finally, people providing content that some consider pornographic will be forced to put their web sites in the .xxx domain thus causing serious issues concerning free speech.

I'm not sure this last one will happen. It may in certain countries with restrictive policies, but at the same time those countries mostly already filter porn and users already get around it with proxies, P2P, or by accessing sites made just for them.

An alternative to the first extreme outcome that's just as bad is that if it isn't on .xxx then companies that provide filtering services may be forbidden from filtering it for fear of impeding someone's freedom of speech thus impeding someone else's freedom of choice.

Umm, I don't know anywhere that regards the freedom of speech that way. Users, their agents, and non-government organizations are free to filter any speech they want. Are you thinking of some particular jurisdiction?

Why would you want to do this?

Why would you want any TLD? Why have a .edu, they can just be part of .com and this removes the risk that someone may filter out all .edu material for some reason. The answer is more information is better than less information to me, the end user. Whether I am filtering out porn or specifically seeking porn the classifications of Website and mailing list operators as to whether or not their sites is "xxx" is useful to me.

Sellers of porn do not need a .xxx domain to identify their content anymore than providers of any other kind of information need a special domain for their data. There are far better ways to identify what they do outside of the domain name, and by doing so they have a much better chance of lessening government meddling in their business.

What are likely causes of government interference with the porn business? What justifications are likely to be provided. The most common I've seen actually sway people to a pro-censorship stance is the old emotive plea "won't someone think of the children?" Well, children do accidentally find porn despite their parent's attempt to prevent that. And, children are often prevented from finding useful information that is not porn, due to overly broad filters. These are real problems.

Would the creation of a .xxx domain cause many sites to move there? I think so. Would that make filtering easier and possibly lessen these problems? I think so. Is there a better solution available that is workable? If so, I haven't seen it. That is why I think it is an idea that should not be rejected out of hand.

Re:Once again, why?

[ianmh]

Oh I wish I could mode you up. Great post. :D

Re:Once again, why?

[Khaed]

As for the please think of the children pleas, that will never stop. After porn is segmented and moved away and there's nary a tit on .com, .net or .org, then they'll move on to something else. Violent flash animations maybe.
Your logic is flawed. It is the classic "the world will never be perfect so why make any improvements" logical fallacy.

No it's not. It's a given fact. Those types never freaking stop and they never will. Ceding ground to them won't help. You can look at gun registration in England as an example. First they just wanted to register guns so if you committed a crime with your gun they could find you. Then they decided to ban guns and use the registration lists to go after the owners of guns. Now they're discussing banning knives. In America the puritan religious people would do the same thing with porn. We'd go back to no belly buttons on TV if they had their way. For the children.

My argument was that the "please consider the children" people will never consider the children safe enough. Under any circumstances. You're saying they will? When? When you have to have a finger print scan to watch The Sopranos?

I love how you blame it on religious people in the government. Some of us have other objections to .xxx. Like that it's stupid.

It was religious lobbyists that were behind stopping .xxx via a strongly worded letter from government officials to ICANN. Are you arguing that this is not the case? I did not know anyone was still questioning the chain of events.

I'm not a religious lobbyist. I oppose the .xxx TLD. It's not solely religious lobbyists who oppose the TLD. You don't have to be a religious lobbyist to not like it. Blaming religious lobbyists for the dropping of .xxx is a straw man. There are other people who oppose it, people who have a fair mind about porn and even view it, people who don't believe in any religion. People who do believe in a religion but still think a .xxx domain is stupid for a completely different reason. Like me.

You think Microsoft would tolerate a porn site with flaccid, tiny penises on microsoft.xxx? Or do you think they'd buy the domain right away? What about Disney? Would disney.xxx be porn of characters resembling Snow White and Ariel, or would Disney snap it up? I know there are trademark issues there, but what about apple.xxx? I could think of some fitting porn for that.

I am against any new TLD. I think .biz and .info are stupid. Who uses them? I don't ever visit a .info site. Because anyone who has one just redirects it to .com or .net or .org. We don't segregate TLDs now, we certainly won't with more TLDs. Why not just have a TLD for everything? Because no one would follow it.

Why not a .geek. Slashdot.geek. I mean, it's not really a non-profit charitable organization. It's not a network. It's a geek news site. .gns?

I mean, why is it somehow special to have one just for porn? There are a ton of blogs. How about a .blog TLD? .poli for Political sites. .fem for Feminists. .ass for the American School System.

Throwing TLDs at the internet won't make a difference because we'd have to regulate it to segregate it. Porn companies are just like regular companies, just out to make a buck, and they won't just all fall lock-step into .xxx because it arrives. Especially not when they have well known .com addresses.

Re:Once again, why?

[raju1kabir]

Why do we have any TLDs? We can just shove everything into .com right? The point is to organize the internet into usable chunks both for content providers and consumers. Now I don't know about you, but I'd say porn makes up a significant chunk of the internet. Porn providers want consumers to easily be able to find them. They don't want young children to find them since kids generally don't have credit cards and if they do their parents look at the bills and likely will complain.

They also don't want to be filtered out if it keeps potentially useful paying customers from reaching them. And exiling themselves to .xxx would do just that.

Look, we have .net and .org and all that, and nobody pays any attention at all even though they are actually sort of useful distinctions. In the face of that, do you really think pornographers, of all people, would suddenly get all fastidious about TLDs and back themselves into a corner where half their audience can't get to them?

They don't want people who don't like porn visiting them since it costs them bandwidth and is more likely to result in outrage/persecution of them.

However, they do want to try to convert some of those people into people who have suddenly discovered that they actually do like porn. The more explicit effort is required to make that discovery, the fewer people will achieve it.

It will stop all of the "please think of the children" emotive pleas, since anyone concerned can just filter the XXX domain. This is the whole reason the domain system exists.

Huh? What's the whole reason the domain system exists? Stopping "please think of the children" pleas? Filtering out content? All this is news to me.

Having an XXX domain gives porn purveyors a place to go where no one can complain they "accidentally" stumbled upon them.

Such complaints are the least of their worries. They want to make money, not pamper delicate sensibilities. Any appearance of such pandering is an act to placate adversaries. When the pandering gets in the way of making money, it stops. Once again, remember that you are talking about pornographers, not as a class known to be the most society-minded people.

Re:Once again, why?

[raju1kabir]

As a Christian (aka "Religous wacko") ... Porn is degrading to women, and it does destroys relationships.

Sensible lines of argument, so long as you don't proceed to then advocate banning this and all other things that might damage relationships. However...

By having a ".xxx" domain, I can set my firewall to instantly block all of the porn in the world.

Is this the same way I can instantly block all English-language content in the world by setting my firewall to filter the ".uk" domain? You do understand the voluntary nature of domain registration, right?

Also, I'm curious: You would block this content because you believe your relationship would be destroyed if you saw any of it? Couldn't you just choose not to look?

My relationship would probably be destroyed if I started playing some addictive video game around the clock, 7 days a week. But my response is not to install all sorts of filters preventing me from accessing video games. My response is to exercise self-control. What hath made you so much weaker than I, who am basically an ordinary schmoe?

Re:Once again, why?

[raju1kabir]

So you think a .xxx TLD is stupid, huh? And the arguments you provide apply equally against the creation of any new domain, or any domain other than .com.

No they don't.

The purpose of .museum is to make it easier to find museums.

The purpose of .aero is to make it easier to find aerodromes and aerogrammes and cures for aerosinusitis.

The purpose of .gov is to make it easier to find government stuff.

The purpose of .xxx is to make it harder to find porn.

These classifications are arguably useful for making it easier to find things. Unless one accepts the ludicrous proposition that pornographers have been waiting all these years for a way to make it harder to access their web sites, and .xxx is their ship finally come in, then using a classification to make it harder to find things is quite a different problem.

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

"Your logic is flawed. It is the classic "the world will never be perfect so why make any improvements" logical fallacy."
No it's not. It's a given fact.

You argue that if it is easier for people to see or not see porn, as they choose, then "Those types" will go crusade against something else, thus we should not make such a thing easy. That is a logically flawed argument because it assumes that the good done will be outweighed by some other evil, with no evidence to support that assertion.

I'm not a religious lobbyist. I oppose the .xxx TLD. It's not solely religious lobbyists who oppose the TLD.

I already agreed with this point, can you find any quote from me that says otherwise?

Blaming religious lobbyists for the dropping of .xxx is a straw man.

Do you even know what a "straw man" argument is? It would be a straw man if I argued that someone else said religious lobbyists were the only ones opposing it (knowing it was untrue) and then showed that fact to be false. Please be more careful with your terminology.

I never argued that only religious people were against it, I mentioned in passing that religious people were the ones that stopped it. You know they paid lobbyists a bunch of money to bribe, err persuade politicians to send letters to ICANN.

You think Microsoft would tolerate a porn site with flaccid, tiny penises on microsoft.xxx? Or do you think they'd buy the domain right away?

Well, if someone beat them to it, they would not have much choice, but I don't really care. Adding a TLD does nothing to trademarks. What is your point?

I am against any new TLD. We don't segregate TLDs now, we certainly won't with more TLDs.

Wow, you should really read a book on logic. This is called "non sequitur." Because the TLD system is not being appropriately used now for some TLDs you assert it will not be used appropriately if we have more of them. And you think this why? Actually .net, .edu, .gov, and .org are all used appropriately. So are most of the country specific TLDs. Further, there is a lot or reason to believe that a significantly larger number of TLDs would make their use more appropriate as the expense of registering all of the across the board would become greater and there would be more opportunities for variety. In fact, the main reason .biz and.info have been misused is because the registrars gave companies with .coms the right of first choice on them and they did not really have a significantly different purpose.

Why not a .geek.

There is not enough interest. Porn makes up a lot of the internet, geek news does not.

There are a ton of blogs. How about a .blog TLD?

I doubt many people would want this one either. It is a type of medium, not really a subject. The domain system is broken down by topic, traditionally, not medium. We have e-mail, web, and FTP all on the same domain. Blogging is more akin to a protocol than a topic, really. The thing is pretty much everything you mention differs from .xxx in the same way. None of them make up a significant chunk of the internet. Anyway, I'm all for more TLDs being created. Classifying information by domain gives me more info about what it is.

Porn companies are just like regular companies, just out to make a buck, and they won't just all fall lock-step into .xxx because it arrives. Especially not when they have well known .com addresses.

Then what's the harm of giving them the opportunity if they want it? Me, I'm 100% certain a lot of porn sites would jump at the chance to have a short, simple, easy to remember web address in .xxx and reduce the number of unprofitable hits they get from kids and typos. Porn companies don't want bad press from kids visiting their sites. They do want people to easily remember how to get to them. I think this could be very beneficial to them, to anyone who wants to find/remember porn sites, and to those who want to filter porn out.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Org is for individuals and non-profits. Governments have their own tld, as do businesses.

Here, let me introduce you to:

ahref=http://www.walmart.org/rel=url2html-31399htt p://www.walmart.org/>
ahref=http://www.profit.org/rel=url2html-31399http ://www.profit.org/>

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

These classifications are arguably useful for making it easier to find things.

I disagree with this assertion. To claim that providing metadata about a domain serves only to make it easier to find that data is misguided. The purpose is to inform the end user about what the data is, whether so the can find it, avoid it, or process it. Suppose I'm looking for the Cranberry Inserting Association. I do a search for "CIA" and see several links. One is to "CIA.gov." I don't follow that link because I know the organization I am looking for is not a government one. You're claiming that is somehow a "wrong" way to use the TLD information I saw? Hogwash.

Unless one accepts the ludicrous proposition that pornographers have been waiting all these years for a way to make it harder to access their web sites, and .xxx is their ship finally come in, then using a classification to make it harder to find things is quite a different problem.

I don't find that idea ludicrous at all. You do know most major porn sites sign themselves up with all the filtering companies out there right? Porn sites don't want unprofitable visits and almost anyone who is running a filter would be unprofitable in one way or another. If TLD info can be used to help people find identify the purpose of their sites, both so people that want to can visit and people that don't can avoid it, I'm sure they will be pleased as punch.

Re:Once again, why?

[raju1kabir]

To claim that providing metadata about a domain serves only to make it easier to find that data is misguided. The purpose is to inform the end user about what the data is, whether so the can find it, avoid it, or process it. Suppose I'm looking for the Cranberry Inserting Association. I do a search for "CIA" and see several links. One is to "CIA.gov." I don't follow that link because I know the organization I am looking for is not a government one. You're claiming that is somehow a "wrong" way to use the TLD information I saw? Hogwash.

No, mainly I'm claiming that the primary purpose of the classification is to provide assertive information about the organisation (what country it's in, what subject matter they deal with, etc.). It may occasionally be useful for the opposite purpose, but not nearly so often, because a large number of organisations fall into multiple geographic or functional categories and/or register domains all over the place. You are of course free to use the information any way you choose.

You do know most major porn sites sign themselves up with all the filtering companies out there right?

No, I haven't heard that. Cite please.

Porn sites don't want unprofitable visits and almost anyone who is running a filter would be unprofitable in one way or another.

I doubt that. A huge amount of paid porn access (most?) happens in the workplace, where employers and their IT departments are constantly playing cat-and-mouse with porn sites. Shutting off all that revenue would be devastating.

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

No, mainly I'm claiming that the primary purpose of the classification is to provide assertive information about the organisation (what country it's in, what subject matter they deal with, etc.).

I'd say .xxx provides some good information about what subject matter a site deals with. No one said anything about making this mandatory and doing so would almost certainly violate the constitution in the US and be pointless since foreign hosting is not governed by US law. This is information for end users and their agents.

No, I haven't heard that. Cite please.

Hmm, I don't know where I last read that. You can take a look at http://www.icra.org/. They are one of the open filtering sites and list the sites that provide actual labeling of metatags throughout their Websites. Most of the closed source filtering programs mention something , somewhere on their Website, but don't go into details. There is also an EU organization that takes voluntary ratings from sites everywhere and provides the information freely for filtering, but I don't know how large their membership is.

I doubt that. A huge amount of paid porn access (most?) happens in the workplace, where employers and their IT departments are constantly playing cat-and-mouse with porn sites. Shutting off all that revenue would be devastating.

This contradicts my experience with corporate networks, but that is only anecdotal. Can you cite a reference? Anyway, most filtered sites are schools, libraries, cafes, and private homes. Public places bring in very little porn revenue and private homes are obviously trying to avoid said sites. I've read that the cost/benefit analysis of kids viewing a porn site from home can be really really horrible. Angry parents, lawsuits, and bad press that drives away customers who want to be clandestine can be devastating. I do know people in the porn industry and I know they submit themselves to filtering services because they feel it saves them money.

Re:Once again, why?

[Kihaji]

And to continue a thought you sort of hinted at in your response, most decent(by decent I mean good "citizen", not porn quality) would probably want to be in the .xxx domain, as they don't want children/passerby's who don't want to see thier offerings to see them, not because they believe what they are doing is wrong somehow, but they do believe choice.

Re:Once again, why?

[Khaed]

What good would be done by .xxx? You're assuming it will all work out perfectly and everyone will move their porn to .xxx. I agree that, in a perfect internet, that's how it would work: Porn companies would move to .xxx, porn companies would get rid of .com/org/net/biz/whatever, parents could block them, URLs would be simple. But to do that there would absolutely have to be someone regulating the other TLDs to make sure there was no porn on it. Which brings two questions:

1. Who gets to decide what is porn? Pakistan would object to women in bikinis. What's ".xxx"? What's suitable for .com?

2. Do we really want an organization trolling the other TLDs and marking up porn?

I'll admit to using the term straw man wrong; my mistake. As for the other TLDs, that was mostly just an attempt to point out that we don't really segregate, and I don't think it would happen with .xxx. Some sites would migrate. But you can bet money Microsoft would try and sue someone into oblivion for registering Microsoft.xxx. And whether or not they win or not, or whether or not they're right, you can be sure that the financial strain would destroy any company.

Because the TLD system is not being appropriately used now for some TLDs you assert it will not be used appropriately if we have more of them. And you think this why? Actually .net, .edu, .gov, and .org are all used appropriately.

Because, as much as you want to point out flaws in my logic, it's based on reality. .edu and .gov are ran well because they have strict controls. Are you proposing more strict controls over other TLDs? Like maybe .com. Most companies buy their name in every TLD. It's a fact, not a logic error on my part. They would do the same thing with .xxx. It doesn't matter if they aren't peddling pornography. They'd buy it anyway. You could have a .sucks domain and companies would buy their name in it. It's simply the way companies act: anal and stupid.

You assume that if there was a .xxx porn companies would only have their domains in .xxx. And assumption is the mother of what? I'm stating that it won't happen that way because companies, both in the pornography business and outside, are idiots. I'm not saying porn companies won't buy .xxx, I'm just saying they will not go exclusively to .xxx, and I don't want a bunch of puritan morons deciding what gets to stay in the other TLDs.

And I see another grim possibility: .xxx gets regulated, just like you like it, and Tipper Gore and Joe Lieberman pressure ISPs not to allow access to .xxx, or to charge more for it, or some other such bullshit. And that's how it works. Some stores right now don't sell "Parental Advisory" marked CDs. You think some ISPs won't drop .xxx? Can't just say "get another ISP" because some people live in one pony towns and they like porn, too.

Re:Once again, why?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Who gets to decide what is porn? Pakistan would object to women in bikinis. What's ".xxx"? What's suitable for .com?

The person registering TLD decides what kind they want, of course. Anything that is a commercial business is suitable for .com, including porn if the company is so inclined. The think is, most porn companies would find value in customer have a more accurate idea of what will be on a site before they load it. They don't want children loading their site. It is a hassle and can cost them money. If they move to .xxx they have a better choice of names and they avoid that headache.

Do we really want an organization trolling the other TLDs and marking up porn?

Why would anyone troll other TLDs for porn and if they did who cares? It's not like anything forces current TLDs to change their policies and exclude paying customers.

But you can bet money Microsoft would try and sue someone into oblivion for registering Microsoft.xxx. And whether or not they win or not, or whether or not they're right, you can be sure that the financial strain would destroy any company.

So what? If someone wants to fight a trademark case with MS who cares. microsoft.xxx would not be a particularly valuable site. No one is likely to accidentally type .xxx as the domain. Foot.xxx would be worth money. Blonde.xxx would be worth money. These sites are no available in .com because regular businesses have them. Creating a .xxx domain provides new real estate that is actually useful. People with foot problems know where to go and can remember the address. Foot fetishists are happy too.

Because, as much as you want to point out flaws in my logic, it's based on reality. .edu and .gov are ran well because they have strict controls. Are you proposing more strict controls over other TLDs?

I'm proposing no such thing. Several TLDs have failed. .info and .biz were not really anything new. Anyone looking at a website wants into and biz is the same thing as com. Thus they are just clones of one another. .xxx is actually useful information and I think it would be successful.

I'm just saying they will not go exclusively to .xxx...

A lot of them probably won't, certainly not right away. But there are advantages. They lose the troublesome traffic from .com, it costs less and .com fees are going up. Most will just redirect their existing .com to their .xxx (and gain memorability) for a few years and then eventually drop the .com if all goes well.

I don't want a bunch of puritan morons deciding what gets to stay in the other TLDs.

Who does, but this might be what is needed to keep them from using "please think of the children" to make porn illegal on the internet in certain jurisdiction regardless of TLD.

.xxx gets regulated, just like you like it

What? I never said anything of the sort.

Tipper Gore and Joe Lieberman pressure ISPs not to allow access to .xxx, or to charge more for it, or some other such bullshit.

Yeah that would work. ISPs sure do want to give up all those transit fees they are paid for porn. Sorry, the right may bluster, but they don't have the money to stop the telcos. I'm not buying it.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, your line of "reasoning" is let's not take any measures at all, since all extreme cases should be considered as well. You bring nothing substantial to the table except trite invocations and a puddle of mud diluting clear gestures of compromise. Might I suggest you try a new approach? Try sitting in the middle of the teeter totter for a change.

I seriously doubt you're a Christian. And I seriously doubt you have children who use the internet.

Re:Once again, why?

[Khaed]

I concede defeat; I see your points. I just fear the incredible stupidity of the censors and the like. They do have a lot of power (and despite what slashbots say, it isn't just because Bush is in office). The last thing we need is a Jack Thompson of domain names. I still personally don't support a .xxx TLD.

You do, and you're obviously intelligent, so instead of continuing to rebut back and forth I'll rescind my complaints and acknowledge that you make very good points. Sorry about any miscommunications; discussions over the internet have made me twitchy and I took things the wrong way. Thanks for not devolving this into an internet name-calling-fest over my misinterpretations.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

On one hand I agree that there should be an xxx domain. It makes alot of sense to do so, having everything xxx related within a specific domain would make things easy to filter from an end user perspective.

On the other hand, having everything adult related under an xxx domain would make it an easy control point once removed from an end user perspective.

I used the term adult related because that is what I see the issue as. Not just porn, but imagery, thoughts, viewpoints, perspectives, writings, poety, music, movies, news and the general flow of information that might be found disturbing, upsetting or against ones moral sensibilities whatever that might entail and be judged disadvantagous when engaged by impressionable youth.

This thinking is but the tip of the iceberg I understand but then so is the efforts to recreate the internet as Disneyland made safe for kids of all ages. From a free thinkers viewpoint it is better to resist internet restriction by not pigeon holing content so it can be easily filtered and therefore controlled.

As food for thought, perhaps it would be better to create a .kid domain where every thing would be all sugar plums and lollipops and leave the bulk of the internet to the rest of us.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll totally agree with this one. The .xxx TLD will be a useful tool for those that produce "legitimate" porn sites.

The way I see it, there are two main kinds of porn sites (disregarding classification based on individuals tastes). There are the "legitimate" ones, that make an honest living from subscription access to porn. I have no problem with these, if you don't like porn, don't visit them. These sites only want visits from people who will potentially be paying customers, so being included in web filters is a good thing for them. .xxx will make it easier to do this, and the majority would probably voluntarily gravitate towards using .xxx domains for hosting their sites, possibly retaining their existing .coms for redirect purposes.

The other kind of site are the self-referencing link farms. They make their money from ad-referrals, and only use the adult content as a hook to get people into the mass of links. These sites will stay on .com because they can get more inadvertant hits, and hits from children. They want children to be able to find these sites, because although they won't pay anything, they'll click through anything that suggests they'll get to see porn. .xxx will see a clearer segregation between the two types of website. Those that are legitimate, and that I would potentially spend money on, will end up in .xxx. There will still be a market for filtering software, because there will always be the scammers using .com

In addition, it's a useful tool for site owners like myself which provide services of an adult nature and stuff that is "work safe". I'm starting up a small company selling software that is of use to both porn sites and regular sites. I already have a .co.uk (being a UK based company), but I could also buy the same name as a .xxx. I would use the .co.uk to target my non-adult-content customers, so they have no risk of accidental exposure to pornographic material, and the .xxx to target the adult webmasters. This means I have no risk of alienating potential customers by showing them content that they dissaprove of.

I know I'm not the only site that would make good use of this distinction, there are plenty of commerce sites that would find it useful. j-list.com for example sells a lot of Japanese import goods. At the moment, the adult content (which is about half their product lines) is intermixed with the regular stuff. There is a page when you first arrive asking if you are over 18/21 to apply a filter, but as the result is set in a cookie, poor little Timmy is exposed to porn if his father uses the site to buy Japanese porn, but Timmy just wants to check out this year's Totoro calendar.

Re:Once again, why?

[WedgeTalon]

First, I want to say that a .kid doesn't sound like an awfully bad idea. I'm sure sites marketed specifically towards kids would eat it up. And similar for religiously names .tld's, though .christ wouldn't really work - it would likely have to be something like .religion or somesuch. Now that that's out of the way, on 6to my main point:

Have most video stores not segregated porn off to a back room? Don't many retailers make stores specifcally for xxx material? And don't many of them wear that XXX almost as a badge of honour? While I do see your point, I don't really find it compelling. I think a .xxx could be beneficial to the adult entertainment and toy industries. When was the last time you saw a XXX store as a booth right in the middle of a mall?

Re:Once again, why?

[drsmithy]

This all presumes that there's universal agreement (across cultures and legal regimes) and a completely clear definition/dividing line for what is and is not porn.

No, it most definitely does not. There are only two scenarios where a site ends up in .xxx:

1. Voluntarily. In which case the owner of the content decides whether or not it's porn.

2. Legally enforced. In which case the decision is made in the locality where the site is hosted and possibly where its domain is registed, where the decision whether or not it belongs in .xxx is made according to whatever local laws exist definiting pornography.

A universal definition of "pornography" is one of the *least* important parts of the .xxx discussion.

Re:Once again, why?

[drsmithy]

Porn is degrading to women, and it does destroys relationships

No, it gives people in doomed relationships a scapegoat.

Porn usage will not destroy a stable, open, trusting relationship, because neither party will surprised, hurt, degraded or in any way offended by the other looking at pornography.

If you don't like pornography, then that's not a problem - just don't look at it. If you *do* like pornography, but lie about it, then that *is* a problem. The pornography is not the problem, how you react to it is.

Re:Once again, why?

[drsmithy]

The purpose of .xxx is to make it harder to find porn.

No, it's to make it easier to find porn and then block access to it.

Re:Once again, why?

[TheLogster]

You see that is one of the major problems with the world today.. It is more important to be politically correct than stand up for what you believe in...

Yes - it is a choice, but No - I personally would rather see the .xxx domain come in to force. It still means that people can go a view the material if they want, but it also means that other people, who really don't care about it, can educate and protect their family.

By having a .xxx domain, I don't f&^&* popups advertising Russian brides, or when I misspell "cooking" in a search engine (which happens a lot - as I can't speel that good), I don't embarrass myself, and further more don't get yelled at when my wife then uses the PC.

Here in the UK, we do have adult stores, and adult magazines, but there is laws governing their sale and distribution. On the Internet there is no law, and no way to govern it. Which is why the Internet is so very good, and at the same time so very dangerous. By having the ".xxx" domain, it makes it easier to organise the information out there, and the user can choose to block it or not.

The issue is not about censorship or prejudice it is about making it easier for someone to filter out potentially upsetting information, that is _so_ easily accessed accidentally. If your ISP decides to block the .xxx domain, that is a case of censorship, and should be contended with.

As for my logic - I certainly believe that it is sound; it is about making a choice easier. As for whether I am a good Christian or not, that is between me and God :)

Re:Once again, why?

[TheLogster]

As a Christian (aka "Religious wacko") ... Porn is degrading to women, and it does destroys relationships.

Sensible lines of argument, so long as you don't proceed to then advocate banning this and all other things that might damage relationships. However...

In hindsight I should have written - "It is of my opinion that porn....."

By having a ".xxx" domain, I can set my firewall to instantly block all of the porn in the world.

Is this the same way I can instantly block all English-language content in the world by setting my firewall to filter the ".uk" domain? You do understand the voluntary nature of domain registration, right?

Of course, many site won't re-register or move over to a .xxx domain, but some will. If a user chooses to do so, they can block that domain (or in some cases perhaps block everything else)

Also, I'm curious: You would block this content because you believe your relationship would be destroyed if you saw any of it? Couldn't you just choose not to look?

My wife doesn't like porn and I have grown out of it, but there is still that issue that it is so easily to get access to; and can be difficult to protect your family from. In some cases it is necessary to block out certain information in certain situations. For instance - you wouldn't look at porn at work, as employment law can be used to protect the other workers from being exposed to information that they find offensive. Also, you wouldn't want you six year old - researching for her homework and stumble across the site "Bodasious Co-Eds".

It is all about common sense, organizing information into domains that indicate where they are has been done for years, and yet no-one complains about that. All of a sudden people want to organize information into domains by content, and everybody screams censorship

My relationship would probably be destroyed if I started playing some addictive video game around the clock, 7 days a week. But my response is not to install all sorts of filters preventing me from accessing video games. My response is to exercise self-control. What hath made you so much weaker than I, who am basically an ordinary schmoe?

I too would get into trouble if engaged in other addictive behavior. From the faith aspect ... Porn, in the my faith, is regarded as "not a good thing". Now some people may not understand the reasons why, and not agree, etc. Which is fine.. However, if the .xxx domain was instated and sites registered then it would make it easier for those Christians that are trying to move ahead with their spiritual growth, to avoid temptation. It is their choice.

Re:Once again, why?

[Just Some Guy]

You see that is one of the major problems with the world today.. It is more important to be politically correct than stand up for what you believe in...

Exactly! The easy, PC choice is to apply some half-cocked technical measure to a societal issue than to actually do something about it personally.

Yes - it is a choice, but No - I personally would rather see the .xxx domain come in to force. It still means that people can go a view the material if they want, but it also means that other people, who really don't care about it, can educate and protect their family.

First, understand this: it would never be possible to move all porn into .xxx for a myriad of legal and technical reasons. Second, you can protect and educate your family today even without .xxx.

As for my logic - I certainly believe that it is sound; it is about making a choice easier. As for whether I am a good Christian or not, that is between me and God :)

But it doesn't make anything easier; it just gives the appearance that someone is Doing Something About It while not actually accomplishing much.

And to your Christianity, I say this: your relationship with God is personal. Do not use it as a justification for your political wishes, though, as many people with similar religious beliefs will have completely different political viewpoints than your own.

Re:Once again, why?

[ozric99]

By having a .xxx domain, I don't f&^&* popups advertising Russian brides, or when I misspell "cooking" in a search engine (which happens a lot - as I can't speel that good), I don't embarrass myself, and further more don't get yelled at when my wife then uses the PC.

Whoah. Dude, it sounds like you have way more important issues to deal with than whether some voluntary TLD gets accepted.

Re:Once again, why?

[raju1kabir]

However, if the .xxx domain was instated and sites registered then it would make it easier for those Christians that are trying to move ahead with their spiritual growth, to avoid temptation.

I guess then, as a policy matter, you get to the question of to what degree the DNS system exists to facilitate Christian spiritual growth.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft would try and sue someone

"try to sue".

And whether or not they win or not,

"whether or not they win" or "whether they win or not". .edu and .gov are ran well

"run".

if there was a .xxx

"were".

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither of your links work.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm starting up a small company selling software that is of use to both porn sites and regular sites.

The phrase "to both porn sites and regular sites" is offensive to most pornographers, in the same way that the phrase "to both black people and regular people" is offensive to most black people. It would have been more appropriate to type something like "I'm starting up a small company selling software that is of use to both porn sites and non-porn sites.".

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the U.S. blah blah puritanical rant blah blah there definately has to be a change made and right now having .xxx is the only solution I see so far.

Fine. Then have a .xxx.us SLD and leave the rest of the world alone.

Re:Once again, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. And I thought I needed a life.

Ill fated from the begining.

[Hellboy0101]

I always wondered what made anyone think that this would be a success in the first place. Registering your pr0n site as a .com, etc would always be the preffered method, since you site would have a better chance of getting around filters. Just another instance of non-technical people trying to make technical decisions.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[G-Licious!]

Do porn sites actually make any profit out of that, though? Children that are blocked by the filters wouldn't have paid anyways. Other people that are blocked by filters are usually at places you wouldn't normally get off anyways (work, library, etc.)

On top of that, even if there is no filter in place, I don't think they'd get many ad clicks either in any of those situations. But maybe they don't get paid per click at all?

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[Austerity Empowers]

Because you're exactly right, it makes for a good rallying point for the non-technical or at least the non-clueful. It SOUNDS good right? "All porn in .xxx!", and then saying some conservative christian group stood against it makes it sound like some reactionary American group is holding up progress. Americans are the only Christians of course, we all know Christ was born in Cleveland and the Pope lives in Albequerque.

In fact it's a dumb idea and that's why it's not going anywhere.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[Kamel Jockey]

Registering your pr0n site as a .com, etc would always be the preffered method, since you site would have a better chance of getting around filters.

Most adult websites though do not want to bypass Internet content filters that parents set up for their children. Many voluntarily list themselves with filtering companies expressly for the purpose of trying to keep porn away from those who should not be seeing it. Of course, they don't do this out of moral reasons but rather to save themselves. Anyone who complains about "too much porn" on the Internet can be directed to use the latest available filtering technology to their heart's content with no government involvement needed.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[sud_crow]

Actually i disagree. If this is implemented correctly, then they should force all *legal* porn sites to use an .xxx domain, and thus, allowing filters to work where is the need for such things, but if you want to avoid filters, then you are either one of this options:
1) a minor,
2) an adult on a protected (as in not yours) pc or public place,
3) someone not willing to pay.

Neither of this options fall into the target of legal, credit card or cash based (as in not-publicity-based) porn sites.
So, in my opinion, the actual porn sites would be in the .xxx domain, and wouldnt want to be in .com (always assuming they actually force porn sites to go to .xxx domains trough fines or something like that, as we all know .com is the most popular domain for everything).
I just think that if i had a porn site, i wouldnt care for people with filters, if they have a filter, im quite sure they cant pay the content.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[foniksonik]

Getting around filters... suddenly that porn outlet is the target of an investigation into selling porn to underage... which is the whole point. It's like the red light district... it makes it easier for patrons to find and harder for underage would be patrons to access without drawing attention to themselves, either from their parents or the authorities (which would only get involved if the business were actually soliciting to minors).

Morality nazis just don't want to appear to be giving their support to something that legitimizes pornography. SO instead we have porn abolition, which is much the same as alcohol abolition in that the suppliers still sell their product and people still buy, but there is no regulation of quality and no means of officially monitoring or regulating product access to minors.

I'd like to be able to block ads from .xxx and emails from .xxx and if i wanted to see some fat titties I'd like to go to google and do a search on .xxx and not see this: fat titties.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[scatteredbomb]

omg, i live like two hours away from the pope. hell yes!!

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[j-jahnke]

You know if this were true my inbox would not be full of hot girl on girl action girls who want to meet me, and the other come-ons. I will agree that most legitmate porn vendors who have an acutal business plan that involves selling porn to consenting adults probably will register with the filters to help make sure it does not get in the hands of kids. But are they really most of the porn vendors out there? I tend to think not.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope that the Pope knows how to spell.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[soft_guy]

But maybe they don't get paid per click at all?

Many such sites get paid per impression rather than per click.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[Cornflake917]

It's Albuquerque. Nice try though. I've seen much worse.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, they don't do this out of moral reasons

I am a porn webmaster (memo to self: remember to post anonymously)

Naturally I do not speak for all porn webmasters, but for me I register my site voluntarily with all the major filtering companies exactly FOR moral reasons.

Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. I don't want other people to sneak in through some backdoor and be giving my kids anything that I don't approve of. To be morally consistent I have to permit other parents to raise their own kids in the way they see fit.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[mooredynasty]

Actually, it's a good idea and an appropriate use of the TLD concept. In fact, segregation of content by TLDs is the only useful purpose behind their use. If you're advocating their elimination, fine. Otherwise, use them in a way that makes sense.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[IAmTheDave]

Most adult websites though do not want to bypass Internet content filters that parents set up for their children. Many voluntarily list themselves with filtering companies expressly for the purpose of trying to keep porn away from those who should not be seeing it.

True, and logical. Even pr0n companies complain of piracy, and those of less than an appropriate age are looking for free pr0n only. The paying customer is the financially independent customer. Not going to find many of them in the 12-16 age group.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[rob_squared]

The thing is, these groups pusing .xxx don't care that you can already filter out stuff like that, they want to filter it for you, even if its against your will.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[raju1kabir]

If this is implemented correctly, then they should force all *legal* porn sites to use an .xxx domain

Who is "they", and why would governments of comparatively free countries go along with it?

Let's assume ICANN says, "All porn must be in .xxx," and the Swedish government says, "Go fly a kite, any Swede can register anything they want in .se, bork bork bork."

What happens next? ICANN turns control of .se over to the Baptist church? The US invades and gives Haliburton a contract to run of Sweden's name servers?

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[MCraigW]

Let's assume ICANN says, "All porn must be in .xxx," and the Swedish government says, "Go fly a kite, any Swede can register anything they want in .se, bork bork bork."

What happens next? ICANN turns control of .se over to the Baptist church? The US invades and gives Haliburton a contract to run of Sweden's name servers?

[Insert smart-ass comment about leggy Swedish Models here]. No, but anyone who doesn't want to receive porn, could then easily filter .xxx and .se, bork bork bork.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[shmlco]

That spam doesn't tend to come from the vendors per se, but from jerks trying to earn "affiliate" dollars. All sites [not just porn] live and die by traffic. A great many have affiliate deals setup so that if you send a customer my way, you'll get a cut of the action. (Think "Get this book at Amazon!") And most affiliate programs already state you can be dropped for spamming.

Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult for vendors to filter out affiliates who generate their traffic by sending out spam. All it takes is a link to an affiliate site which then links the vendor, and the traffic looks real.

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[ardle]

...or not to see this if searching for "xxx"? I don't have an objection to a country requiring its porn suppliers to use a specified domain, just not that one. How about using the ".se" domain instead? It almost spells "sex" and that's a very naughty word :-)

Re:Ill fated from the begining.

[foniksonik]

Heheheheh you must have something against Sweden ;-p .se is already a TLD...

In any case you wouldn't be searching for the coat of arms for Amsterdam in .XXX so just turn on .XXX filtering and you'd get all the references to Amsterdam without the porn sites... voila, a much better search result, unless of course you were looking for porn 'from Amsterdam' in which case xxx isn't a very good search term as it's already such a generic accepted placeholder for porn.

Trolling Post

[Serapth]

Are you all ready for the barrage of thousands of comments about how much fundamentalist Christians suck. This obviously leads to conversations about how evil the Bush administration is. Naturally this will lead to a number of non-Americans saying how the States has too much power and is too conceited. And finally, this will be followed up by comments from Americans claiming to be the core of the world anyways so the rest of the world can go stuff it.
BR> Paint by numbers, brought to you by Slashdot.

Re:Trolling Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Fundamentalist Christians suck.

Re:Trolling Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Testify brother!

Re:Trolling Post

[Anonymous Coward]

totally. and the worst thing is, they are supported by the bush administration.

Re:Trolling Post

[Anonymous Coward]

"totally. and the worst thing is, they are supported by the bush administration."

Well, the administration couldn't do as much evil if America wasn't so powerful and conceited.

Re:Trolling Post

[Fred_A]

Thanks for the great timesaver, I shall now proceed to the next story.

Typical of those conceited americans... ;)

Doesn't everyone know that *Usenet* is for pron anyway ? What do they learn at school nowadays ?

Re:Trolling Post

[shibbie]

Damn I wish I had mod points now - mod parent up!

Re:Trolling Post

[nem75]

Of course one could call the allegation that all these points could not be presented in a non-trollish way trollish in itself.

It's just as well...

[BakaHoushi]

While I admit, in theory, it sounded like a great idea, helping to keep a lot of unwanted images out of my google searches, there were just too many holes in the idea and too many ways it could be abused for it to seriously work. Defining what constitutes as pr0n, whether it should be manadatory or merely encouraged, and the fact that not all pr0n sites are here in America.

Nothing else to see here, move along...

Re:It's just as well...

[onewing]

I understand there are a lot of seedy, spyware filled porn sites out there, but there are a lot of legitimate big business sites out there as well. These sites could benefit from the domain (tons of good URL's available), and would be happy to be more easily filtered out by software (could be sold to people with children).

I agree that it likely wont stop ALL porn, and there will still be a lot on the .com domains, but I dont see that as a reason not to do something that will help at least a little bit.

Re:It's just as well...

[MindStalker]

What would work best is pressure to use a .xx domain and .com domain where the .com redirects to the .xxx. The porn companies have worked hard on their brandname and image. They arn't going to give up a .com without a fight, but a simple redirect would allow the .xxx filters to still work while retaining the .com

Re:It's just as well...

[BakaHoushi]

Well, the problem with that is, does this count for ONLY porn? If so, who decides "this is porn, and this is not?" In New York City or Las Vegas or another major city, what constitutes as pornography will likely be higher than, say, a rural community in the Bible Belt. Whose definition do we use? And if it's not just porn, and it's just "offensive" sites, well, that's even worse.

Of course, this is just if the switch from .com to .xxx is mandatory. If it's not, and it's only encouraged, that leads to another problem. Say, for instance, I have an art site with nude models. It's not porn. It's nothing worse than looking at, say, Michaelangelo's David. But now some little boy gets on the big, scary Internet and finds my site. His mom walks in and sees it and blows her top. I'm at fancypantsart.COM! How dare I peddle my smut on a .com when I should know full well I need to be on .xxx like the other filth-fests. A few angry calls later, and I might be pressured to move my domain.

It sounds good on paper, but it's ugly no matter how you look at it.

Re:It's just as well...

[Fastolfe]

If .xxx ever comes to be, it will be looked upon like .biz: only for low-budget operations. Unless it's mandatory, porn sites will still prefer to be dot-coms.

Re:It's just as well...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Unless it's mandatory, porn sites will still prefer to be dot-coms.

I disagree. If a .xxx domain existed, porn sites would move to it because it would make them easier to find and recognize. Also, it would make them easier to filter, which is something that right now most prefer, since it reduces their wasted bandwidth and complaints. Major porn sites, generally, register with filtering programs now to make them easier to filter. The only reason this would fail is if governments did make it mandatory and filters were put in place in an attempt to censor. I'm sure in some countries attempts would be made to "wipe-out" porn, by filtering .xxx banning porn entirely. Sites would then appear in other domains to cater to the market.

If you don't believe me, just think of the sites that would be available. Do you truly believe feet.xxx would not be registered within hours of the xxx domain going live? Having a .xxx domain is just extra advertising and continuing the already popular trend of making themselves easily filterable. I think people would slowly shift to it.

Re:It's just as well...

[Fastolfe]

If a .xxx domain existed, porn sites would move to it because it would make them easier to find and recognize

I suspect that more people are searching for their porn by using search engines, or following links provided by others. I suspect the number of people looking for a particular category of porn by typing www..xxx (or .com) is relatively low.

If they are following a link and not typing a URL as above, by the time the URL appears in the address field, the page is already being displayed. At that point there's no benefit to having a meaningful content label in the URL when you can simply look at the page's content to see what type of site it is.

it would make them easier to filter, which is something that right now most prefer, since it reduces their wasted bandwidth and complaints.

I think you will discover that most sites will opt out of schemes that make it easier for their content to be filtered. Porn sites receive revenue from people browsing them while at work, or while in a public library. I would argue that the revenue they would lose by making themselves easily blocked would be dwarfed by the amount they lose handling complaints.

I'm not sure why you think of extra bandwidth usage as a con here. Porn sites would love for more people to be introduced to their content. Some people that aren't necessarily looking for the content would nevertheless remember what they saw, and their curiousity might lead to a subscription at a later date. This isn't very different from run-of-the-mill advertising.

Why do you think porn sites have the reputation of being banner ad swamps?

Major porn sites, generally, register with filtering programs now to make them easier to filter.

These types of sites generally cater more to topics of sexuality than outright gratification-by-Internet. It is in their best interests, and in the interests of their subscribers, to appear to be morally responsible. Your run-of-the-mill porn site, however, could care less if their content were properly labeled and would likely advocate against forced labeling, because they do, in fact, get some (probably small) percentage of their memberships by way of accidental visits.

Sites would then appear in other domains to cater to the market.

Or you can just presume that that's going to happen, skip the middle step, and avoid using a domain that can be so easily stomped on.

Do you truly believe feet.xxx would not be registered within hours of the xxx domain going live? Having a .xxx domain is just extra advertising and continuing the already popular trend of making themselves easily filterable. I think people would slowly shift to it.

Oh, I have no doubt that there would be lots of people registering names there, especially category/content label-style names, such as feet.xxx. But I strongly suspect that most of these domain registrations will end up pointing to servers that simply issue HTTP redirects to other, existing porn sites, most likely on more established DNS domains (.com).

Re:It's just as well...

[F_Scentura]

"Having a .xxx domain is just extra advertising and continuing the already popular trend of making themselves easily filterable. I think people would slowly shift to it."

So they'll have an xxx in addition to the .com, it's a money-making opportunity for registrars and nothing else.

Re:It's just as well...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So they'll have an xxx in addition to the .com, it's a money-making opportunity for registrars and nothing else.

They are only more filterable if they move to .xxx, not just grab both locations. In many cases good, rememberable .coms are taken, but .xxx are available and the sites on the .com don't want them. I expect at first many popular sites would grab both a .com and .xxx, and some new sites would appear only on .xxx. That right there is of some benefit. Slowly, over time, sites operators may drop the .com altogether, since it brings in more cost-causing instead of money-making hits, the .com registration fee keeps going up, and trademarks are established that are defensible across all domains.

Re:It's just as well...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

At that point there's no benefit to having a meaningful content label in the URL when you can simply look at the page's content to see what type of site it is.

The benefit for finding a site is small. Some people will go to feet.xxx, just to see what is there, but that is not the main benefit. The reason for people to move to .xxx is not findability, but rememberability. Think, "Damn, this new computer is fast and all, but I don't have all my bookmarks from my last one. It's too bad my old one died. I can only remember the names of a few sites." What sites will they remember? Will "feet.xxx" be one of them? Will "sexcity-47.eroticanetimagesinc.com?" Now think of all the people running Windows with only one user account who don't want their wife/kids to see porn bookmarks.

I think you will discover that most sites will opt out of schemes that make it easier for their content to be filtered. Porn sites receive revenue from people browsing them while at work, or while in a public library. I would argue that the revenue they would lose by making themselves easily blocked would be dwarfed by the amount they lose handling complaints.

Actually, the majority of major porn sites opt in to filtering schemes. The bandwidth, complains, and negative publicity cost more than not being filtered.

I'm not sure why you think of extra bandwidth usage as a con here.

A curious ten year old consumes bandwidth, is unlikely to subscribe to a site, and can generate huge amounts of negative publicity (which causes customers to leave pronto since they want to be discreet). This is random traffic sites don't want. For the most part, people who run filters are not a porn site's audience. Anyone who browses porn from the library is too poor to subscribe. Kids/schools are already mentioned. Universities don't filter in general. What market are filters losing them? Go ahead and write to a porn site and ask them.

Why do you think porn sites have the reputation of being banner ad swamps?

Because of cross-advertising agreements and large, consolidated porn companies that run hundreds of different sites. The ads direct you to other sites they own, so you'll spend more and don't have to search (and maybe find the competitor). How many porn site ads do you find on mainstream sites? The answer is very few, for the above reasons.

Your run-of-the-mill porn site, however, could care less if their content were properly labeled and would likely advocate against forced labeling, because they do, in fact, get some (probably small) percentage of their memberships by way of accidental visits.

Small operations don't label because it costs money up front and they aren't that technically savvy. They do register a domain, because it is necessary. They don't want to be forced to do expensive labeling, but they would certainly see opportunity in a .xxx domain. I don't know of any porn sites that opposed this and some requested it. It was stopped by lobbyists for religious groups.

Or you can just presume that that's going to happen, skip the middle step, and avoid using a domain that can be so easily stomped on.

Except that is not going to happen. People won't pass up the opportunity to have a short, rememberable way for customers to find their site again. and they won't ignore a domain very similar to their current one, but even more easily identifiable. In any case, that is just an argument as to why people would not move to a .xxx. If you truly believe that, let them make one and if no one goes there, it is no loss.

Oh, I have no doubt that there would be lots of people registering names there, especially category/content label-style names, such as feet.xxx. But I strongly suspect that most of these domain registrations will end up pointing to servers that simply issue HTTP redirects to other, existing porn sites, most likely on more established DNS domains (.com).

Re:It's just as well...

[jc42]

It's not just your fancypantsart.com site that's a problem here. Part of the history of "porn on the internet" has been the repeated closing down of sites, mailing lists and other fora that deal with subjects like breast cancer, sexually-transmitted diseases, contraception, abortion, etc. There are ongoing battles to keep the religious nuts from attacking nearly anything medical.

I was reminded recently of how far back this goes, when I ran across an article on the history of medicine in the Middle East. One of the writer's theses was that part of what put an end to the initial flowering of scientific and medical research was the Islamic ban on any images of the human body. This puts a severe limit on how far you can go with medical texts. It's a conventional explanation of why, though the Arabs were ahead of Europe in medical knowledge 1000 years ago, the Europeans eventually caught up and passed them. You really can't have good medical texts without lots of images. There was also resistance to medical texts in Europe for a long time, due to all the "pornographic" images. But eventually this was ended and medical texts were made exceptions from the porn laws, to everyone's benefit.

Sorry, but the only way you can really eliminate "porn" is by eliminating most educational material that deals with the human body. It's not just computers that can't distinguish them. History shows that human society and its laws can't easily tell them apart, either.

Re:It's just as well...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Of course, this is just if the switch from .com to .xxx is mandatory.

I don't think it would likely be constitutional to make the switch mandatory in the US. Making it mandatory is useless unless it is a global law anyway, which is not going to happen.

If it's not, and it's only encouraged, that leads to another problem... A few angry calls later, and I might be pressured to move my domain.

Art has been pressured to labeled as porn and removed from view since there was a US. And yet, you still see nudes in museums and galleries. I'm pretty sure the court system and artists are ready to deal with said pressure. The choice of what TLD to register in is a matter of opinion, but I think many big porn companies would like to have the option of .xxx for their own and everyone else's benefit.

Re:It's just as well...

[BakaHoushi]

I couldn't agree. I simply chose an art site as a single example, but medical sites are indeed just as fair game to be called "porn" by certain fundamentalist groups. It is indeed foolish to think that one could possibly hope to study medicine and not be able to look at a naked body.

Though one thing I do not quite understand is where these socieites have gotten the notion that nudity is inherently sexual. Considering that many, many socieites do not consider nudity to be such an "evil" as it is often perceived to be in the West and Middle East, we can pretty much assume that it isn't an inherent human notion (Nor do I remember there being a commandment or Bible verse on it, though I'm not so well read on my religious tomes). Or even what is acceptable and what isn't... I think I'm going to try and do some further reading on this.

Re:It's just as well...

[BakaHoushi]

While I realize making the switch mandatory would likely be unconstitutional, pardon my minor rant here, I don't get the feeling the current administration would care very much whether it was or was not. At least I should say that they would try to do it, anyway. Obviously the courts could strike it down, but I would prefer that it not even get to that point.

And it is true artists and the courts are willing to fight such allegations, but I can still imagine many smaller artists, such as photographers, moving under the pressure, not having the money or the willpower to fight a court battle over it when a switch to a new domain would likely be unwanted, but much cheaper than an actual fight.

Re:It's just as well...

[BakaHoushi]

This is what I get for not hitting the "preview" button. I meant to say "I couldn't agree more."

Re:It's just as well...

[Fastolfe]

I don't think memorability is as useful here as you think it is.

Isn't feet.com just as memorable as feet.xxx? Isn't sexcity-47.eroticanetimagesinc.com just as unmemorable as sexcity-47.eroticanetimagesinc.xxx? The ".xxx" just says "this is a porn site" but does nothing to enhance memorability any more than ".com" does. It's the stuff to the left of the TLD that matters from a memorability perspective.

Re:It's just as well...

[raju1kabir]

What would work best is pressure

Why? How? By whom? What sort of global reach does your putative impressionist have?

Re:It's just as well...

[raju1kabir]

One of the writer's theses was that part of what put an end to the initial flowering of scientific and medical research was the Islamic ban on any images of the human body. This puts a severe limit on how far you can go with medical texts. It's a conventional explanation of why, though the Arabs were ahead of Europe in medical knowledge 1000 years ago, the Europeans eventually caught up and passed them. You really can't have good medical texts without lots of images. There was also resistance to medical texts in Europe for a long time, due to all the "pornographic" images. But eventually this was ended and medical texts were made exceptions from the porn laws, to everyone's benefit.

In Saudi Arabia, the Beetle Bailey newspaper comic strip is censored daily by someone with a felt-tip pen who gives the general's secretary a long-sleeved floor-length dress. If the answer to a crossword puzzle clue is something like "wine" or "beer", the clue itself is blacked out. This is clearly a nation that takes its censorship seriously.

But you can go to any large Riyadh bookstore in the evening and observe red-faced Saudi teenagers giggling over the anatomical images in the medical text section. So if there is such a prohibition, it's expired.

Re:It's just as well...

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Isn't feet.com just as memorable as feet.xxx? Isn't sexcity-47.eroticanetimagesinc.com just as unmemorable as sexcity-47.eroticanetimagesinc.xxx?

You missed my point entirely. The people who are running a foot fetish site at "sexcity-47.eroticanetimagesinc.com" would love to have feet.com, but it is already taken by a podiatrist. If a .xxx domain is created they can register feet.xxx and then their site will be memorable. The current owners of feet.com are happy, they don't want a .xxx domain. No one is likely to confuse one for the other. Maybe, just maybe feet.com would get a few accidental hits at first, but that is to their benefit, it is free advertising. Everyone benefits.

Re:It's just as well...

[MindStalker]

Good point, I'm simply saying its a good idea. Not that I can personally implement it. I'm sure there are a ton of ways to encourage .xxx being used exclusivly for serving of pornographic content. PR is one of them, many porn sites started requiring id confirmations long ago, simply because they wanted to atleast appear not to be catering to minors. Sure you can't make all of them submit, but its not impossible.

Re: It's just as well...

[gidds]

Why would a porn site want it to work? Their aim is surely to be seen by as many people as possible; they could easily argue that keeping a .com address lets them be seen by people stuck unwillingly behind filters. And in their business most of them are unlikely to be concerned about 'doing the right thing', are they?

Basically, no-one other than the filterers has any incentive for this to work. That's why it couldn't.

Vote yes for .xxx

[Symp0sium]

It makes it even easier to find teh pr0n

Re:Vote yes for .xxx

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

If you're having such a hard time finding it, perhaps you'd like a free beta account?

Re:Vote yes for .xxx

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, icann says ucannt use xxx to find your pr0n

Re:Vote yes for .xxx

[Spy der Mann]

It makes it even easier to find teh pr0n

I say bullshit. Adult search engines are what makes pr0n easy to find. Heck, they're even categorized.

The truth is .xxx makes it so much easier to BLOCK porn.

Re:Vote yes for .xxx

[lexbaby]

This is EXACTLY why the conservative groups are against it.

to answer a stupid comment

[xtracto]

No!

Gringos does not control the south latin american immigration MUWAHAHAHAHAAH

USTED SERA ASIMILADO!

Not how I remember it....

[ChrisGilliard]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year to put off introducing a new ".xxx" domain for pornography on the internet.

I'm sure there was pressure from some Christian organizations, but if I remember it correctly, the real pressure was from countries that didn't like the idea (China is one that comes to mind). Anyone else remember it that way?

Re:Not how I remember it....

[joedoc]

Er...maybe I'm appearing to be an uninformed dumbass here, but I'd really like to know who these "conservative Christian groups" who opposed this might be. The moment I read that, some red flags went up:

1. The original story is published in the Financial Times (London). A nice publication, but this stiry is lacking on the details. It's not likely the NY Times or WaPo would get away with that too frequently. Name names.

2. In today's political and media environment, it frequently appears that tossing up "conservative" and "Christian" (especially in the same sentence) is an easy way to create some kind of nameless, Luddite, Dark Ages bogey man. I'm conservative and Catholic, and I don't have a problem with this. Nor do a number of fellow conservatives and Christians that I know. I realize that my circle of acquaintences is pretty limited, but just who are these nameless "groups"?

3. What is this "pressue"? A letter writing campaign from some pro-family church-based group? I would call that the right to express one's opinion. Does this mean there was no "pressure" from non-conservative Christian groups to crate the domain? Alternatively, was there any pressure against the domain from adult content providers? I see a number of reasons why they wouldn't want this (some expressed in the replies here), so doesn't their opinion also have some sway with ICANN?

4. Just because a bunch of people write some letters, send some e-mails or make some phone calls doesn't mean there's "pressure" to do something. Once again, people express their opinions, which is a right. How many times have similar campaigns failed against some TV show that some groups found offensive?

5. How certain are the reporters that these groups are completely "conservative" or "Christian"? I'll bet I could find someone in my circle of liberal, Jewish, agnostic, athiest or libertarian friends that take the same position.

I'd prefer some reporting with factual substance. Not some drive-by shots at some straw man.

Re:Not how I remember it....

[l8f57]

Hey - Don't let facts get in the way of a good story.

Huh

[romka1]

What do "conservative Christian groups" have to do with internet domain names...
EU has full right to complain about us control over the domains

Re:Huh

[falcon5768]

its article flamebait. The groups had almost no say (though they did speak against it) Who was more against it was other countrys like China and Russia. The EU picked up the whole "Christan Fundi" thing so that it could have a better footing in opposing US control, since the whole argument is lost when you find out that it was other countrys who oposed it along with the US.

The fact remains though that the EU should continue to have no say. They dont fund it, they never created it (at least how it is today, though England Universitys did help in some early tests) and they have shown in the past that there is no way the EU could get its head on straight enough to even run things half as well as the US has (they already admitted that they would allow countrys to limit control by their own people, exactly what they accuse the US of being capable of). If they want their own network thats fine, but I could garentee that their own people would revolt when they flicked off the switch to the rest of the world who would stay with the EU

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

See, this is what makes no sense. Obviously the vast majority of the internet within the EU was built by companies within the EU and used by people within the EU. The claim that the US has any rights to it is silly. The DNS system today works because we *choose* to allow it to work. But the system as it is now has no natural right to exist and can be changed at any time.

I for one don't understand the problem. Create the extension and let people buy names just like for any other extension. There'll be a goatse.xxx as well no doubt. Why one would want to either force people to use it or restrict people from using it is beyond me...

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

If they want their own network thats fine

Bollocks. Did you miss the reaction to China thinking about setting up their own DNS hierarchy? Oh noes! The Internet will be broken!

Basically, all the Yanks that hang around in places like Slashdot complain when the rest of the world want a bit of control over DNS, and say "go build your own", and when we do just that, we get accused of splitting the Internet up. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. In essence, America wants us to just shut up and take what we are given. Bollocks to that.

Re:Huh

[JanneM]

The fact remains though that the EU should continue to have no say. They dont fund it, they never created it

A bit of a misconception. "The Internet" is a bunch of national networks (funded by their respective countries, with Arpanet being the US network, SUNET being the Swedish one and so on) interconnected and with common rules to make them work together seamlessly. The US funds the US networks and part of the transnational links; the EU countries fund their parts and part of the links and so on.

So the EU already has "their own network" just like the US, and it's the EU part of the Internet. Having a say on it is perfectly reasonable.

Re:Huh

[turnipsatemybaby]

Ok, for me this brings up a question and a couple points:

Where did the submitter get this "Christian Veto" thing if they don't (And I certainly hope they don't!) have one.

I find your arguments against the EU are completely unfair. The US doesn't WANT other countries to fund it, because that would take away from the absolute control the US currently has.

You also complaining about the EU "already admitted that they would allow countrys to limit control by their own people, exactly what they accuse the US of being capable of". If I am readin that statement properly, there is a HUGE difference between what the EU wants and what the US is doing. The EU wants individual countries to have the right to exercise some levels of control. The US wants to IMPOSE their brand of morality on the rest of the world.

I have to say that the way the US treats other countries, I can hardly blame the EU for wanting the US to give up some of its power.

Re:Huh

[TopSpin]

What do "conservative Christian groups" have to do...

Little or nothing. The MSNBC wording is suspiciously ambiguous:

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year...

Reading this quickly leads one to think ICANN must get sign-off from Jerry Falwell or somesuch. In fact, the veto power belongs to the US government, not a US church.

It isn't necessary to rely on religious zealots to provide reasons for opposing .xxx, .sex, etc. There are sound legal, philosophical and technical reasons why .xxx is a bad idea. Consider what some at the IETF have to say on the matter.

EU has full right to complain about us control over the domains

Yes. The EU and any other recognized government. Ommited from the /. blurb is opposition of .xxx from other nations...

The default /. Slashdot position appears to be; .xxx is cool and it's only those Benny Hinn types getting in the way! This is juvenile, naive and about par for the /. course, so take what you read here on the matter with a large grain of salt.

Re:Huh

[falcon5768]

the internet is about free information. its not imposing our morality, its imposing the whole purpose of the project decades ago, one the european nations had no problems with before they where even the EU. This was a academic exersize in freedom and its been succesfull, but as is evident by a lot of EU and Asian nations the idea of freedom is a very scary one cause it means informed people.

This is simply a power play by the EU to try to prove to the world its not a useless bureacratic organization made up of rich fools who think they know better. Its going to be yet another losing battle and show its own people why there is even more reason to just bow out of the whole thing. As it is they cant even agree on a damn constitution and they want to control a peice of major worldwide infastructure? I think not.

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting you refer to the EU as a "useless bureacratic organization". If that's the case, why is there a large list of countries waiting to sign up. The benefits are so ingrained people don't remember what it was like when you had to show your passport at every border crossing, that countries could arbitrarily refuse to sell stuff to you because you lived in a particular area.

And you're wrong about the Treaty for a European Consitution. Every government in the current EU plus several candidates agreed to it. It's just they failed to convince the population, which is a different matter entirely. If you put the current US constitution (the whole of it, not just the bill of rights) to a vote in America right now, do you think it would get a majority vote? Or would people reject it because they don't like some part (4th amendment not clear enough, 1st amendment doesn't mention digital rights, etc).

Re:Huh

[hypergreatthing]

The fact remains though that the EU should continue to have no say

You mean besides the whole fact that the first word in ICANN is international.

Re:Huh

[hypergreatthing]

So it means internet. My bad :P

It is supposed to be an international company though.

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually, the EU has no rights in it at all. The US developed the technology, the US is the core of the Internet, and without the US there would not be such a thing to worry about. That said, I think defining domain content to this level will simply allow any government, EU or otherwise, to track our surfing habits all the more easily. Then, when the Fundamentalists have a chance to push their agenda (via law), anyone visiting such a domain will be fined, or scurged, or hung, or whatever they feel is a fitting 'Godly punishment'.

Re:Huh

[podperson]

So by your reasoning the US should have no say in the development of HTML since it was invented at a European university?

I could garentee that their own people would revolt when they flicked off the switch to the rest of the world who would stay with the EU

If "flicking off the switch" were a meaningful threat then it wouldn't be the internet.

V is for Veto

[digitaldc]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year

So, please tell me why they have a veto, and the progressive Buddhists do not?

Re:V is for Veto

[Opportunist]

Because they're loud and obnoxious, and the average Buddhist tends to be more introverted and searching for his own inner light instead of focusing on trying to force his point of view onto the rest of the world.

Re:V is for Veto

[hal9000(jr)]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year

I think this is poor use of Englitsch. I think what the author was trying to say was, "The US, which has veto over the internet addressing system, was pressured by conservative Christian groups ...."

Re:V is for Veto

[Peter La Casse]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year

I think this is poor use of Englitsch. I think what the author was trying to say was, "The US, which has veto over the internet addressing system, was pressured by conservative Christian groups ...."

That is what the author said. "which has" can't refer to "groups" because "groups" is plural.

Re:V is for Veto

[XMilkProject]

The english was correct though, if it had said "have" instead of "has", then it would have been referring to the plural "groups". It says "has" though, which means it could only have been referring to the singular "US".

Conservative groups don't want this?

[sxltrex]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year to put off introducing a new ".xxx" domain for pornography on the internet.

This I don't understand. Can somebody help me out? Why wouldn't they want to keep all of the porn sites in one domain, where a very simple filter could eliminate all of it from view? I would think it would be the other way around--the porn companies should be against this as it would make filtering too easy. Do they refuse to admit that there is already tons of pornographic material on the internet, and if they ignore it, it will go away? Perhaps they think giving porn its own domain would legitimize it. Or do they think it will be ineffective if the porn distributors aren't required to use .xxx?

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, they started writing a letter saying "We vehemently support pornography filtering" and scrap that thing, thinking "well, I almost sent them a letter saying "we vehemently support pornography".

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Stanislav_J]

This I don't understand. Can somebody help me out? Why wouldn't they want to keep all of the porn sites in one domain, where a very simple filter could eliminate all of it from view? It's very simple -- Christian groups don't want porn "segregated" -- they want it to disappear entirely. Providing a special domain is an admission that porn has a legitimate place on the Net, and that concept is anathema to the folks who don't just want to avoid it themselves, but deny anyone else the choice to view it.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Vapon]

having a xxx domain is only going to help for those that choose to use the domain, your not going to force playboy.com to change to playboy.xxx if you do who gets to buy the .com extention from them? and if someone desides to have some family home page with domain xxx are you going to tell them they are required to get some porn onto their website if they have that domain?

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[AngryNick]

Now I get it! If we pretend that p0rn doesn't exists then our kids will be safer on the net.

FOR THE RECORD: Not all Christians think this way.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[mjbkinx]

I don't quite understand it, either, but for other reasons.
About the conservative groups, my guess is that they would prefer to ban porn alltogether, and a .xxx TLD would make it more difficult to demand this because filtering, if wished, would be easy. I don't think porn companies -- at least the serious ones -- even want to get around filters (minors don't have credit cards, and office workers... I don't want to go there, really...). If you look at their sites (uhm... not that I have... a friend told me... *cough*) you will find it is quite common for them to support adult content filters. Since many of them are in the US the current initiative to enforce age checks is a serious threat to their business. A .xxx TLD would help them, IMHO, precisely because of the easy filtering. The argument is about how easy it is for minors to find porn on the web and how effective filters are. Filters that go by the .xxx TLD would obviously be very effective, so it would become possible to say that non-xxx TLD based sites with adult content are required to have age checks while .xxx TLD based ones are not, because browsers could come with an easy to use filter which enables the parents to set up a password that is reqired to be entered to allow .xxx TLD sites for the session.

Don't get me wrong -- I don't like filters and mandatory age checks, either. It's just that I^H my friend doesn't like to pull out his credit card for age verification, but believes that sooner or later mandatory age checks will come. Also, easy filtering for parents is not too bad because it encourages the youth to learn, e.g. to make their own über-porn-surf-thumbstick-Linux system or hidden firefox installation to get around the filter.
If I was to get into the porn business and there was a .xxx TLD, I'd go for it.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Spy der Mann]

Christian groups don't want porn "segregated" -- they want it to disappear entirely.

Yeah, and my little sister wants a magical pink unicorn to play with when she's bored.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Anonymous Coward]

the porn companies should be against this as it would make filtering too easy.

Why would the porn companies be against filtering? Kids don't have credit cards, they are nothing but a waste of bandwidth to porn companies.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Dr. Evil]

As long as your little sister is 18 or older, it's perfectly legal.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[vtcodger]

You're making two dubious assumptions: 1. American Fundamentalist Christian behavior is rooted in rationality. Probably not. Like the moslems who kill people over cartoons they don't like, our mid-American fundamentalist Christians are all feeling. Facts and logic need not apply. They'll invent any facts they need to support what their hearts tell them is right. And they think pornography is not right. Very not right. So just don't bring the subject up in any way including acknowleging pornography's existence with a .XXX domain ... unless of course you fancy being targeted by a cruise missile ... OK? 2. Pornography peddlers don't want a .XXX domain. I haven't asked the porn dealers, but I doubt most care one way or the other about being shunted off to a .XXX red light district. They are mostly interested in presenting images of naked ladies and or gentlemen (plus the occasional domestic animal) performing certain natural acts. They (most of them) presumably want to be paid for said images. The probable result of a .XXX domain is that their audience will contain fewer people who find said images offensive, and also fewer people (teenagers) who find the images interesting, but can't easily pay. As long as the paying customers can still get to the site and .XXX doesn't add significantly to their cost of doing business, why should they care?

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[soft_guy]

The last time I checked, the pr0n movie industry makes like 10x what Hollywood movies make just from US revenues alone. Since something like 85% of the US is christian, either the atheists are buying a heck of a lot of pr0n, or else Christians are buying pr0n too.

Therefore, if they just stopped buying it, they would probably reduce the amount of it available just due to the laws of supply and demand.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[TheLongshot]

That's the problem with a faith-based agenda vs a reality-based agenda.

A faith-based agenda wants to wish porn away, especially if they ignore it enough, while reality is that porn has been around forever, and it will continue to be around as long as humans are humans.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[klang]

In the US of A, you can drive a car when you are 15 and have sex when you are 18.
In Denmark, you can have sex when you are 15 and drive a car when you are 18.

It's a strange world.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Kra Z Joe]

"Why wouldn't they want to keep all of the porn sites in one domain, where a very simple filter could eliminate all of it from view?"

Who do you think surfs for all the pr0n anyhow?

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the UK, you can have sex when you are 16, but you aren't allowed look at pictures of people without their clothes on until you are 18.

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[cashman73]

Now I get it! If we pretend that p0rn doesn't exists then our kids will be safer on the net.

FOR THE RECORD: Not all Christians think this way.

Actually, shouldn't your message read: "THIS IS WHAT CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE."

;-)

Re:Conservative groups don't want this?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK you can have sex at 16 and drive at 17.
In Japan you can have sex at 14 and drive at 18.

It really is just you Americans that can drive before you have sex. Maybe this is why you have more of a "making out" in the back seat culture...

Re:He who funds, controls

[nagora]

I don't see the problem here. Who has financed the internet into what it has become today. Who developed the technology and who operates the largest backbone?

Who gives a fuck? The Internet in my country was funded by my tax, and my country's backbone is the important one for me.

This "Oh, we did the initial research so we own everything that ever originates from that point" argument is pathetic. Did America invent roads? No!? Well then, I think the rest of the world should be able to tax American cars. What about railroads? Another non-American invention. Tax please!

The light bulb is another non-American invention. I think for that one the rest of the world should just refuse to licence it and people like you can go and live in the dark age you so surely deserve.

TWW

The End of the Internet

[neoshroom]

A plan for a new internet "domain" for pornography has once again been shelved, dealing another blow to the US-backed addressing system that acts as the glue holding together the unified global internet.

The setback is likely to add to pressure stresses that could eventually fragment the internet, breaking it into a collection of separate national systems, some internet experts warned.

The reason for this I assume is because if users can't easily access porn, there really is no point to the internet, is there?

__
Elephant Essays - Custom-created essays and research papers.

Re:The End of the Internet

[Fastolfe]

Though your comment is marked as Funny, this concern is a touch more legitimate than people might like to think. A lot of money is spent on Internet access specifically for this reason. I imagine ISPs are stuck between the positive PR of trying to promote a child-friendly environment, and the brutal truth about why a lot of people spend so much on their high-speed Internet access.

Re:The End of the Internet

[EzInKy]

The end of the internet is here.

Re:He who funds, controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Who has financed the internet into what it has become today

Everyone who has ever bought a router, even (gasp) non-Americans!

Imperialist dickhead.

Re:He who funds, controls

[stillmatic]

Seems to me that's a world wide effort, unless the US is paying to lay fiber outside of it's borders.

Subtlety at its best

[Mayhem178]

I like all the subtle little messages in this article, further reinforcing the fundamentalist Christian conservative stereotype and implying that the Christians are the ones feeding fuel to the ICANN vs. Europe dispute.

Seriously, this debate already has enough touchy issues to keep both sides warring with each other. Looking at the situation objectively, I don't think ICANN can make any kind of intelligent decision now without sparking accusations from European protesters. So what, then, makes this .xxx domain decision any different than any other domain decision made by ICANN? Easy...it's a touchy issue with Christians. Christians who, by stereotype, are all conservative, and therefore are an easy target for the liberal media (yeah yeah, "liberal media", buzzword, I know).

Personally, I see this article having little to do with the .xxx domain decision at all.

Re:Subtlety at its best

[ergo98]

I like all the subtle little messages in this article, further reinforcing the fundamentalist Christian conservative stereotype and implying that the Christians are the ones feeding fuel to the ICANN vs. Europe dispute.

The way this article is presented is just bizarre. Quite apart from the fact that it is worded to imply that it's the Christian group that has veto power (when it really means the US. I realize some people get confused about the separation), one of the greatest opponents of the new domain were porn purveyors and fiends -- much as the abortion debate gets sidetracked by slippery slope arguments, they feared that the addition of an XXX TLD is the first step to segregating their businesses and interests. e.g. Follow it up by a law that all questionable sites have to be on the XXX TLD. Now that they're in the porn ghetto, it's pretty easy to cut it off. Many conservatives were for the new TLD, given that porn is already out there and pervasive, and if there was a way they could control their children/group's access to it via such a simple filter, more power to them.

What a confusing mess.

Re:Subtlety at its best

[stillmatic]

You've caught them now! ICANN is a secret anti-christian organization working for the scary "liberal media"! Or maybe the article is really just about the .xxx domain and why some people might not agree with how US interest groups seem to have a great deal of influence over an "international committee".

Re:Subtlety at its best

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, here then, this article will remove the subtlety for you: Pro-Family Groups Praise Efforts to Block '.xxx' Domain

Trueman noted that the U.S. Commerce Department has received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails expressing concern regarding the impact of pornography on families and children and objecting the setting aside of a domain suffix for it.

As a result, Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary for communications and information at the department, this week called on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to delay approving the proposal to "ensure the best interests of the Internet community as a whole are fully considered."

Re:He who funds, controls

[nomadic]

But it's completely unfair, I mean, if you invite a guy to your party doesn't he suddenly gain some property rights to your house? I mean, you let him in, why shouldn't he be able to control your stuff?

Cognitive Dissonance

[sgant]

A psychological phenomenon that refers to the bad feeling one gets when a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation from someone else. Religion usually falls in this framework when two people who are on opposite positions begin discussing and get further and further away from true understanding one another.

This doesn't fall under religion exclusively either, almost any aspects of life can become deeply held beliefs that we don't want to let go of when something new comes along to upset the apple-cart.

Re:Cognitive Dissonance

[Lars83]

Religion usually falls in this framework when two people who are on opposite positions begin discussing and get further and further away from true understanding one another.

This really isn't cognitive dissonance. It's more like the polarization effect.

Sigh

[Zerth]

And this will keep coming up until somebody realizes we can't force everything naughty into a ghetto.

If they want a kid safe internet, they should put their efforts behind the .kids domain registrar'ed by a US company/NGO simultaneous with a law being passed covering what kind of content was allowed in .kids . Whitelisting is the only way to keep the pr0n out.

Not that they could agree on what falls on the "not pr0n" side of the fence.

Re:Sigh

[Fastolfe]

A more robust solution that does not involve turning DNS into a content label would be ratings, such as what is provided by ICRA (formerly RSAC). Have a site rate itself as being a porn site, or being child-friendly, and get the ratings bureau to sign off on this. Browsers can then be configured only to permit access to this type of site.

This technology exists today. It's just that nobody uses it. Perhaps people don't actually care as much about this issue as they'd like others to think?

Re:Sigh

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

jeez I know what you mean, I've jacked it to a couple of those kids shows too!

Re:Sigh

[thisissilly]

That is why I generally favor .kids.us (or .kids.ca, etc) over .kids. Let each country determine what "child friendly" means in their own country.

Re:Sigh

[F_Scentura]

"And this will keep coming up until somebody realizes we can't force everything naughty into a ghetto."

Even the tech-savvy conservatives have their own agenda. It'll keep coming up as long as there are "for the children" conservatives (and certain liberals) keeping us safe from ourselves.

Re:Sigh

[Mr. Arbusto]

Frankly, I don't know what the big deal is with ICANN rejecting it. While not an avid porn view, I'd think another TLD would be great. sex.xxx se.xxx naughty.xxx could be great domains to have if I ran such things.

We already have .biz and .tv, and another domain simply adds to the variety of domains available.

(I do think that any legislature REQUIRING xxx to exist AND pornography websites MUST go there is total Bullshit in an election year.)

Re:Sigh

[JesseMcDonald]

Why should there be a DNS entry for this at all? Simple whitelisting is a function of every piece of filtering software available today. There's no need to resort to DNS changes just to whitelist certain sites for kids. Parents (or ISPs) would simply install some suitable filtering software and a whitelist that matches their own preferences, just like they can right now.

The whole point of the .xxx domain was to act as a blacklist, and numerous posters have pointed out the failings of blacklists in this regard. Whitelists (like ".kids"), on the other hand, are trivial by comparison, and we don't need extra laws or TLDs to implement them.

Re:Sigh

[thisissilly]

Need? Probably not *need*, but desire.

Reasons for a .kids.us rather than whitelisting current sites:

1. Much, much simpler for software to implement. No need to check a million entry list to see if the site is whitelisted. In fact, a simple firewall could provide filtering for all protocols, including older non-whitelist aware applications, if needed.

2. The US can pass laws restricting exactly what is and is not allowed, with penalties, as part of the .kids.us domain registration agreement without stomping on the 1st amendment.

3. No need to keep downloading updates. No worries about that site you whitelisted last year expiring and being taken over by porn. No worries that the new kid-oriented site your kid wants to get to isn't on the current whitelist. Content providers do the work for you, buy choosing to register or not register in the domain.

4. Easy ability to subdivide age-appropriate ranges: .under6.kids.us, .under12.kids.us, .teens.kids.us, etc.

5. Get the Government off the backs of the rest of us. Rather than them continuing to try and turn the Internet into a kid-friendly sandbox, give them their own sandbox to play in. We don't let kids take bicycles on freeways, we build bikepaths. This lets the politicians claim to be "doing something" and "thinking of the children" without creating trouble elsewhere.

Re:Sigh

[JesseMcDonald]

1) Filtering software already supports whitelists. Implementing a whitelist for DNS entries would be no more difficult than implementing the same list as a DNS hierarchy. Transparent web proxies, whether local or at the ISP level, would affect all HTTP-based applications; no application support is required.

2) Why should the government be involved in setting the standard in the first place? A private company would be just as responsible for managing their whitelist -- more so, in fact, since a private company is subject to lawsuits for breaches of contract. Furthermore, everyone has different standards for what is deemed "suitable for kids"; whose definition do we use? Whitelists would allow parents to choose the whitelist that the parent deems appropriate.

3) Filtering would probably be implemented at the ISP level (no point in everyone running their own filter), so update aren't really an issue. The accuracy of the whitelist is a function of the contract between the parent and the ISP or whitelist service. Historically, private companies have always been more up-to-date than government services in any event. Content providers would still be responsible for submitting their sites to the whitelist services, even if the whitelists are in private hands.

4) Whitelists would be just as easy to divide into age groups.

5) They'll just find some other (worse) way to oppress us. That's what governments do, after all.

For God.COM's sake ?

[craznar]

" from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system"

And you guys wonder why the rest of the world doesn't trust the US to run the internet ...

Tell me the above is a late April fools joke.

Re:For God.COM's sake ?

[bcattwoo]

That poorly constructed sentence is saying that the US has veto power not the conservative Christian groups.

For those who haven't been keeping up...

[TechnoGuyRob]

If you're unaware about the current .xxx domain battle, see these earlier Slashdot posts throughout the years: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and tons of news articles.

Overall, a very interesting battle: should we place man's vices (it's true, admit it) in one desolate, but convenient group, or leave them interspersed with everything else?

Re:For those who haven't been keeping up...

[TechnoGuyRob]

I'm sorry, the preview of the post renders the links differently--remove the "slashdot.org/" at the beginning of the hyperlink.

I don't understand...

[dnwq]

Just what preference did these "conservative Christian groups" have? Did they favor the idea of .xxx domains or not? It doesn't seem immediately obvious.

And the crystal ball says...

[Lewisham]

"Responding to the risk that the delays might lead some countries to establish their own addressing systems, effectively in effect creating rival internets, [ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey] added: "Anyone can set up an alternative root system - the difference is, our root is the one that a billion people follow.""

This is exactly the sort of quote that will bite you on the ass in six years time.

Patriotism is built-in to the human psyche. Pride might well force the hand of someone like the European Union. Browsers will ask users which root system they want to use by default, and unresolved addresses are then queried against the other system.

Everyone loses.

Twomey should be focused on consolidation, not baiting the upset nations with bullish comments like this.

(and yes, the "It's our Internet, if you don't like it you can git out" are shameful. The Internet was developed for the benefit of all, and the World Wide Web sure as heck isn't American)

Re:And the crystal ball says...

[spacebird]

Actually, the Internet was developed to combat the USSR by the decidedly American DOD. It was created by Americans, for Americans. Obviously it has since expanded into something else entirely, but America invented, developed, and spent 30+ years laying the groundwork for it starting back with ARPA in the 60's - it wasn't until CERN in 1991 that the idea of a global network was even brought up.

Re:And the crystal ball says...

[jc42]

[I]t wasn't until CERN in 1991 that the idea of a global network was even brought up.

Um, I distinctly recall that in the early 1980s, I routinely accessed Internet sites in Europe. Granted, the cross-Atlantic routes were few and at times flakey, but they existed. In particular, I recall using ftp in 1983 to download TNC (The Newcastle Connection) source from the U of Newcastle upon Tyne. If you dig into the archives, you'll find that such uses were definitely part of the intent of the Internet designers, going back into the 1970s well before the term "internet" was invented.

By 1991, the international nature of the Internet was well established. Perhaps what you're thinking of is that it was about then that the World Wide Web and the Mosaic browser came into existence. This was a major new development, true, but it was hardly the first intercontinental use of the Internet. It was just the latest "killer app" in a long list of Internet apps.

And if you confuse the WWW with the Internet here on /., we're gonna really make fun of you ...

Re:He who funds, controls

[Serapth]

CERN?



...atleast initially.

Re:He who funds, controls

[zerojoker]

>Who has financed the internet into what it has become today. Who developed
>the technology and who operates the largest backbone?

That's Al Gore obviously. He should be in charge alone!

surprising

[sjg]

Given the predominantly republican controlled government at the moment, I figured the proper strings would get pulled to slip this through. It would have been good move in that it would have given adult companies the opportunity and an avenue to regulate themselves, something that is sorely needed. For better or worse, it would also have prompted future legislation requiring adult companies to live solely on the .xxx TLD, which was the main complaint of those in the industry. Many adult industry heavyweights fought this tooth and nail.

Re:Subtlety & Truth at its best

[Steve B]

I like all the subtle little messages in this article, further reinforcing the fundamentalist Christian conservative stereotype and implying that the Christians are the ones feeding fuel to the ICANN vs. Europe dispute.

Well, then, who is? The pretzel bakers?

Or (even more implausibly), has this administration suddenly started listening to expert opinion?

Questions & Comments

[AviLazar]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system

Who has the veto power? Christian groups or the US? This sentence is confusing, though I would hope they meant US and not Christian.

Why are Christian groups opposed to this? I would think they would like this "great now we can just block anyone from .xxx so we don't get their heathen, unholy smut on our computers." I wouldn't mind having an .xxx domain and relegating all the pr0n sites there.

Re:Questions & Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

But .xxx also makes it easier for kids to find Pr0n on the Internet.

I guess the Christian parents are afraid that they could loose the main reason to control what their kids see if, all of the sudden, the Internet was deamed *safe*.

Re:Questions & Comments

[djmurdoch]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system

Who has the veto power? Christian groups or the US? This sentence is confusing, though I would hope they meant US and not Christian.

This should be clear. "Which has" is singular, whereas "groups" is plural, so it couldn't be the antecedent. "The US" is singular, so it must have the veto.

Now don't complain about the fact that "US" is an abbreviation for "United States". It's singular, I tell you.

Re:Questions & Comments

[Irish_Samurai]

But .xxx also makes it easier for kids to find Pr0n on the Internet.

Yeah, cause putting "tits" into Google is hard.

Re:Questions & Comments

[AviLazar]

This should be clear. "Which has" is singular, whereas "groups" is plural, so it couldn't be the antecedent. "The US" is singular, so it must have the veto. Now don't complain about the fact that "US" is an abbreviation for "United States". It's singular, I tell you.

I am sure you are correct (not an English major), but what if all of the Christian Groups are given one veto? I still say it is a poorly worded statement. I am not an English expert, but I am above the average Joe. If it confused me, it probably confused others. Another way to look at it: in the UN the United States (your last sentence was funny) is given one vote. The United States represents a lot of people, and a lot of groups.

Is the original statement correct? As you pointed out, yes. Is it confusing, yes. Could it have been worded in a clearer fashion, yes. :)

Re:Questions & Comments

[nsayer]

Now don't complain about the fact that "US" is an abbreviation for "United States". It's singular, I tell you.

This is drifting off-topic, but it's an interesting historical side note that for most Americans alive before the U.S. Civil War, it was plural. The war changed it from "are" to "is" for most folks. Mostly because a lot of the side effects of either the war or the reconstruction was radical increase in federal power.

Re:Questions & Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are Christian groups opposed to this? I would think they would like this "great now we can just block anyone from .xxx so we don't get their heathen, unholy smut on our computers."

The sanctimonous, bible-thumping assholes are opposed to it because they feel it would legitimize porn, for one thing.

For another thing, they don't want to just not see porn themselves, they don't want anyone to be able to see it. The Christian groups want to force their morality on everyone else.

Let's run our own.

[caluml]

Let's start our own. If we registered domains for already existing sites ( playboy.xxx ), etc we could possibly get everyone using it de-facto. Then ... profit!
Bagsie the master .xxx server.

How about .cum?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a better name to me. :D

.xxx is a stupid idea

[cortana]

Having a separate .xxx domain name gives us nothing that PICS doesn't already give us, in a superior and more fine-grained way.

Re:.xxx is a stupid idea

[Spy der Mann]

in a superior and more fine-grained way.

Please explain to me how a "superior and more fine-grained way" is so difficult to manage that PRACTICALLY NOBODY uses it.

Re:.xxx is a stupid idea

[cortana]

I didn't say it was simpler--but simpler does not mean better. Assuming that all content from a given domain is porn is so glib as to be meaningless.

PICS allows a web author to specify exactly what objectionable content is present for each resource on his site; and it allows him to do it today. Even Internet Explorer supports it, for God's sake!

On the technical side, implementing it is as simple as adding a PICS-Label header to the HTTP headers of the desired resource.

Re:.xxx is a stupid idea

[typical]

It doesn't even require a header. You can just cram the tags in the .HTML.

Re:.xxx is a stupid idea

[typical]

Because most people don't know about it. This is because instead of advocating it, most people who might be pushing it are stuck on the .xxx TLD -- because they don't understand the technical flaws in .xxx.

Why blame the religious right?

[oneiros27]

There are plenty of technical reasons why not to do it. See RFC 3675 for details.

The only justification for new TLDs that I've seen is that it makes companies have to buy them to protect their trademark, thereby making profit for the new registrar.

Re:Why blame the religious right?

[Cheeze]

Why even have a limit on TLDs? The technical reasons listed in that RFC sound like laziness to me. If someone wants to register "thisisjohnsdomain", I say, more power to John.

The only justification for no new TLDs is the headache for someone to be able to manage them in DNS. Again, that's all laziness.

The benefits of letting anyone register anything far outweigh the negatives. If you could type in "microsoft" in the address bar and get to microsoft's website without having to be forwarded there by wildcard dns, it's win-win for everyone. The whole reason to have the .com, .net, .org , etc hierarchy is outdated and not even enforced.

Re:Why blame the religious right?

[Slashmot]

How about instead of just saying "See RFC 3675" you point out exactly what the rfc says what about an .xxx domain would cause problems. From the link the objections they raise seem to be:

Linguistic Problems - I think many languages can get along with .xxx for porn without incident.

Explosion of Top Level Domain Names (TLDs) - Seeing as were only talking about one more root level domain I dont think we need to worry about this.

You Can't Control What Names Point At You! - So what? Will some people try to fudge with the domain names? What would be the point? We aren't trying to codify a new law here, just expand what DNS is all about. If some people are intent on hosting porn on a .com server that is fine. Most people probably would see benifits in conforming to the new standards.

How about a .cum domain?

[s0l3d4d]

How about a .cum domain instead?

And why doesn't no one suggest resiously to put a specific domain for sites that contain any sort of fanatism (any religion, extreme politics, terrorism etc)? .rpt = religion, politics, terrorism etc.

Re:How about a .cum domain?

[WWWWolf]

And why doesn't no one suggest resiously to put a specific domain for sites that contain any sort of fanatism (any religion, extreme politics, terrorism etc)? .rpt = religion, politics, terrorism etc.

Because that would cause problems for people who do Religious pornography, or Political pornography, or perhaps Terrorist pornography (or, as you said, just Fanatic pornography) - they can't decide whether or not that goes under .rpt or .xxx. They'd have to create .rptxxx or something.

Re:How about a .cum domain?

[Purpendicular]

Please mod parent up. He is raising a very important point about liberty and the freedom of speech.

Dammit

[Elitist_Phoenix]

God Dammit how will I find any porn now?!

Re:Dammit

[Anonymous Coward]

The same way you found it yesterday. ;)

It was bound to happen.

[tetrahedrassface]

It was bound to happen again. The net is just too big to enforce something like a .xxx domain, i still think that parents should be more involved with their children. As someone whos wife is a now retired teacher (to stay home with our kids), I have seen just how BADLY a lot of parents engage their childrens minds.

for example..

Children coming into school smelling like meth, (ie parents cooking it off in the house)

Children sexually abused.. A lot

Parents that expect society to instill values and morals instead of the home.

\ Nothing but tv and games all day/night.

I could go on buts its just too damn depressing. BUt we have seen it all.

If the .xxx domain was supposed to protect children well.. nothing can be better for a child than a good sound creative, loving, and supportive home, where the parents actively are a part of the childs life..

Maybe we need a .ped domain (parental education domain)... hehe or something like it.

Ive even seen crack/coke babies with all types of physical defects, while mommie is still out on the streets.

Ive seen a so much of the crazy stuff with regards to bad parenting that i think its about 75% of the problem. The children + porn thing just comes from turning Johnny loose on the net because it shuts him up so the parents can forget about him for a while..

Thats my 2$

Re:It was bound to happen.

[birge]

The general decline in parenting has depressed me, too, and has made me not want to have kids. However, recently I've been turning around on the whole issue. In fact, now I love it. Do you know how easy it is going to be for me to get my kids into a good school and a successful life with all the fuck-ups out there raising their kids on TV and day care? Hell, I used to think raising a kid would be difficult. Now that the bar is so unbefuckingleivably low, I'm not really worried. You actually give a shit about your kids and keep off the pipe while they're around and they'll get into Yale, easy.

I can't wait until US News and World's College Rankings adds a column for "Literacy Rate of Incoming Freshmen".

Re:It was bound to happen.

[$1uck]

Maybe you should move? Everywhere can be pretty rough, but I certainly wouldn't want to raise children in the environment you're describing.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[tetrahedrassface]

The thing is.. its everywhere. You just don't see it unless you are education. :(

Re:It was bound to happen.

[$1uck]

I went through k through 12 and then college. I didn't see anything that bad. I would think some places are worse than others, and your place sounds worse than others. Or maybe it's just the Baby boomers (both my parents are 5-10 years too old to be baby boomers) sounds like another reason to hate baby boomers =P

Re:It was bound to happen.

[FrankNputer]

Maybe we need a .ped domain (parental education domain)... What a grand idea! We'd have to make it easily adoptable as an 'identity', so people would be motivated to get involved. We could refer to the users as "PED-a-philes"... Oh. Wait. Maybe...not.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[SheeEttin]

Thats my 2$

And here's your $1.98 change.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's harder to see when you're a little kid. You can't imagine that any of the other kids in your class have parents much different from yours, wouldn't guess that the shy one or the one that's acting out are just starting to show the damage inflicted by their fucked-up homes.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Parents that expect society to instill values and morals instead of the home.

I wouldn't have expected this one, I for one would be delighted if the schools would get out of this business. While they are at it they could stop teaching communism, labor union dogma, and divisive multi-cultural crap.

If they did that I'd support paying them more then minimum wage.

DNS isn't a content label

[Fastolfe]

Both .xxx and .kids are bad ideas because the Internet is not "teh interweb". DNS domains are not "web sites" and it's dangerous to say you want to standardize on "web site content labels" by way of DNS.

What happens when a company publishes both pornographic and non-pornographic content? Do they now have to split up into two DNS domains?

We already have content labels today: PICS and ratings bureaus like ICRA (which actually uses RDF instead of PICS lately).

If you want a kids-safe browsing experience, get the kids-safe web sites to start labeling their content. IE, at least, can be configured to only display pages that meet certain minimum requirements defined by the type of label you use.

If you merely want a safe-from-porn browsing experience, get the porn sites to label their content and indicate that the content is porn. They're just as likely to do this as they are to voluntarily move to .xxx.

Unless this move is made mandatory, many (most?) porn site operators are not going to move to .xxx because they'll look at it the same way that businesses look at .biz: it's for low-budget operations.

Re:DNS isn't a content label

[Spy der Mann]

What happens when a company publishes both pornographic and non-pornographic content? Do they now have to split up into two DNS domains?


That's EXACTLY the point. Separating porn from safe content. D'OH.

Re:DNS isn't a content label

[Fastolfe]

And what happens when similar legislation appears advocating a "kids" domain? Maybe one for medical information would be nice too, because that way we can make sure they're being responsible with their medical content. Another content category for financials would be helpful, because then we can just point the SEC at this top-level domain. Maybe one for law too, because we can't just have people out there spouting legal advice unless they're proper lawyers, can we?

So now you have one publisher that, today, uses "example.com" as the domain for their entire Internet operation. But now you have to break them up into 10 different DNS domains because their *content* now has to be split up? This is not only inappropriate, but an unreasonable maintenance and cost burden for the affected parties.

DNS domains are intended to reflect administrative domains, not content labels for one particular service (HTTP) on one particular system within that domain. If you want a content label, apply it to the content, not to the thing that labels my organization on the Internet.

What happens when one day someone points their non-.xxx domain at an IP address where my .xxx content can be retrieved, and sends children there? DNS is wholly inappropriate for these types of purposes. Label the content itself, and it doesn't matter how someone retrieved it. It's still labeled as porn.

US Government response.

[dwalsh]

I wonder what the current US administration has to say on this subject. Let's see:

Browse to http://www.whitehouse.com/ ...

Oh dear.

Re:He who funds, controls

[zaguar]

For those of you who thought that Edison invented the light bulb, as I did, think again. He did not.

Choice quote from Wikipedia article: Many of his inventions were not completely original, but improvements which allowed for mass production. For example, contrary to public perception, Edison did not invent the electric light bulb. Several designs had already been developed by earlier inventors including the patent he purchased from Henry Woodward and Mathew Evans, Moses G. Farmer,[2] Joseph Swan, James Bowman Lindsay, William Sawyer, Humphry Davy, and Heinrich Göbel. In 1878, Edison applied the term filament to the element of glowing wire carrying the current, although English inventor Joseph Swan used the term prior to this. Edison took the features of these earlier designs and set his workers to the task of creating longer-lasting bulbs. By 1879, he had produced a new concept: a high resistance lamp in a very high vacuum, which would burn for hundreds of hours. While the earlier inventors had produced electric lighting in laboratory conditions, Edison concentrated on commercial application and was able to sell the concept to homes and businesses by mass-producing relatively long-lasting light bulbs and creating a system for the generation and distribution of electricity.

More info: Thomas Edison and Light Bulbs from Wikipedia

Mr. Foot, meet Mr. Bullet

[Citizen of Earth]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year to put off introducing a new ".xxx" domain for pornography on the internet.

This reminds me of far-left types who demand world peace and the end to world hunger but vehemently object to the only credible means of achieving either. War isn't going away without the removal of all tinpot dictators; hunger isn't going away without pervasive globalization of all commodity production and the removal of all tinpot dictators; and Internet porn isn't going away without the marshalling of all material into a single TLD and the eradication of all human males.

Re:Mr. Foot, meet Mr. Bullet

[GodfatherofSoul]

Nice use of non sequitors to make your case. So, only tin pot dictators start unnecessary wars? Globalization is the only way to cure hunger? Very recent history should show you how wrong you are, I leave it as an exercise for you "far-right types" to pick up a newspaper and prove it.

Re:Mr. Foot, meet Mr. Bullet

[Citizen of Earth]

So, only tin pot dictators start unnecessary wars? Globalization is the only way to cure hunger?

If you want to parse what I said, in your rephrasing, you are confusing 'necessary' and 'sufficient' logical conditions, so the statements are not the same. There would be no wars if there were no tinpot dictators. First-world democracies do not go to war against each other.

However, the second statement I would argue is both necessary and sufficient (in the absence of embezzling dictators)--the only credible means to end world hunger is through globalization. Handouts will never end world hunger. I'm sure lefty types have zillions of other non-credible means.

I leave it as an exercise for you "far-right types" to pick up a newspaper and prove it.

I'm not a far-right type. They are just as dogmatic as far-left types. "There is no problem that can't be solved with more guns and more Jesus" vs. "There is no problem that can't be solved by giving more handouts to genocidal dictatorships".

Re:Mr. Foot, meet Mr. Bullet

[Anonymous Coward]

Nanotech -- reverse the "grey goo" to turn sand into arable soil.

Internet Evangelical-Theological Force

[Florian Weimer]

The Internet Evangelical-Theological Force (IETF) has published their own objection: .sex Considered Dangerous (RFC 3675) in 2004, when ".xxx" was still called ".sex".

I'm appalled by the way those Christian Conservatives shape the Internet!

Re:He who funds, controls

['nother poster]

The light bulb is another non-American invention.

Well, a lot of people think a guy in Menlo Park, NJ USA invented the light bulb, or at least the first reliable one. Supposedly some guy that worked for Thomas Edison, but Edison took the credit since it was invented at his facility

Re:He who funds, controls

[Renegade88]

Ignoring the fact the grandparent didn't mention anything about a "tax", the parent still is a non-sequiter. America has it's own railway and highway system, it didn't augment an existing system built by another party. If you wanted to compare apples to apples, your country would have invested it's money in a separate internet system that it could control as it sees fit. If your country didn't accept the control authority of the existing internet, it should not have invested in it.

Re:Thank you..

['nother poster]

Well, the kids have to find it first so the dads can just click staight through without all that wasted effort of learning how to use a search engine. ;)

what a difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pressure from conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system, led the organisation last year to put off introducing a new ".xxx" domain for pornography on the internet.

How's that again? Conservative Christian groups have a veto over the internet addressing system??? Careful with those commas, they might be dangerous. :)

The following links paint a fuzzier picture

[what about]

I did a search on ICAN for .xxx and what I found seems different that what the crowd says (that evil forces are trying to have xxx approuved or actually the opposite :-)

The proposal for .xxx is here apparently it is quite old since we are talking of 1994

Then there is a descritpion of the registry that should actually handling it, something called ICM

Apparently there is a further stage of the "test", you can find the announcement here it is June 05

And finally one of the many comments, of various type, basically it seems to me that there is not a clear cut idea if this is good or bad...

What I cannot find is a reference to what the article under scrutiny says, maybe it is just rumors ?

Well I did hear...

[DaedalusLogic]

Jesus Just Left Chicago...

http://gracenote.com/music/search-adv.html?q=&qart ist=&qdisc=&qtrack=Jesus+Just+Left+Chicago&n=10&x= 0&y=0
http://www.freedb.org/freedb_search.php?words=Jesu s+Just+Left+Chicago&allfields=NO&fields=track&allc ats=YES&grouping=none

But...

[pizza_milkshake]

But where will they put the porn?!1

Conservative christians...

[Spy der Mann]

Should I call them idiots or hypocrites?

Allowing xxx domains isn't different from setting a flag saying "Thou shalt not eat the fruit from this tree". I can't understand how allowing that would be "legalizing porn" as they claim. The only logical explanation behind these groups opposing the .xxx TLD is (besides idiocy or ignorance) astroturfing.

Call me a tinfoil hat user, but I have the suspicion that this particular group of "conservative christians" is a well-paid front end for the internet porn mafia protecting their interests.

i have a fool proof plan along these lines...

[Anonymous Coward]

...after all internet pr0n is tagged with .xxx we will go after all bad people in the world and get them to wear orange jackets that say "bad guy" on the back. i am outraged that the world has bad people in it and want them all clearly identified. As I am in total agreement with .xxx, I see no reason for the orange jacket plan to fail.

Well of course...

[SoulRider]

the christian right doesnt want an .xxx domain. That way when their wives catch them at www.underageboys.com they cant say "Really honey its an outreach program for disadvantaged boys, just like Big Brothers".

Re:Well of course...

[someone1234]

Hell, yes. This is the most plausible explanation. With a single .xxx domain, it would be just too easy to filter too. And i'm sure there would be a loss of ad revenue if it is easy to filter.

Re:Well of course...

[SoulRider]

Offensive humor aside. I dont think an .xxx domain is a bad idea (heck one stop shopping for all my porn needs, I can set my filtering software to filter out everything except the .xxx domain), I just dont think it is a viable idea considering that the people this is suppose to control generally do not like playing by the rules. As invasive as porn advertising is, I really doubt having an .xxx domain would really make much of a difference. All we would get is an internet were you couldnt trust that the URL you are clicking on is the URL you are going to. I definately could see a group getting together to put a redirect server in the .com domain.

Internet porn and children is a parental problem not a technological problem. No matter how much technology you throw at this issue there will always be a way to circumvent it, and the more technology you throw at the this the more you challenge people to circumvent it. There is no substitute for parents talking openly and honestly about porn with their children.

Re:He who funds, controls

[Weird O'Puns]

You're mixing Internet and WWW. Internet was deveolped by DARPA, which is an agency of the US Department of Defence. World Wide Web, which is important part of the Internet and major factor in it's succes, was developed in CERN.

Less work for filters

[anakuran]

Im seeing a lot of people arguing that it wouldn't work. (Sites could just register a .com and bypass the issue. What gets constituded as porn?) While all of these are valid areas if concern, the way I see it working is this: Sites dedicated to porn will register for a .xxx domain because if nothing else, it's easier than dealing with getting caught publishing under a .com. Other sites in the grey area still get filtered. Filters aren't going away. People still want to hide guns, violence, perversions, etc. from their children. This will just help with the game.

filtering...

[attackedbymars]

personally, I believe that pr0n sites should be _required_ to register as .xxx, this doesn't mean that they aren't able to have a .com the forwards them to a .xxx but the main site itself would have to end in a .xxx domain name, most of us have read about pr0n's negative effects on today's society and hopefully would want differently for a children. And really its not going to effect the industries income as children aren't the ones paying for it, they are the ones finding ways into it illegally (not that adults don't as well) but not to many children are equipped with their own credit cards.

Re:filtering...

[nsayer]

I think more damage has been done to society by your shockingly bad grammar than any amount of Internet pornography.

XXX is a city logo

[ehiris]

XXX is the logo of the Dutch capital. You can see it very boldly on the Amsterdam flag if you follow the link.

God. (Pun Intended)

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, whackjobs living in the south - hint for you: PORN IS ALREADY QUITE LEGAL.

Second, loonies insisting .xxx would be a good thing - who decides what's porn? Made a comment about a breast on your blog? Pay your $5 million fine and get your damned dirty scum off the rest of the internet. That's right, to .xxx with you!

Third, filtering software. It works well enough now, aside from the fact that it's so easy to disable, a retarded kid who uses AOL can do it. So, great, use .xxx - then we'll have kids surfing the net for porn and knowing exactly where all of it is.

I'm upset because

[MrNougat]

Now I won't be able to prioritize traffic from web servers at .xxx TLD as I had hoped.

Heh

[marx]

Perhaps you should have invented your own language before you made statements like this. Why are you writing in English? Did America invent English, or did it augment an existing language?

Re:He who funds, controls

[nagora]

Well, a lot of people think a guy in Menlo Park, NJ USA invented the light bulb,

Edison lost the race to Swan and they formed the Swan Edison Light Bulb company together (Edison had the cash, Swan had the invention). Once Swan moved on to other things, Edison airbrushed him out of his version of the story.

TWW

RFC 3675 is naive to say the least.

[Spy der Mann]

There are plenty of technical reasons why not to do it. See RFC 3675 for details.

I laugh at RFC 3675 because it practically says: "Oh this and that measure won't filter the 100.00% of porn sites, therefore it's useless".

a) There is a representative quantity of porn websites that share the same IP range, so IP filtering IS effective against them, no matter what RFC 3675 says.

b) Unlike PICS labels, .xxx TLD's don't require the webmaster to CHANGE the website contents. So it's actually easier for porn site owners to have their own sites labelled.

RFC 3675 makes me laugh:
"Providers of data on the Internet cannot stop anyone from creating names pointing to their computer's IP address with misleading domain names."

In theory. In practice, domain names HAVE TO BE BOUGHT. And the distributed database is not of website addresses, but merely of DOMAIN SERVERS. It's the domain servers that give you the IP for a certain address.

And don't come with "we can't really classify what is porn or what's not". Oh c'mon, that's the lamest of excuses. Don't tell me that "german *** girls" isn't porn, or that "sex farm" isn't porn, that "fetish dungeon" isn't porn, that "deep throat galleries" isn't porn or that "her first lesbian experience" isn't porn.

There is NO AMBIGUITY in porn websites. If they were ambiguous enough to be "misclassified" they wouldn't sell. And I doubt people would pay $4.99 a month for a subscription to "bikini models" sites. Well, those aren't representative of internet traffic anyway.

Finally, there are xxx banner ads often seen in non-porn sites, if those banners came from .xxx domains they could be easily blocked.

In conclusion, RFC 3675 is BULLSHIT.

Re:RFC 3675 is naive to say the least.

[F_Scentura]

"There is NO AMBIGUITY in porn websites."

Depending on the regulation, art sites may have to register as XXX, academic sites that depict human sexuality might. HOTCHICKSONSTICKS isn't ambiguous, but the non-ambiguous sites tend to get lumped in.

This is useless because porn providers are much more clever at skirting the rules than those art/educational sites.

Re:RFC 3675 is naive to say the least.

[AndroSyn]

There is NO AMBIGUITY in porn websites. If they were ambiguous enough to be "misclassified" they wouldn't sell. And I doubt people would pay $4.99 a month for a subscription to "bikini models" sites. Well, those aren't representative of internet traffic anyway.

It all depends on the community in question. Lets say you are a Muslim living in Saudi Arabia. A "bikini model" site would be considered pornographic to somebody from there. Sure while in the US or Europe we might yawn at that, not everybody would. The domain namesapce isn't the place to do content tagging/filtering. What is considered pornographic varies from place to place and person to person. There is more to the world than the end of your nose.

Re:RFC 3675 is naive to say the least.

[Spy der Mann]

A "bikini model" site would be considered pornographic to somebody from there.

That's my point, 99% of porn websites are NOT bikini models. Why let those 99% get away with it just because some people find more "lite" things offensive?

Re:RFC 3675 is naive to say the least.

[Fulcrum of Evil]

That's my point, 99% of porn websites are NOT bikini models. Why let those 99% get away with it just because some people find more "lite" things offensive?

Get away with what? Also, the whole point here is that you can't come up with one definition for porn, so what's the point?

America Owns The Interweb?

[Frosty Piss]

Do porn sites actually make any profit out of that, though? Children that are blocked by the filters wouldn't have paid anyways.

Filters don't only filter children out. But this whole .xxx thing is silly anyway. It is based on the idea that the United States "owns" the Internet, and the rest of the world views porn the same way we do. And, this just isn't the case.

Re:Subtlety & Truth at its best

[spacebird]

Umm, why does everyone say that ICANN is just a puppet of the Bush administration? Most of the board members have been there since the Clinton years...

Well, That's Easy to Figure Out...

[Mekkis]

You know, I'm guessing those folks opposed to the .xxx domain name aren't necessarily opposed to a "red light" section of the internet.

Before we go much further, we need to look at the way that "protecting the children from porn" has been used as a means to justify all sorts of suppression of free speech - and I don't simply mean nekkid pictures. It was used during the late '40s, '50s and early '60s in this country as a "foot in the door" from which was launched all sorts of censorship campaigns.

Very simply, by creating a .xxx domain that's easily filterable, conservative Christians (as well as other theo-fascist and crypto-fascist governments & groups) will be deprived of their most easily-touted excuse to engage in censorhip: "Won't someone think of the children?"

Why .xxx must never be

[jmorris42]

> I guess the main argument is that it should be fairly trivial to filter out any domain ending in .xxx,

Which is why it must never be allowed to be brought into existance. Listen up a second before that inflamatory slashdot article turns this thread into today's two minute hate.

If a .xxx domain is ever created the legal climate in the US will force any content that isn't 'child safe' into it. All it would take is one threat of a lawsuit from a rapacious trial lawyer (and we have a couple million of those monsters lurking here) and any site that wasn't perfectly safe for kiddies would move. Combine that with the law that would shamble out of Congress within a year or two of .xxx going live that would require every ISP to filter .xxx by default for new customers (to protect the 'precious innocent children' of course) and we would see an Internet as locked down as China. Just filtering different stuff, but counted by sites almost certainly more and counted by sites that are useful about as many.

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[Anonymous Coward]

My, that slope sure is slippery.

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[jmorris42]

> My, that slope sure is slippery.

No, just a realistic appraisal of the legal and political climate in the US, as observed by a native who has followed politics for longer than the average slashdotter has been potty trained. I'm not even a crazed leftwing moonbat who sees a police state hiding under every rock, I'm a libertarian leaning small government Republican. But I know what Congress is capable of though, and have to speak out even when it would be Republicans leading the charge.

The only thing that keeps the trial lawyers at bay now is the reality that there IS no effective way to keep objectional content in a dank corner of the Internet so you can't sue every time your little hellion sees something naughty and our 1st Amendment won't allow the whole Internet (as viewed in the US) to become a big freaking Barney masturbertorium. But you give em a .xxx TLD and everything outside it that isn't Disney's version of reality will get their butts sued. And if you don't believe Congress won't force the default position of the ISP filters the second they would A) be affordable and B) effective hasn't been following the continual efforts of Congress to 'protect the children' from the 'evil, wicked and outright depraved Internet.'

If we just have to have a segregated Internet create .kids and force disney.com into it.

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[Ixne]

If a .xxx domain is ever created the legal climate in the US will force any content that isn't 'child safe' into it. All it would take is one threat of a lawsuit from a rapacious trial lawyer (and we have a couple million of those monsters lurking here) and any site that wasn't perfectly safe for kiddies would move.

I can see where you're coming from, but if that's the case, why didn't the Bible-thumpers support it?

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[jmorris42]

> I can see where you're coming from, but if that's the case, why didn't the Bible-thumpers support it?

Because they don't understand the Internet.

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[raju1kabir]

If a .xxx domain is ever created the legal climate in the US will force any content that isn't 'child safe' into it. All it would take is one threat of a lawsuit from a rapacious trial lawyer (and we have a couple million of those monsters lurking here) and any site that wasn't perfectly safe for kiddies would move.

There is more than enough porn outside the reach of US courtrooms to render this whole scenario moot.

Even if whitehouse.com is gone, there'll still be nächtescheissenfresser.com and boobyspanker.th and buttpotato.uk and all the rest. And I imagine this argument would be made during your hypothetical case.

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[drsmithy]

I can see where you're coming from, but if that's the case, why didn't the Bible-thumpers support it?

Because it legitimises pornography.

You have to remember, the objective of these people is not to "screen out" pornography, it's to eliminate it completely. Like most religious fanatics, they're not prepared to compromise.

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[xnixman]

>Like most religious fanatics, they're not prepared to compromise.

1. I am not a religious fanatic
2. I don't mind porn

Compromise is highly overrated, in essence the status quo always loses in a compromise, so, if you are ok with the way things are then the compromise is always a loser position. This basic truth forms the basis for the ongoing destruction of the United States as we know it (from either political tilt).

Some Examples...These are tilted one way, think a bit and you can tilt them to suit your own politics.

Money
1. I want to keep all of my money
2. You want some of my money
Compromise: You get some of my money, Side 1 loses.

Porn
1. We want no porn anywhere.
2. We want porn everywhere ;-)
Compromise: Let's have some porn. Side 1 loses.

Gun Laws
1. Leave all of our guns alone
2. We want to ban all of your guns
Compromise: Let's ban scary looking guns, Side 1 loses.

Free Speech
1. We have freedom of speech
2. We don't think you should say ______
Compromise: You can say whatever you want except ______, Side 1 loses

Lawmaking in general
1. Everything is ok the way it is
2. I want to pass a law that does X
Compromise: Let's have a law that does x/2, Side 1 loses

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of crap.

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[drsmithy]

1. I am not a religious fanatic

I never suggested you were...

Compromise is highly overrated, in essence the status quo always loses in a compromise, so, if you are ok with the way things are then the compromise is always a loser position.

You seem to be arguing compromise is inherently bad because "the status quo always loses in a compromise". You shouldn't have to think particularly hard to come up with a few examples of why this position is silly (not to mention untenable).

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[xnixman]

>You seem to be arguing compromise is inherently bad because "the status quo always loses in a compromise".

And you seem to be arguing that only religious fanatics reject compromise as a "Win-Win" scenario.

As long as one side of the argument is for maintenance of the status quo any compromise is a losing situation for that side.

Now if the question is one of degree (you want lots of porn I only want a little porn) you still have an obvious winner and loser (you win because there is _more_ porn upon a compromise).

I guess there is the other class of compromise that changes one of the constants involved, such as agreeing that you can have all of the porn you want...in France, but changing that constant would change the nature of the argument.

>You shouldn't have to think particularly hard to come up with a few examples of why this position is silly (not to mention untenable).

I welcome your input. I think you are wrong, in fact I think any standard definition of "status quo" requires you to be wrong.

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[drsmithy]

And you seem to be arguing that only religious fanatics reject compromise as a "Win-Win" scenario.

Er, no, not in the slightest. Indeed, looking back over the thread to the post I replied to I can't even begin to imagine how you managed to get to that conclusion. I was replying to another poster who brought up the question of "religious fanatics".

As long as one side of the argument is for maintenance of the status quo any compromise is a losing situation for that side.

This does not make the end result a negative.

I welcome your input. I think you are wrong, in fact I think any standard definition of "status quo" requires you to be wrong.

Abolishment of slavery, women's suffrage, free speech, public education. The list goes on. Are you seriously going to argue these changes to the "status quo" have produced a net negative result ?

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[xnixman]

>>As long as one side of the argument is for maintenance of the status quo any compromise is a losing
>>situation for that side.
>
>This does not make the end result a negative.

I'm glad you have changed the argument to suit yourself. Please actually read the first couple of messages. I said, "As long as one side of the argument is for maintenance of the status quo any compromise is a losing situation for that side." (You should be hitting yourself in the head and saying "duh" now.) The end result is a negative from the perspective of the person who "is for maintenance of the status quo".

>>I welcome your input. I think you are wrong, in fact I think any standard definition of "status
>>quo" requires you to be wrong.

>Abolishment of slavery, women's suffrage, free speech, public education. The list goes on. Are you
>seriously going to argue these changes to the "status quo" have produced a net negative result ?

Hell, why not, you seem to be arguing a different position every time I hear from you. But no, I am arguing that, "As long as one side of the argument is for maintenance of the status quo any compromise is a losing situation for that side."

Some silly "net negative result" criteria has nothing to do with the argument at hand, and you can't honestly call any of the examples that you provide a "compromise". There was a right side and a wrong side. We tried compromise on the slavery deal, it sucked. Do we only allow women to vote in local elections? Is free speech only for the press? Is public education only available to the poor?

Do you understand the terms compromise and status quo?

Re:Why .xxx must never be

[Anonymous Coward]

"Even if whitehouse.com is gone, there'll still be nächtescheissenfresser.com and boobyspanker.th and buttpotato.uk and all the rest."

Your lying. I tried all three links, and none of them worked. (Note: First link is unumlauted "a" because Slashdot fucks up the link if I try to use an ä in a URL. However, copy/paste of the umlauted link into the address box fails as well.)

Re:He who funds, controls

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you're wondering, Swann was British, and the research was done in the UK. The UK has the first house which was lit electrically (powered by hydroelectricity from a lake and dam in the grounds, since you ask).

That's why the UK has bayonet light-bulb fittings, and the US screw-in - an early form of regionalisation.

Re:He who funds, controls

[nagora]

America has it's own railway and highway system, it didn't augment an existing system built by another party.

Actually, the original locos in America were imports, just as the Internet was originally imported in a slightly more virtual fashion. I think road designs were probably imported too in the early days. I doubt that the settlers had no engineering experience from the Old World.

Everyone stands on the shoulders of those who went before; you can't go around claiming the whole because you made a part. Well, you can, but that way lies stagnation and collapse.

TWW

One sided article.

[tapfu]

As a former IT coordinator for the New York School System and as a parent I tend to side with idea the .xxx would be a progressive step to assist me in protecting and instilling what I feel are correct values for my children; being I already do that, I should not have to keep a 24 hour vigil to accommodate that.. A .xxx would at least in theory pacify those concerns. It was stated earlier that most porn sites do not wish to bypass filters, unfortunately there are countless others that do no share this belief, and from working with middle school kids on internet projects the possibility of caching sites came up as students were presented with government projects (Granted, this was during the Clinton administration.) To dump the Christian Rights stance in this was a journalistically simple vehicle to slant the reader into feeling taking a position against this is the obvious intelligent choice. Since I don't work for the Department of Education any longer I do not know what their opinion is on this, the article did not state it either. The bias was presented one sided. Is the reluctance to changing the domain stemmed from the idea that when someone goes looking for p0rn they will have to try a little harder, or is it the stigma of looking though a .xxx domain and not a .com for pornography?

There goes my only chance of making big bucks!!!

[Basehart]

I was hoping to snag hot.sex, - dang it.

Re:He who funds, controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Who invented photography and cinema ? French inventors. Who invented cars ? Germans. So maybe you would like France and Germany control these industries? This argument is stupid. As far as I know, the backbone in my country (UK) was financed by my taxes and was not built by US companies.
I am really fed up to hear that argument all over again.

Re:He who funds, controls

[spacebird]

But the difference is - if Europe were to dismantle its entire train system, it would have zero effect on the US. When England makes changes to English, we just write our own dictionary. But if the US were to dismantle its back bone, Europe would suddenly lose a vast majority of its content and be crippled. This isn't a "we invented it, so everyone that uses the technology is our property" it's a "you're using/playing on our property so play by our rules."

.xxx names are much more obvious...

[dmt99]

www.barely-legal-loose-sluts.xxx is obviously a pr0n site, whereas www.barely-legal-loose-sluts.com makes you wonder what it really is....

US Control Doesn't Work

[wolff000]

This may be offtopic slightly but hey I can afford the -1. This is just another example of the US trying to dictate world policy. The net should be controlled by an international group not just one goverment. Everyone uses the web not just the US. Some countries use it even more than the US. The .xxx domain would also be helpful in filtering pr0n. Of course all the sites out there probably wouldn't switch but new sites could be filtered easily.

Re:He who funds, controls

[AnotherSimilarToIt]

Given the grandparent's sig, this response is actually a troll, and the most clever troll I have ever seen.

GP sig: "'Encyclopedia' is to 'Wikipedia' as 'Library' is to 'some people at a bus stop'"

Parent: "Wikipedia sez..."

Also, saying that Edison did not invent the lightbulb because other researchers had already produced light from a filament in a lab is rather misleading. Inventors are the ones who make it work. Edison deserves just as much credit for the light bulb as does Einstein for the theory of relativity.

Re:He who funds, controls

[soft_guy]

It has been explained twice in this thread and you still don't get it. ICANN is not like an invention that buy or copy - it is an organization that you join that has pre-existing rules. For example, the United Nations has a security council with 5 veto members. If some new country joins the UN, they shouldn't complain that they don't have veto power in the security council. The joined knowing that they would not have a veto power.

Same with ICANN - you join knowing that the US controls it. Don't like? Don't join.

The EU created the WWW

[abigsmurf]

The US created the internet communication protocols, the EU created the world wide web. Learn your facts. Infact domain names are far more relevant to the EU created side of what's collective known as the internet which begs the question : why did they US get 100% control over TLDs in the first place?

Re:The EU created the WWW

[cashman73]

why did they US get 100% control over TLDs in the first place?

Because Al Gore said so back when he created the Internet! Duh! :-)

Re:The EU created the WWW

[raju1kabir]

The US created the internet communication protocols, the EU created the world wide web.

The seminal web work was done by a British guy at research facility in Switzerland, which is not and has never been part of the EU.

Re:The EU created the WWW

[abigsmurf]

At CERN which iirc is funded by the EU

Re:The EU created the WWW

[raju1kabir]

At CERN which iirc is funded by the EU

Most of CERN's members are also members of the EU, but that doesn't mean it's funded by the EU. CERN also includes Norway and Switzerland. And many EU members (e.g., Ireland, the Baltics, etc.) have nothing to do with CERN.

Fundamentally, the two organisations are only related by geographic coincidence.

the real story about .xxx

[Xyonz]

No one seems to understand this topic so I'm going to do my best to bring you all up to speed.

As a point of interest, I have attended ICANN conferences, and I know personally members of various ICANN subcomitees, as well as know personally the two gentlemen behind .xxx.

A .xxx domain would cost in the neighborhood of $60 to register. Some of this money goes to ICANN obviously, but the rest will be used to make sure the site complies with the rules and regulations associated with the aggrement that goes along with a registration. For example, the sites may not use any models under the age of 18, they must follow some best practices such as not having annnoying popup ads that can not be closed, etc. .xxx is not attempting to remove porn from .com or any other TLD, it will simply be another domain a site can register. However, as part of the agreement, all other doians owned by the company that registers the domain must also comply with the standards and practices required of the .xxx domain. A .xxx domain will also only be able to be purchased by a company with a legitimate adult business. For example, suicidegirls.xxx would be a valid registration, but disney.xxx could never be registered because there can not be a porn business named disney.

Also as part of the agreement, the business myst have an actual person as a contact, with a valid phone number.

They must also rate their site with ICRA, a web standard meta tag that most filtering software uses to determine the content of a site and whether ot not it is sutible for the filter to show.

I'm not personally affiliated with .xxx, despite the fact I know those involved, but I see no reason why it, or any other TLD for that matter shouldn't be approved. The catholic league or what ever specific christian orginization is against .xxx doesn't have any idea the benefits it will have as far as cleaning up the internet and ultimately protecting children from adult content.

Re:the real story about .xxx

[typical]

I'm not personally affiliated with .xxx, despite the fact I know those involved, but I see no reason why it, or any other TLD for that matter shouldn't be approved.

See my post.

They must also rate their site with ICRA, a web standard meta tag that most filtering software uses to determine the content of a site and whether ot not it is sutible for the filter to show.

And, you see, this is where .xxx becomes completely pointless. Metatags completely eliminate the need for .xxx.

So, what you have is a registrar that has done the following:

* Put itself to collect outsized fees, the work for which can be completely automated by a perl script (scan .xxx domain, see if response includes ICRA header).

* Put itself in a position where people are likely to demand that more domains purchase their services.

* Does absolutely nothing. If someone is in .xxx *and* is required to use ICRA, then the .xxx part is completely unnecessary (and causes all kinds of problems such as those I mentioned in my other post). All you need is ICRA...and if someone is choosing to use .xxx, they can as easily choose to use ICRA.

Basically, the only reason .xxx keeps coming up is because:

(a) A number of people don't understand the technical drawbacks. Reading the RFC on .sex should be mandatory before pushing .xxx.

(b) Registrars *really* want more TLDs, and preferably more expensive ones. These people would be put in a position of doing nothing and raking in lots of money for it.

A .xxx TLD is pretty much a loss for everyone other than said registrars.

Re:the real story about .xxx

[Xyonz]

I'm sorry, but I completly disagree with you.

I admit, .xxx is a novelty, but it's one the adult industry will want. Subsiquently, adult businesses will purchase them, and through the agreement, will be forced to rate their sites with ICRA. $60 a year is peanuts to these businesses, and the same is true for all other high priced domains.

And if you can write a perl script that can 1) verify that the site's rating is accurate, and 2) call the number listed and determine a real person is on the other end that is affiliated with the business, I invite you to create it. I'm sure it would be worth quite a bit.

Re:the real story about .xxx

[typical]

I admit, .xxx is a novelty, but it's one the adult industry will want. Subsiquently, adult businesses will purchase them, and through the agreement, will be forced to rate their sites with ICRA.

I disagree that they would "want" .xxx...where is their benefit? Remember, US-centric viewpoint -- what .xxx standards are you using? Is Sports Illustrated going to want to go .xxx to help out Saudi Arabia?

If you feel that they want to rate themselves, they can *already* use metatags. But for free, without changing anything, and without the drawbacks of .xxx.

$60 a year is peanuts to these businesses, and the same is true for all other high priced domains.

Yes, but why allow registrars to keep slowly driving up the cost of name registrations? The only person to benefit is the registrars.

$60 a year is peanuts to these businesses, and the same is true for all other high priced domains.

Sure, everyone can afford it. But the Internet is designed to be efficient, and there are a huge number of companies that try to reduce efficiency to feed themselves. Verisign, for instance, would *love* to bump up the .com registration fee.

1) verify that the site's rating is accurate

And do you think that will be done? There are a large number of companies already in this business. They do porn blocking. The scope is too large for humans.

2) call the number listed and determine a real person is on the other end that is affiliated with the business

Why would this (a) help or (b) be done? You're already required to provide valid contact information -- it's just that a lot of people don't. I don't see why this would be more of a benefit for .xxx.

Typical slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Priceless...

In a story about how ICANN has decided not to go forward (for now) with the .xxx domain both slashdot and MSNBC choose to, rather than pointing out the reasons it fell through *THIS YEAR*, take the opportunity to highlight that it was pressure from those evil christians who stopped it *LAST YEAR*! Never mind what happened this year. It is much more important to highlight how wacky and out of touch those crazy christians are.

Slashdot never does mention the reasons why it fell through this year. MSNBC only gets around to explaining that a number of governments opposed the .xxx domain this year after first taking a crack at those scary jesus-freaks who stood in the way last year.

I am not a christian, but I get why they feel the media is out to get them. Any casual read of either article would leave you with the impression that this is a great idea and that only crazy fundies would be silly enough to oppose it.

Re:He who funds, controls

[klang]

Well, if I bring a keg of beer to your party, can I be allowed to control it myself? Can I decide who to dance with, to talk to and to kiss .. or do I have to ask you for permission first? Do you have a SEX-ROOM and do you control if people don't just slip into the COMpany room .. can you make sure that nobody uses the wrong kind of room for the wrong things? If not, why not just take down the sign on the door and try to keep the party more or less under control so people don't throw you out of your own house for being booring. The party will go on without you, eventhough you think that it wount.

oh, and thanks for the invitation, we really just wanted a place where we could get crazy for a while :-)

XXX

[jlebrech]

went on movies.xxx was a fsckin vin diesel and ice cube website.

.xxx a good idea, but for different reasons

[AeroIllini]

The creation of a .xxx TLD is a good idea, but not because of censorship.

If we tried to force all pornographic sites to move to .xxx names, then we would by necessity need to define "porn" to decide who has to move. Is the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition porn? What about the Victoria's Secret or Abercrombie catalogs? What about National Geographic's images of tribes in the Amazon who don't wear much clothing because it's frikkin' hot there, and don't worry about modesty? Is that porn? Defining porn is a difficult task at best, and defining it and moving it to .xxx wouldn't guarantee that suddenly, magically, .com is free of it.

However, internet porn is a very popular vector for the delivery of spyware, malware, and phishing attacks, because of its popularity and taboo nature in our society. If the company that registers .xxx domain names can guarantee that the sites who buy .xxx domain names are reputable and free of [spy|ad|mal|phish]ware, then people would probably be willing to pay a premium for access to that site. (If I recall correctly, .edu does this type of thing already.) It would not take the malware out of porn sites, but it will take reputable porn sites away from the disreputable ones, and generate some trust between merchants and customers. After all, a reputable porn site is just a business, and they don't want to hurt their customer base. Ask yourself, would you be more willing to give your credit card to a .com site, a .biz site, or a .edu site? If that same high level of trust was created for the .xxx domain, everyone would benefit: the reputable porn sites get a good name and distance themselves from the malware-ridden experience that is online porn, the customers get a better porn-browsing experience and don't compromise their computer's security just by looking at naked people, and the registrars get to make money. The .xxx TLD could become a sort of Better Business Bureau for online pornography sites.

If we really wanted to make censorship easy, let's create a .kid TLD, which is porn-free. Block everything but .kid, and maybe a few select whitelisted .com or .edu sites, and let your kids run wild and free on the internet without encountering a single filthy, traumatizing boobie.

Re:.xxx a good idea, but for different reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

>Ask yourself, would you be more willing to give your
> credit card to a .com site, a .biz site, or a .edu site?

I got my credit card number stolen while requesting transcripts from an .edu

Re:.xxx a good idea, but for different reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I support having .kid domains. However that itself can lead to problems. What if little Johnny goes to somerandomartsite.kid to do research and runs into *shock* a painting of a boobie?

.xxx TLD is a bad idea

[typical]

From a previous post of mine:

It's a bad idea.

If you want to rate pages, there are already standard mechanisms for plugging content metadata into pages. Just for a start, this is a technically-superior system -- there is absolutely no reason to need to purchase an entirely separate TLD just because you have a few pages that contain adult content. The domain name registrars would have loved this -- heck, they'd love people to have to buy a new TLD for *every* sort of content, not just adult.

In addition, .xxx is a blanket statement. It allows only one bit of information to be stored regarding a website -- contains "adult" content or not. Use a tagging system, and you can say contains NUDITY, contains PROFANITY, whatever.

So .xxx is already a vastly technically outclassed solution.

What else is wrong with it? The obvious point of such a TLD would be to block .xxx URLs from people. However, TLDs are exceedingly poor technical choices for this purpose. It would be just as easy to obtain this data via the IP address or an alternate URL, not just .xxx. Hell, I could easily see someone setting up a DNS that mirrors .xxx just to screw with the system -- foo.xxx would also be reachable via "foo.xxx.pornbypass.com"

Any proxy usage will bypass a .xxx TLD block, whereas metatags in a page cannot be bypassed (unless the proxy specifically filters these metatags out).

And, finally, the worst issue. It promises a long and unpleasant future of social problems, precisely because it is a TLD. Even if this were a technically good solution, it would still be better to have .xxx.us. There are undoubtedly some people who honestly don't realize that there are vastly different social standards in the world. In a conservative Muslim country, what we consider street clothing on a woman might be considered obscene. While we consider female toplessness unacceptable in the United States, folks in the UK get female toplessness on their TV regularly. No matter what bar is chosen for .xxx, it is going to be completely unacceptable to some people.

The argument "more data is better than none" does have some merit, but the disadvantages of .xxx -- the fact that it is essentially a new tax sending money to registrars, the fact that it will cause social friction between countries, the fact that it starts a precedent of using TLDs to segregate content (completely broken, unless you have only one classification that you wish to do on the Internet), the fact that it ignores metatags...I honestly think that every person out there that is in favor of a .xxx TLD has not thoroughly thought through the implications.

[The reason that the Christian right is opposed to this is for *completely* different reasons. Their concern is that introducing a .xxx TLD will legitimize porn. Europeans have a certain right to be irritated that these concerns are dictating how the global Internet is run -- however, I strongly doubt that they have any impact. The standards folks are already strongly opposed to a .xxx for actual technical reasons, and has released an RFC 3675 on why it would be a really bad idea to implement it. This is what ICANN is going to pay attention to.

How about a .+++ domain

[Anonymous Coward]

...and shift all the Christian stuff there so the rest of us don't have to see it. (Yes I know. But I can dream, can't I?)

Re:He who funds, controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Did America invent roads? Why, yes!

Re:He who funds, controls

[klang]

I suppose, that in each country, the local telephone company have picked up the task of operate the backbone of that specific country. In SOME cases without being financed by the American tax payer. ..and that's just the clue. If ISP's around the world decide to route traffic based on something else than the DNS root servers, ICANN can do nothing. China is certainly not routing traffic according to information from DNS root.

The Internet is what it is today, because people are willing to pay their TelephoneCompany for modem/ISDN/Cable/DSL access to that thing that connects all the national backbones .. that thing (deep down) is "good faith" in the fact that you will be routed correctly.. and even then, people (in China) will pay for access.

If USA suddenly dropped from the map, most Internet users wouldn't even notice.

An uphill battle, anyway

[abb3w]

Registering your pr0n site as a .com, etc would always be the preffered method, since you site would have a better chance of getting around filters.

Actually, I expect the preferred method would be much similar to the online casinos that use a .net for the legal-in-the-US no-money online poker, and a .com for the not-legal-in-the-US real-money online poker.

Porn sites would probably register (or maintain) their .com address, and keep the "clean" content there — probably a "WARNING: ADULT CONTENT" page, and maybe a copy of the TOS page. The main site with the adult content would then be on a .xxx address.

As others have noted, most porn sites want those who choose to do so to be able to filter them. They also want those who DON'T chose to filter them to be able to see them unfiltered. Of course, there are some bad apples out there — the sort of "gallery" metasites that only point to other metasites, or which attempt to install various trojans. The scammers and crooks probably won't care (nor move), but the bad apples are the minority.

No, the real bane in this effort is the Religious Conservatives who don't want ANYONE to be able to see smut, regardless of the individual's age or personal preference. Which, in the present US (or globabl) political climate, isn't a complete obstacle, but is a non-trivial problem.

how i read it at first

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the grammar would be wrong, but:

conservative Christian groups in the US, which has a veto over the internet addressing system

Conservative Christians have a veto over the addressing system?!! That's shocking! ... well, not that shocking

Re:He who funds, controls

[nagora]

But if the US were to dismantle its back bone, Europe would suddenly lose a vast majority of its content and be crippled.

Hardly. I use maybe three US-based websites per day. No email I get (other than spam) comes from the US. The truth is that most Europeans that would be affected by the removal of the US network ar doing business with US companies who would also be hurt by that same loss of business.

"you're using/playing on our property so play by our rules."

A morally bankrupt statement if I ever saw one. America has one rule for everyone else and no rules for itself.

TWW

Christian groups against .xxx?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would Christian groups be against this? Simply because it would acknowledge that porn exists on the Internet? Do they not realize this would make filtering it out of their homes that much easier (indeed, that is the domain's only useful purpose!)?

It would seem that, out of myself and the Christian groups, one of us does not have a brain. Someone please tell me which.

.christ

[valintin]

Why can't they make a .christ TLD that maps only the holy parts of the .com TLD? Then for the .org TLD they could use .mas.

Re:He who funds, controls

[nagora]

Same with ICANN - you join knowing that the US controls it.

Setting up an organisation and then refusing to change the rules when conditions change and the old rules are clearly no use anymore is stupid, but then that's exactly the attitude which sustains the Security Council veto system and the Second Amendment, I guess.

TWW

Ohhh... isn't that precious!

[suv4x4]

The cute little christian groups think that banning a dedicated porn domain will make it easier to ignore porn exists.

That's so naive I can't even begin to descrive how naive it is.

Life lesson: running away from an embarassing problem does not a problem resolve.

And also, what does porn consitute? Well how about making it constitute the most obvious types of explicit sex acts videos and images for starters that noone would confuse for "art"? It's a step in the right direction.

But noo, let's wait and DO NOTHING, until we can pinpoint the perfecto definition of porn! Great thinking, people..

BS

[Teun]

.xxx is *just* another domain, why *only* the US is having significant problems with it is a tell-tale.

It is no doubt the Religious Simple in the present US governement that are setting this US agenda.
I cannot ever see a technical or administrative reason to not allow this domain to come into existence.

As long as ICANN is not disallowing the registration of porn sites at a .com or whatever domain it's up to the market to decide if it's works, the rest of the world could not care less...

Re:BS

[Austerity Empowers]

From TFA - However, the plan also continued to attract broader opposition, with the US once again understood to have lodged its opposition to the idea. This time, ICANN also faced opposition from an unspecified number of other governments. Although not having the veto power of the US, a government advisory committee set up to respond to Icann proposals said "several" of its members were against the idea.

The Australian government has already spoken out publicly against an internet porn address, while a report in New Zealand claimed that Iran was also opposed.

So it's not only the big bad US this time. It's simply a dumb idea, that is why it was killed. There is no neo-con conspiracy supported by less than half the american citizens to keep the rest of the world down. It's simply a dumb idea getting what it deserves.

I don't care who has control of the DNS, I trust my government as poorly as I trust yours, and slightly more than I trust "democracy".

Naked people having sex! Protect the kids!

[Algorithms]

The fact that we go to such lengths to sensor "adult" content is the real problem. Naked people having sex, oooo, better not let the kids see and we better not ever talk about it with them. If we do, they won't grow up to be sexually repressed and they won't have difficulty in relationships and won't be uncomfortable with themselves sexually. We wouldn't want that to happen, that is walking the line on thinking for yourself and everyone knows that is what governments and big corporations are for.

Re:Naked people having sex! Protect the kids!

[Algorithms]

censor .. blarg

Re:He who funds, controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Cry some more about it.. Simple solution.. you don't like it? Setup your own organization and have the local government point to it..

Absolutely nothing is stopping you from doing it, there's no reason why the existing structure has to move under anyone elses control. It's a EU powerplay simple as that, and a pretty flimsy one.

beginning of the end...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the main reasons for having a .xxx domain is to implement filters for pornography on .com. Once these filters have been applied, it's just one step closer to filtering out other "controversial" subjects.

Re:He who funds, controls

[nagora]

Cry some more about it.. Simple solution.. you don't like it? Setup your own organization and have the local government point to it..

I have a better idea. Why don't we do what America does when someone has something it wants: just take it off them. What exactly would America do about it? The US economy has been royally fucked over by Bush; it would collapse if the rest of the world simply stopped propping it up with loans. It's not like America has done anything positive for the world in years, and it's done a lot of damage. Why the hell ARE we putting up with a rouge nation as a neighbour?

TWW

What about using sub domains?

[dweebzilla]

What if content providers agreed to use sub domains as a way to compartmentalize information.

So for the site www.whateverporn.com

All x rated content like videos and images could be served from a separate address adult.whateverporn.com, or xxx.whateverporn.com.

PICS is superior and fine-grained?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please sir, tell me how to use this PICS thing to only find firm-bodied blonde and redhead female human porn, bypassing anything like the Goatse guy?

I'm a net vet and this is the first I've heard of it, much less seen it used.

Re:PICS is superior and fine-grained?

[cortana]

You can't use it to *find* content; you can use it to block content selectively. Well, actually, a web search engine could index the PICS ratings of the content it comes accross and make them searchable.

As for your specific needs, I suggest you read Rating Services and Rating Systems. An example rating system is given here, and the appendices contain example descriptions of the RSAC and SafeSurf rating systems.

Unfortunatly you can not use PICS to protect you from Goatse images; this is because the people who want to show you such images have no reason to rate their pages accuratly.

Damnit!

[SB_SamuraiSam]

I so wanted to register winkingjesus.xxx

Re:He who funds, controls

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea.. nothing's stopping you... uhh.. just get all the countries that currently point at the DNS servers updated by ICANN to not anymore? Then you can "take it off us"..
The irony is you are no better than anyone over in the US for that exact statement.

You should also probably realize that the US dollar still impacts the global economy more than you want to admit. If we had reclaimed all the money on the loans to other countries that we have already forgiven the debt, we wouldn't be so far in the hole either.. you just keep that thought in your smug little mind.

.xxx TLD _is_ Stupid; Has Been Discussed Before

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

This has been discussed to death, and RFC 3675 was the result. The onus is on proponents of the .xxx TLD to refute the RFC, not the other way around.

People people people....

[rs79]

You're all missing the point here.

The issue is not if .xxx should exist or not, there's been a several year process to, in ICANN-ese "measure community consensus" and .xxx was thrown back several times, regrouped and passed every ICANN barrier. ICANN submitted the root server change to the US government... who stepped all over it and said "NO. FUCKING NO. JUST FUCKING NO".

So, the story here is not "is .xxx a good idea" but "Why can't the 16M a year organization who purport to rule the root actually make a change to the root" which harkens back to ideas central to the creation of ICANN wherein world governments thought they should be "in the loop" and nobody else did - world governmentst have their own laws and can influence their own people, but they should not have undue influence over an international system of naming hosts on the network.

Somebody - ICANN or the USG has got other world governments to spak up now against .xxx - never mind 5 years of comment periods they were silent. The USG or ICANN is just trying to rationalise their move. And to be clear, it is absolutley and verifiably the Bush administration that's doing this not "the US government".

Let's pretend the guy behind .xxx does not live in the US and a target audience is say, Germany. WTF does the US have to do with this? Oh wait, we're not pretending.

Get the point now?

The USG determines what names go into the root. Never mind the 7 million utterly vile pornographic named that already exists in .com, run at the time by a US government contractor...

ICANN invited the USG in. "You recognize us, we'll recognize you" a ploy they used with other governments, and now they've managed to put a choke-hold single point of failure on the technical administration of names and numbers of the network.

ICANN cannot do it's job. It simply is unable. Yet everybody with a domain name pays them to do that job. THAT'S the problem, not "how YOU feel about this particular arbitrary string of characters".

.xxx seems appropriate

[happy_place]

Leaving aside the question of the addictive nature of pornography, and its corrosive effects on family values, and all that, I have to admit that I'd like to see this change, just because of the fact that there are websites out there that expect you to accidentally type .com instead of .net or .org ... In the past, a popular band of dolls was one domain away from a popular brand of porn. And while it might be "funny" that there was a porn site that was one domain away from the official Boy Scouts of America, I think it's pretty obvious the intent was not to teach people to be honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent... It's not like the porn industry hasn't brought this down upon it's own head. If the internet is EVER to be a legitimate place for all people, we've gotta respect each other's space. This seems like a reasonable approach, to avoid confusion. --Ray

why .xxx will never work

[cashman73]

I personally can see the benefits of a .xxx domain. It's actually a good idea in principle, but IMHO needed to have been put in place as one of the original TLDs in order to be effective. Plus, I like the idea of .xxx a helluva lot better than some of the other completely useless TLDs that ICANN has actually approved, like .biz, .museum, and .aero! WTF?!?!

The main reason that we'll never see a .xxx TLD is for these reasons:

1. The box is already open. P0rn site operators have operated for years with .coms, and there's no way you're going to get every single one of them to voluntarily transfer their registrations to .xxx (and pay a higher fee for additional maintenance and additional rules). If you want this to happen, someone has to actually force them to go there and automatically transfer their .coms over to .xxxs.

2. The problem with #1 is that if you actually force these people to go to .xxx, who gets to decide? The U.S. government has no right or jurisdiction to force Russian or Albanian p0rn site operators to move to .xxx. And if the Christian "Right" (I have a hard time calling them the "Christian Right," when 99.9% of the time, they are wrong) is in charge of this, they're going to force all sorts of people to move over there. Sites like Victoria's Secret, Sports Illustrated, and even Wikipedia are going to be forced to register as .xxx sites! Heck, somebody's probably going to force McDonald's to register as a .xxx site because their hamburgers are "damaging" to the children (remember, it's all about the children, folks).

So today, we've basically got a huge can of worms with this situation, that no one wants to touch. Sure, if .xxx existed originally, I think most p0rn site operators would have registered in that domain (it makes sense). But nobody's going to go back.

The real reason they don't want a .xxx TLD...

[chicago_scott]

The people that don't want the .xxx domain want the porn to stay in the .com and .net domains so that they can use pron as an excuse to filter all content whether the content is porn or not. If a .xxx domain were created then the people who want to censor the Net would only be able to use porn as an excuse to censor the .xxx domain and would no longer have the porn strawman to use when trying to censor the Net at large.

I'm in complete agreement with the religious right

[mmell]

I don't want pr0n relegated to some .xxx ghetto on the internet - I want it freely mixed in with the .com and .net network denizens. That way, it's easier for me to get without raising a red flag!

What the religious right is saying is "we can't discriminate against pr0n" - a remarkably level-headed, fair-minded kind of assertion for these folks. I say, kudos to the religious right!

Not .xxx

[The Meshback]

Personally, I think they should go with .cum for porn sites.

.KIDS

[shmlco]

Since the internet is a global concern, you can't "force" anyone to do anything. Personally, I think if the main concern is a kid-friendly environment, then you setup an organization that manages a ".kids" domain and who vets every application that passes through to make sure it is in fact kid-friendly. If a site gets too maany complaints or abuses the system, they drop that domain.

Then parents can let their kids surf xyz.kids with some assurance of safety.

Two words

[belg4mit]

evil bit

Re:He who funds, controls

[nagora]

If we had reclaimed all the money on the loans to other countries that we have already forgiven the debt, we wouldn't be so far in the hole either.. you just keep that thought in your smug little mind.

A drop in the ocean. The scale of the current US debt is titanic compared to what is owed to it by the rest of the world. The 781 Billion borrowed this year alone far outweighs the money owed to the US. The national debt now amounts to 30,000 dollars per person and rising. In many of the countries that owe America money, 30000 dollars would buy a town; 781 billion would buy the whole country with a lot of change.

I'm just ratty because I've had a week of Condescending Rice talking bare-faced lies on our TV and newspapers for a week while local politicians simper about how clever she is because she can play the piano instead of asking her why her words are in complete opposition to her actions.

TWW

Instead of changing TLDs...

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

I see three problems with this system:

a) The DNS TLDs shouldn't be changed.
b) Not everything in DNS is part of the web. Porn.com could run an rsync mirror of Debian for all you know.
c) .xxx is a bad name.

So here's my suggestion: instead of changing the suffix from .com to .xxx, change the prefix...from www to ewww.

why not .sex instead of .xxx

[wwwillem]

Was this an issue of 'politically correctness' or were the people who initiated this new TLD too prudish that they didn't want to call the beast by it's name: "dot-sex". "Dot-Ex-Ex-Ex" seems to express too much "Dot-No-No-No", which is of course not the thing that will encourage porn-producers to move over to a new TLD.

Re:why not .sex instead of .xxx

[Anonymous Coward]

sex is an English word, whereas xxx is understood the world over, I guess...

Re:He who funds, controls

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could give you +10 Insightful.

Only to be expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too surprising, really. It's well known that conservative Christians are huge silent users of pornography. A .xxx heirarchy would put porn into a domain heirarchy easily blocked at the router or DNS resolver, and I think we all know those religious conservatives would go ape at not being able to download their Tubgirl/Goatse fetish pics.

Need 2 Types: .XXX and .DGD

[Anonymous Coward]

Playboy and Penthouse are artful, tasteful adult entertainment. By contrast, myRedbook facilitates the sale of sex across state lines and the degradation of women. This sex is being offered by women of a variety ages from a variety of countries. The culprits at myRedbook should be arrested.

Clearly, there are two distinct forms of adult web sites. We need more than just one ".XXX" to distinguish the two types of web sites. ".XXX" should be for tasteful adult entertainment. ".DGD" should be for degrading, illegal "entertainment".

Re:He who funds, controls

[nagora]

Edison deserves just as much credit for the light bulb as does Einstein for the theory of relativity.

Einstien was not forced to go into partnership with a rival because the rival beat him to the theory. Edison did have to go into partnership with Swan because Swan got to the lightbulb first and Edison was unable to go to commercial production without involving him. When Swan's interest moved on to other things, and working with Edison became the tiresome battle it was for everyone who did not worship his ego, he sold out to Edison who's staff continued to work on the development of the bulb.

However, the existance of the Edison & Swan United Company is a simple historical fact and I think everyone knows that Edison was not the sort to go into partnership unless forced to.

TWW

Fines for non-compliance

[Galley_SimRacer]

All porn sites would be moved to the .xxx domain or face an astronomical fine of say, $10,000 per day. A committee would have to be formed to judge sites reported for non-compliance.

God is Santa Claus for Adults

[Anonymous Coward]

"There are plenty of reasonable, intelligent christians."

"intelligent christian" is an oxymoron.

Here are some things that christians believe:
1. The supreme creator of the universe got down and dirty with a mere human (and an underage human at that, in most jurisdictions) without her consent, which is beastiality and rape.
2. When his kid was born, the creator had three guys show up to give the family a few trinkets, and afterwords left the family in poverty.
3. He took no responsibility for raising his kid, letting the kid's stepfather do all the work.
4. When his kid was getting killed, he did not intervene, although he could have with no harm to himself.
5. The creator's kid is considered perfect, yet he blew his top a few times (e.g., vandalized a temple and cursed a tree), and has allowed the names of two of his closest followers (Mary Magdaline and Judas) be besmirched by most of his other followers for millenia.
6. Your whole life can be spent doing the most vile things, but if you repent just before you die, you'll go right to heaven. OTOH, if you've spent your entire life doing good things (even believing in all this christian nonsense), but die just when you have a moment of doubt, you'll spend enternity burning in hell.
7. If a friend or relative dies in a plane crash, it's a good thing, because that person is with Jesus now. But if the person survived, then that's also a good thing, because it means that Jesus was looking out for him/her (unlike other people on the plane who may have been more deserving of life, but who died a horrible death). Either way, Jesus should be thanked and praised.
8. People who were born with serious birth defects, some of which place them in pain for their entire lives, are all part of god's plan, and god is good.
9. If someone strikes you, then you should turn the other cheek and let him strike that one as well, but if someone looks at pictures of naked women (especially young naked women), then that person should be shunned and segregated from society.
10. "Jesus is Lord" (i.e., God), but Jesus sits at the right hand of God. This means that Jesus spends most of his time beside himself. Then there's some holy ghost that fits in there somehow, and christians pray to all three deities (and some even pray to Jesus's Mom (the babe that God raped)), yet most christians consider themselves to be monotheistic.

They also believe (along with Jews and Muslims) that the God sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake; he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness's sake!

Re:Need 2 Types: .XXX and .DGD

[Anonymous Coward]

"Playboy and Penthouse are artful, tasteful adult entertainment. By contrast, myRedbook facilitates the sale of sex across state lines and the degradation of women."

Cool! Thanks for the great link!

Re: whitehouse.gov vs (former) whitehouse.com

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's to classify porn sites properly so when kids try and get information on the Whitehouse, they don't find information on something much much worse."

I'd rather my child be exposed to beautiful girls' assholes than the ugly asshole currently occupying the White House. By any objective test, the latter is much more harmful to children. (Ask any Iraqi child "liberated" by that scum, or any American (or other) child whose parent or older sibling died over there to satisfy the blood-lust of that traitorous antichrist.)

As a US conservative Christian and I have to say..

[DeVilla]

... this so rocks! No really. I never knew I was so powerful! I mean, really! Veto power! I've got to talk to the Pastor and see what other perks I've missed out on. I wonder if I can kick the RIAA of the internet. Ya think? This is just too cool. Way better that the Auto Club!