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Why the .XXX Domain is a Bad Idea That Won't Die
Reader tqft tipped us to an opinion piece on the UK site The Guardian, which lays out the reasons why article writer Seth Finkelstein feels the .XXX domain is a terrible idea. You may recall that last year (being an election year and all), the concept of a triple-X ghetto was revived, considered, and then quashed all in the space of a few months. We also recently discussed the fact that the idea just won't die, as the company ICM Registry pushes ICANN to allow them to pass out the names by Summer. Finkelstein primarily argues that the new domain is a bad idea from a business point of view. Ignoring for a moment the issue that much of this content is already labeled, he sees this as primarily a means for ICM Registry to gain a monopoly on what is sure to be a hot-selling product. Speculators, pornographers, and above-board companies will all jump on the namespace in an effort to ensure that their domain is represented ... or not, as the case may be. Where do you fall on this issue? Would a .XXX domain be helpful for parents, or just a political salve/moneymaking scam?
Ignoring for a moment the issue that much of this content is already labeled
Yeah, it's labeled all right. About the time you see a writhing vulva on your screen, and a mega-penis thrusting repeatedly into it using the latest in animated gif technology, you may notice a small blurb of text that says "Please proceed only if you are 18 years of age or older".
I'm not against it, I just want new tlds to stop being approved left and right just to make profit out of basically no service.
It's starting to get very complicated to rely on URLs and the amount of money you have to spend to keep your companys name in your hands is ridiculous.
what constitutes porn? to a lot of people it's the act of sex between two people that is captured in a form of "real" media (photos or videos as opposed to paintings). however to a lot of america (or amerikkka as liberal websites would say :/) it is nudity in a medical or anatomy book when not viewed by an artist or doctor.
I help to run web filtering at a small primary school, and while I realise a TLD like this won't shift all the crud into an easily-blocked area of the net, it's a good start. Of course, the downside is that nanny-state governments can then instruct ISPs to block the TLD, thus protecting their good citizens. Protecting primary school kids is one thing, but 'protecting' adults is a whole different ball game.
I guess I just argued for both sides of the equation. I think I'm getting fence splinters.
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This seems to be rooted solely in politics and the money thereof. Let's leave this one to the politicians, knowing when everything is said and done, more is said than done.
Just my $.02
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Be done with what? Good luck getting the porn off of .com domains.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Because the implied assumption is that the whole net except .XXX must be protected, that it all must be made child-safe. This eventually results in treating all adults like children. It is far better to give children their own ( such as .kid or .chd ) and retain the assumption that we adults are capable of making decisions for ourselves.
I don't really get why this is such a bad idea. Especially if they make it so that any site that sells/features nudity/porn has to move to such an extension.
.xxx domains if that was the only place they could be. And all these damn library filters and crap could be made easier. Block blatant porn, and anything else is fair game. I don't see them putting the Anatomy books behind locked doors so kids can't see a drawing of a nude human, and they don't do it with National Geographic, either. This makes it easy to block porn, and keep everything else open.
Let's face it. www.whitehouse.com was one of the all-time great name squatting done. For the longest time, that was a porn site. How many kids and unsuspecting adults stumbled onto that one in the early days?
I'm no screaming conservative by any stretch of the imagination. I lean a lot further towards liberalism than I ever though I would, mostly because I am tired of religion affecting our laws so much, and personal freedoms being stripped from us left and right.
But I don't see any harm in setting these websites up in a much easier to control/block segment of the websphere. And many of these webmasters would love it if it was that much easier to block content by parents. Just think of all the credit card charges to crap companies that supposedly verify age because a person has a CC #? Sheesh, I had one at 16!
At the very least, I could see killing 50% of the pop-ups I run into, simply by blocking all
Besides, think of all the business that it would stir up for a while. All those porn banners having to be redone! hehehe
The idea that the Internet should be made "safe" is offensive to me on so many levels. If parents would do their job and not let their kids roam the Internet unsupervised, this entire argument would disappear. I, for one, want the puritans the hell away from technology legislation. What about you?
The Internet is not a playground for children. It's not a fun Christian diversion. It's a network for anyone and everyone to connect to one another electronically. Let's not turn it into Disneyland or Utah. The last thing society needs is FCC-like regulations on everything they do online. Besides, the responsibility in raising children shouldn't fall into the hands of people than don't have any. Parents need to police this issue, not parents AND single individuals.
The "save the children" argument is just a cheap way to achieve the anti-porn agenda. Don't be fooled. It has nothing to do with kids. Trust me, they'll have pre-marital sex and get each other pregnant without online porn. It's been happening for 1,000's of years and will happen for a thousand more. Humans will do what they're biologically designed to do. Legislation can't stop that.
It CAN, however, open the door for more censorship-inspired legislation. How long until the FCC steps in and begins to fine people that use profanity online? I don't think I'm exaggerating my fears. It's already ridiculous that you can't say "Shit" on the radio. After all, how many kids listen to Larry King Live?
Censorship of any kind is fascism. It doesn't matter what cause it's attached to. Today it's porn. Tomorrow it's anti-Americanism. Just because you may not agree with porn, doesn't mean that laws should be passed to control it. Look away. Install commercially available filtering products. Don't let your kids surf unsupervised. For that matter, don't leave your kids unsupervised near ANYTHING you don't want them around. Just don't ask big brother to watch over you. That fucks us all.
The Europeans will be saying breasts, even full-frontal nakedness, isn't necessarily porn,
The Americans can't tell the difference between even partial nakedness and sex, so will force half of .eu to be under .xxx instead
The Muslims will continue to he shocked at all the women not wearing Burkhas.
RTFA. Or were you just gunning to get first post?
No one wants .xxx except the registrars, who would sell .xxx domains, speculators would would buy them to resell to companies defensively. Big companies would be forced to buy the .xxx rather than let one of the scumbags set up a site on yahoo.xxx, etc. Companies already buy .info, .biz, .net, .org and usually just park or redirect from them. There won't be any less porn on .com. It's just a complete scam.
The biggest advantage for the porn industry is that afterward everybody typing in the address of the link or clickijng a link ending with .xxx KNOWS what he/she wants and thus can be blamed itself for what he tried to see. Whereas with the situation now, the porn industry TAKES the blame if anybody (adult or infant does not matter) accidentaly type in/click a .COM address which does show porn image. By having .xxx everyone wins : all parents or sensible person which can simply then block all .xxx domain, the porn industry because then nobody can anymore talk about being "accidentally" there. The ONLY loss for the porn industry is that then every consenting adult lose any excuse to have browsed on porn domain by accident since with .xxx it willl be obvious that you are on a porn page. ? "ho honey, no I just wanted to learn more about how to solve multiple-body physics interraction and I accidentally clicked onn that porn link" won't hold water if all link end with .xxx
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