New Vote on .xxx Internet Address Nears

Billosaur writes "ICANN is once more set to vote on the creation of the .xxx Internet address. Though the proposal has been voted down by ICANN's board twice before the group behind those previous proposals resubmitted after they 'agreed to hire independent organizations to monitor porn sites' compliance with the new rules, which would be developed by a separate body called the International Foundation for Online Responsibility.' Once more the proposal has led to pornographers and religious groups finding themselves on the same side of an issue, the porn industry worried that the domain would lead to government controls, the religious groups worried it would make access too easy and allow porn to expand even further onto the Internet."

Comments

Why not?

[ArcherB]

I fail to understand why we DON'T have .xxx domain names. If we did, we could lump all the porn sites together, making them both easier to find and easier to block. No one would accidentally stumble upon a porn site while looking for something completely unrelated (remember whitehouse.com?). This also gives the added advantage of freeing up porn sites to do more of whatever it is they wish to do. Gone is the excuse of "What about the children?" because blocking it would be so easy, than even an ISP could do it. Imagine, all you have to do is call your ISP and say, "Please block all html-based porn. Thank you." All your ISP would need to do is simply block all .xxx domain names. Your children are safe and porn operators have that much more freedom!

I don't understand how this is NOT a win-win for everyone! (Except for those that either want to block porn altogether and those that want to make it that much easier to "stumble on." F*ck both those groups!)

Re:Why not?

[spyrral]

So who decides what goes in the .xxx domain? Who decides what is porn?

Re:Why not?

[Khaed]

Because -- who decides what constitutes porn?

What guarantees porn sites will move? Some of their .com, .net, .org addresses are well known. Why should they have to move?

In a perfect world, I'd agree. But as it stands, it just seems like it would cause a lot of fuss, and then we're just going to get a bunch of assholes arguing about what is and isn't pornographical. And trust me -- those people that would be making the decisions are going to be a bunch of assholes.

And people should start ignoring the "What about the children" people anyway, because almost all the time they're suggesting some nanny-state BS to quash someone else's freedom.

There's also the possibility that in areas without many ISP choices (think rural or countries with bitchy governments) the ISPs will be pushed into blocking all .xxx domains for every customer. This kind of thing is very possible.

Re:Why not?

[solafide]

Because nobody will want only a .xxx domain. Let's say you're [pornsitehere].com and the xxx tld gets approved. You can't let [pornsitehere].xxx get snapped up by someone else and feed off the people expecting [pornsitehere].xxx to be the same as [pornsitehere].com. Thus the porn sites will now have 2 addresses: [pornsitehere].com and [pornsitehere].xxx.

Meanwhile the legitimate high-profile .com sites will also need a .xxx site: there will be misspellings, and imagine the bad rap that, say, Microsoft would get from microsoft.xxx being a porn site. So the legitimate .com site owners will have to buy up the .xxx domains too.

So now we have everyone buying a new .xxx domain name which points to their original site and keeping their own .com site. No porn site will move to being only .xxx because everyone is used to .coms, and no legitimate business will risk a domain-squatter in the .xxx domain. It's no easier to block porn as before, nor easier to find it. All this does is give the domain registrars more money and the DNS servers more headaches.

The only possible way of moving all porn to .xxx sites is by legislating it, and it's impossible to have a legislative solution that works, because people's definitions of porn vary. So porn will always be a presence on the internet, and you are still responsible for your own filtering.

Re:Why not?

[stratjakt]

You cant force objectionable material onto a certain domain, because when it comes to define what porn is, nobody seems to know.

You could make it optional, it'd then serve as nothing more than a sort of marketing gimmick for porn sites. I don't see what the problem is there.

Re:Why not?

[eln]

You're trying to segregate objectionable content so you can block it. This just can't work, because everyone's definition of "objectionable" is different. If we decide to do this to porn, what's next? A special TLD for violent content? Or maybe politically objectionable/inconvenient content?

The only possibly sane way to do this would be to have something like a .kids TLD, and then have kid-friendly sites voluntarily join it. Then you could make a "kid-friendly" browser by allowing access only to stuff in the .kids TLD. Of course, that would mean someone would have to constantly monitor sites on that TLD to make sure no objectionable content shows up. So, that's not really a perfect solution either.

The bottom line is really that you're trying to mandate a subjective standard through technology, and that sort of thing just doesn't work. You can get rid of the obvious stuff with existing filtering technology, but at the end of the day you still have to actually watch your kids if you want to make sure they stay away from stuff you find objectionable.

Re:Why not?

[Penguinisto]

"I know it when I see it"
-US Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter, defining obscenity (IIRC)

Therein lies the problem - what's porn? Nekkid chicks? Nope - half the Smithsonian's art collection would qualify. Is it nekkid people doing the nasty? Umm, nope - plenty of porn sites specialize in costumes and full rubber body suits. Sexual depiction? Well, there goes every health site which does 2d and 3d clinical cut-away renderings showing how human reproduction occurs.

Also - let's look at a state like Utah... the place is hella restrictive on what it considers "porn"; I could see the Utah state legislature mandating that ALL ISP's who do business there block the entire .xxx TLD from its citizenry. Adults, kids, whomever... everybody looking for pr0n gets the firewall in the land of Deseret. I suspect that more than a few counties and towns/cities/etc in the Southern US would happily pass similar laws (see also alcohol and "Wet Counties" vs. "Dry Counties") Care to be a multi-state or multi-national ISP having to add that selective and patchwork firewall burden to your list of things to do?

Just looks to be more trouble than it's worth on a macro scale, IMHO.

/P

Re:Why not?

[vivaoporto]

If we did, we could lump all the porn sites together, making them both easier to find and easier to block.

1) Will it be voluntary or mandatory? If it is voluntary, it will not work on principle, because every porn operator out there knows that the so called "blocks" will not be implemented only for children, but for everyone that is under anti-porn zealots internet jurisdiction, even who wouldn't mind to access this kind of content. Just see what happens now, the whole bias the media already has (both ways, liberal and conservative). Imagine it being imposed ISP level too, if you have no choice of ISP and the owner is against porn, he can simply impose his view. Now, if it is mandatory, it could work, but ...

2) How will you define porn? Is it sensual posing? Partial nudity? Full frontal nudity? Simulated sexual intercourse (softcore)? Pixelated sexual intercourse? Uncensored sexual intercourse? Is it only for pictures? Movies? Radio podcasts? Will it include foreign porn? Are written stories going to be censored? If so, only the online version or the good old printed book too? How will the foreign ones be translated? And, the most important question: Who will define porn? Who will catalog every internet content and create the blacklist and the whitelist? Who decides what is an acceptable expression of art and what is filthy debauchery?

People have to understand that you cannot both regulate artistic expressions (whatever kind it is) and have free speech at the same time. The judge that stroke down the COPA understood that you cannot deprive the whole society of its liberties in order to protect the children, specially because they will grow and become adults someday, and they will be entitled to those freedoms too, unless we take it away from them. If you are concerned about your children browsing habits, there are already software available out there. There is no reason to legislate everybody to suit to your personal needs.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we also have the right to *force* other types of speech into specific domains? Should political speech also be listed under .politics domains so people don't have to be offended by political speech they don't like? Should sites with too many cuss words be forced into .obscene domains?

This is a slippery slope. Once we start forcing one type of speech into a place where it can easily be filtered we then allow all types to fall into that mold. And who decides what is porn or what is art? Who decides what is obscene or not? Hopefully not ICANN or some other bureaucracy. I don't feel that I have the right to tell someone else what they can or can not look at or read nor do I feel that I have the right to classify certain types of speech so that they can be more easily filtered. I do not comprehend why others feel the opposite.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

I run porn sites and mandatory .xxx would put me out of business. I own about one hundred domains but I'm relatively small tomatoes in the adult industry (most of those sites have a small amount of traffic and I bring in under $5k / month gross - just enough to feed myself and my family). All of my domains cost $10 / year. So it's safe to say I spend around $1,000 on domains / year. If I were forced to switch to .xxx not only would it be next to impossible for me to register the equivalent domain for every single .com and .net that I own (because of the competition), but even if I could get all of them switched to .xxx it would raise my costs to $6,000 / year because the .xxx will cost around $60 / year. That's 12% of my gross revenue.

This is forced censorship. Not choice. It would put a lot of people like me out of business (assuming we are REQUIRED to switch to .xxx).

Re:Why not?

[ArcherB]

Therein lies the problem - what's porn? Nekkid chicks? Nope - half the Smithsonian's art collection would qualify. Is it nekkid people doing the nasty? Umm, nope - plenty of porn sites specialize in costumes and full rubber body suits. Sexual depiction? Well, there goes every health site which does 2d and 3d clinical cut-away renderings showing how human reproduction occurs.

Difficult to define or enforce should not be a reason to avoid a law. What constitutes murder vs. manslaughter vs self defense? What is the difference between libel and parody? Should we ban all laws where the crime is not plainly defined? As for porn, it could be as simple as nudity for non-educational purposes. This would exclude "art", anatomy or whatever else people are afraid of being banned. Telling the difference between porn and art is not really that difficult but may be difficult to define. Phil-flash.com is porn as far as I can tell, but there is no nudity there. That site may get the slip and stay with its .com name. So yeah, there is a gray area, but that can be worked out without too much grief.

Also - let's look at a state like Utah... the place is hella restrictive on what it considers "porn"; I could see the Utah state legislature mandating that ALL ISP's who do business there block the entire .xxx TLD from its citizenry. Adults, kids, whomever... everybody looking for pr0n gets the firewall in the land of Deseret. I suspect that more than a few counties and towns/cities/etc in the Southern US would happily pass similar laws (see also alcohol and "Wet Counties" vs. "Dry Counties") Care to be a multi-state or multi-national ISP having to add that selective and patchwork firewall burden to your list of things to do?

If that's what the good citizens of Utah want, then that is what they should be allowed to have. (This is why I don't live in Utah, btw!) As for the national ISP's that do business in Utah, I'm sure they have DNS servers set up locally in Utah. If not, it really isn't that big of deal to set them up. Otherwise, don't do business in Utah. What's the problem here? Hell, it would actually make it easier to do business in Utah as it would be easier to block the content that the legislature requires.

Just looks to be more trouble than it's worth on a macro scale, IMHO.
I agree that it is not perfect and there will be some valid complaints. Personally, I like my porn and I'm tired of people saying it's harmful to children and trying to restrict or eliminate it using that argument. Take away that argument and you take away the primary excuse for restrictions. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it!

Re:Why not?

[mackil]

Actually a legitimate company wouldn't have to purchase the .xxx domain as long as they have the trademark. All they have to do is sue.

Re:Why not?

[rrohbeck]

> I could see the Utah state legislature mandating that ALL ISP's who do business there block the entire .xxx TLD from its citizenry.

Now what I'm wondering is how Utah is going to force all pr0n sites to change their domain name (and give up their old DNS name.) Especially the many sites outside the US. And let alone the many sites that have tame and XXX sections, and much in between. Like blogs, pic sites etc.

Just making pr0n sites register a .xxx DNS name is going to change nothing at all. Making pr0n content (whatever that may be) in non-xxx domains illegal, that's what it's all about.

Re:Why not?

[mdwh2]

Difficult to define or enforce should not be a reason to avoid a law. What constitutes murder vs. manslaughter vs self defense? What is the difference between libel and parody?

Yes but going through a criminal trial to assess every website is not practical.

And it's not clear how to handle the Internet being international - I suppose servers are still in one country, but it becomes difficult if every country has different requirements.

Personally, I like my porn and I'm tired of people saying it's harmful to children and trying to restrict or eliminate it using that argument. Take away that argument and you take away the primary excuse for restrictions. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it!

Well yes I agree with you here, but I'm tempted to go for a more broader "for adults / no children", so it doesn't have the same connotations of being just porn.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

who decides what constitutes porn?

Who decides now?

What guarantees porn sites will move?

The Law.

we're just going to get a bunch of assholes arguing about what is and isn't pornographical.

You mean, it'll be the same as it is now?

Re:Why not?

[Khaed]

What guarantees porn sites will move?

The Law.

What law? American Law? European? Chinese? The United Nations?

Re:Why not?

[geekoid]

"Should we ban all laws where the crime is not plainly defined? "
yes.

"As for porn, it could be as simple as nudity for non-educational purposes. "

no igt doesn't. SOme people might get off an a statue of David. Now it's porn? some people might just enjoy lokoing at it without any 'educational' value. Now it's porn?

So a picture of a women on a topless beach is now porn?
I culd go on and on with examples that wuold cause this to fail.

"If that's what the good citizens of Utah want, then that is what they should be allowed to have."

That would be nice, except the church does what it wants, citizens be damned.

?"I like my porn and I'm tired of people saying it's harmful to children "

early exposure to view sexual acts at too young an age does cause problems. It is well known, many studies have been done. No we shouldn't ban it, but lets be hionest here, m'kay?

Of course, how to you enforce this rule? If there was a practicle way to enforce this rule, then there would be a practicle way to block porn now. That is how the internet was intended and designed.

The internet is not a bunch of computer hooked to some grand central ISP.

There is no practicle solution. IF thre were a solution that allowed individual house holds to easily block porn, that would be great, but there isn't. So people are going to ned to wise up and relize two things:

1) Take steps to control your computer. There won't ba a one solution solves everything answer

2) RElize that your going to see some skin once and a while, deall with it.

Personally, I hope the internet helps the world get to a place where people aren't all nuts about about some boobies.

Re:Why not?

[Penguinisto]

"What constitutes murder vs. manslaughter vs self defense?"

Intent, as proven or disproven before a jury at trial. If the prosecutor screws up and mis-names it, he loses.

"What is the difference between libel and parody?"

Intent, as proven or disproven in civil tort at a lawsuit.

Notice the similarities? The examples you posted as per law require either a trial or lawsuit to hammer out. You, umm, really want to have that happen on a case-by-case basis with (at level best) tens of thousands out of a porn-site ownership pool numbering in the millions, if not tens of millions?

Notice the differences? The examples you posted involve action against individuals or highly definable entities for the most part (you sue a single entity for libel, you try a single person or at most a small group of persons for murder vs. manslaughter).

"As for porn, it could be as simple as nudity for non-educational purposes."

I have a coffee table book at home, called "Fille d' Joie: A History" (IIRC - I'd have to check @ home for the exact title). It contains a rich collection of stories, illustrations, photographs, personal accounts, insights, artifact images, and historical data - from prostitutes, madames, pimps, and historians throughout time. Many of the images in there are rather graphic, and there are probably more than a few sites who would dearly love to make money from displaying most of it - sites which feature pornography from a time when most folks' grandfathers probably spanked their collective monkey to 'em.

I bought it at the local bookstore, where it sat plain as day, for anyone with the funds and the means to carry it to the checkout stand. As a book, it's apparently just fine for sale in the Historical section where I found it. Online, it would likely get slapped with an ".xxx" TLD. It is after all educational, if one actually reads it. OTOH, anyone dying to get their jollies can prolly just flip through the pictures.

"Otherwise, don't do business in Utah. What's the problem here?"

So everyone there will automatically have the means to simply pack up and leave, right? (FWIW, I'd moved out of there a period of time ago). It's very similar to the anti-smoking laws that are soon to hit the state... easy enough to say "well if you want to smoke in a bar, do it in Nevada, or Wyoming, or just move elsewhere..." but for folks not able to simply do so, that's an awful big burden to place on them. I realize that we're just talking ab't pr0n here, but what happens when the subject gets more serious (e.g. anti-smoking laws getting too intrusive, etc)?

Sure, big ISP's will have local DNS servers in place (but not necessarily per-state). Now they would have to have one per state, or per county or town (in the case of selective county or municipality laws to such an effect, etc)... Do we get to the point where every single IP address user has it's own personal DNS server, and has to to correspond to a physical area just to comply? If so, we'll have to stock up on IPv6, 'cause IPv4 numbers will start getting tight much sooner than anticipated.

I'm just weighing the benefits vs. burdens, and apparently the burdens win out by a large margin IMHO.

/P

Re:Why not?

[Un pobre guey]

You are making a classic mistake, the rational analysis of the benefits and liabilities to average citizens of a fundamentally political question, as well as the practicalities of actually making it work. This has nothing to do with whether this or that is better for society or for children, or whether pornographers will benefit or lose from it (porn will continue its current dynamics regardless), or who will decide what is porn and what is not (good luck to the poor bastards). It is a pure distillation of political bullshit, an equation which has more to do with maintaining the flow of political contributions and winning future elections than anything else. If you apply your rational analysis to that, you will get somewhere.

I suspect ICANN will once again nip it in the bud because politicians will merely shout hysterically and lecture piously and pass the hot potato on to someone else. ICANN does not even want to start figuring out the things you mention, and it is unclear who would. Therefore, bam! goes the gavel again: rejected!

Re:Why not?

[Tim C]

I fail to understand why we DON'T have .xxx domain names. If we did, we could lump all the porn sites together, making them both easier to find and easier to block.

All of them? Even the ones that aren't hosted in the US and don't use one of the international tlds? In short, what makes you think that anyone in any country other than the US is going to take a blind bit of notice of the .xxx domain?

The way I see it, it's a large amount of effort for little or no real benefit; the only ones who would benefit would be the registrars and the companies set up to monitor it all.

Re:Why not?

[fredklein]

Thus the porn sites will now have 2 addresses: [pornsitehere].com and [pornsitehere].xxx.

And the .com will redirect to .xxx. At which point it would be blocked by those who block .xxx sites.

What's the problem?

the bad rap that, say, Microsoft would get from microsoft.xxx being a porn site.

Image the lawsuit for using their name without their permission.

Re:Why not?

[ArcherB]

Yes but going through a criminal trial to assess every website is not practical.

And it's not clear how to handle the Internet being international - I suppose servers are still in one country, but it becomes difficult if every country has different requirements.

Actually, wouldn't ICANN (or whoever is in charge of domain names) handle this? I don't see why you need to get the courts involved unless Phil Flash wants his stuff declared as art as opposed to porn and sues to keep his .com name since there's really no actual nudity on his site (as far as I know anyway. I don't pay for porn...especially when it may not even be porn!). I think he'd have a good case.

Well yes I agree with you here, but I'm tempted to go for a more broader "for adults / no children", so it doesn't have the same connotations of being just porn.

I agree that would be much better. If we could just have porn admins use proper tagging, this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way that this could be enforced. I would certainly agree to a .adult tag as opposed to a .xxx one, but I don't see how this would not expand the debate we're currently seeing .xxx!

Re:Why not?

[fyngyrz]

So who decides what goes in the .xxx domain?

<SARCASM>

.xxx is for offensive material. Filth. Vice. You know, like Christian and Islamic websites. Surely we need to protect the children from this. They might grow up to be suicide bombers or abortion clinic bombers; get on television and lie to old people in a blatant attempt to extort money from them in return for "prayer." Or they might build on land in your town, claim they don't have to pay taxes, and saddle you and your neighbors with the portion of the tax burden they should be paying. Or they might encourage censorship, even online "ghettos" where material that doesn't fit into their ridiculous mythologies goes to be blocked by ISPs they control through PACs and other unsavory influences.

Yes, I think we need to move all religious content to a tld such as ".xxx" or ".lie" or ".myth" so we can easily block it. As for sex, no need for that. My kids know sex is perfectly OK, and lying about superstition is not — they're smart kids. No need to lean back towards the dark ages. I was happy for them when they had their first sexual experiences. I'm just as happy they've managed to avoid being conned by these superstitious dimwits, but you know, not all kids are as smart as mine. That is why we have to put religion in its own tld. It must be blocked because I don't like it!

</SARCASM>

Re:Why not?

[vakuona]

Capitalism does not guarantee anyone's right to make a profit.

There are way that could be examined to transfer domains without people incurring the expenses. This is a red herring. If I was a parent, I would like a way to regulate what my young kids come across online until they are old enough to make understand some of these things. I don't know why .xxx is so difficult. It could actually make it easier to target the market for pr0n, and make it easier for those who want to block it as well.

This can be win win.

Re:Why not?

[powerpants]

I never realized until now that the name "Microsoft" is so very anti-sexy. That assumes, of course, that "Hugehard" is sexy. I think I got e-mail a while back saying something to that effect.

Re:Why not?

[FritzTheCat1030]

I suspect ICANN will once again nip it in the bud because politicians will merely shout hysterically and lecture piously and pass the hot potato on to someone else. ICANN does not even want to start figuring out the things you mention, and it is unclear who would. Therefore, bam! goes the gavel again: rejected!

And the domain registrars, who are the ones pushing this because it would be a big cash cow for them, will just submit it again.

It will get rejected again, and they'll submit it again.

And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.

They only have to manage to get it approved ONCE and, sooner or later, they will.

Re:Why not?

[neonmonk]

Why not have .POL for political sites too!? So that countries could block that as well. This is basically sneaky censorship with a typical 'thinkofthechildren' twist to it. Once these people get their way and start segmenting the internet into little chunks of what they think is right and wrong is when the internet will stop being such a bastion for free speech.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope posting AC doesn't invalidate the mod I just did on my post.

I would just like to congratulate you... This has got to be one of the most insightful and intelligent posts I've seen on /. in a long time, if ever.

+1 Insightful.

Re:Why not?

[drsmithy]

So who decides what goes in the .xxx domain? Who decides what is porn?

The person registering the domain.

"Let's have a .xxx TLD for pornography" and "let's force every pornographic website to use a .xxx TLD" are two very different - and very separate - arguments.

Re:Why not?

[Joebert]

The reason it's being fought against is simple.
If it's blantently labeled, nobody has an excuse to be looking at it when they get caught.

Re:Why not?

[Joebert]

So who decides what goes in the .xxx domain? Who decides what is porn?

Well, if we quit sitting here with our thumbs in our asses talking about it, WE do.

If it has an concentrated level of nerve endings in it, & you can see it, it's porn.

Re:Why not?

[fyngyrz]

All all those filthy ".com" sites, too. Damned capitalists.

Re:Why not?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I fail to understand why we DON'T have .xxx domain names.

That's because you failed to read RFC 3675.

Re:Why not?

[Kris_J]

That's just like daylight savings here in Western Australia (which, thankfully, ends tonight).

Re:Why not?

[Kjella]

You're trying to segregate objectionable content so you can block it. This just can't work, because everyone's definition of "objectionable" is different.

Yes, but the definition of illegal isn't. If you have a law that says something to the effect of "it's illegal to give pornography to a minor" there must be some sort of definition, or at least a helluva lot of precedent. Which magazines can a minor buy? What exhibitions can he go to? What cinema pictures can he go to? What videos can he rent/buy? Even if they only used the most liberal standard in Europe, they'd box in quite a lot of undisputably hardcore pornography. Then again, I think kids will know five other ways to get to XXX material if they wanted to...

Re:Why not?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Apparently you've never watched surgery on TV. Hint: It's not on the Playboy channel.

Re:Why not?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

The only possibly sane way to do this would be to have something like a .kids TLD

Good grief, no. Use PICS.

(See also: RFC 3675)

Re:Why not?

[ArcherB]

"Should we ban all laws where the crime is not plainly defined? "
yes.

Uh, like rape (vs. rough sex), murder (vs self defense), parody (vs libel or slander), driving while intoxicated (drugs, not alcohol) and the list goes on. So, you are saying we should repeal all these laws because they are subjective? Subjective laws are not a bad laws. They allow for common sense.

"As for porn, it could be as simple as nudity for non-educational purposes. "
no igt doesn't. SOme people might get off an a statue of David. Now it's porn? some people might just enjoy lokoing at it without any 'educational' value. Now it's porn?

Come on now. Are you telling me that you don't know the difference between the statue of David and Ron Jeremy? You can't tell the difference between The Mona Lisa and Jenna Jameson? Someone getting their rox off on it doesn't make it porn. Someone making something with the intent of getting people's rox off is porn. See the difference? National Geographic: not porn. Sears and Roebuck: not porn. Penisbot.com: Porn. It's not that hard to figure out. Maybe a five member porn board could check sites out that are challenging their porn status and make the decision there. See, I'm a mental midget and I can figure it out. I'm sure the geniuses at ICANN can do it too!

early exposure to view sexual acts at too young an age does cause problems. It is well known, many studies have been done. No we shouldn't ban it, but lets be hionest here, m'kay?
Well, that's for me decide what is healthy for my kids. If you want your little girl seeing some chick get bukaked while a guy rams it up her ass, that's your business. Something tells me that the majority of the parents are with me and would like a little help managing it. I'm not saying that anything at all should be blocked, just categorized so it's easier for parents who don't know how to set up IPTables and Squid stand a chance at controlling what goes on with their home networks while the are at work, or grocery store, or in the shower, or on the crapper or wherever else they may be when they are not watching their kids like hawks.

Of course, how to you enforce this rule? If there was a practicle way to enforce this rule, then there would be a practicle way to block porn now. That is how the internet was intended and designed.
Simple. ICANN controls domain names. If you display porn, you must have a .xxx domain name. ICANN controls and enforces it. ICANN can enforce domain names, that is what they do. ICANN can not control what goes on websites (like porn sites must have pr0n in the header or something), but they can sure as hell control who gets what domain names. That is what this whole debate is about. Again, no one is trying to say what can go on these sites. Please stop straw-manning this into a censorship arguments.

The internet is not a bunch of computer hooked to some grand central ISP.
No, but there is a grand central authority that controls domain names, which is what we are talking about here.

There is no practicle solution. IF thre were a solution that allowed individual house holds to easily block porn, that would be great, but there isn't.
THIS is a practical solution. THIS allows individual households to easily block porn. And since you say that this would be great, why are you arguing?

So people are going to ned to wise up and relize two things:

1) Take steps to control your computer. There won't ba a one solution solves everything answer
This helps with that. Of course this is not the end-all-be-all solution. There's still newsgroups, email, IRC, torrents and so on that this will not block.

2) RElize that your going to see some skin once and a while, deal with it.
I realize that people are going to get murdered and women are going to be raped. Does that mean I should oppose laws against it?

Personally, I hope the internet helps the world get to

Re:Why not?

[Joebert]

Surgery being x-rated, imagine that.

Re:Why not?

[OakLEE]

"I know it when I see it"

-US Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter, defining obscenity (IIRC) FYI, it was Justice Potter Stewart. Source.

Re:Why not?

[tm2b]

Yes, but the definition of illegal isn't. [...] Even if they only used the most liberal standard in Europe, they'd box in quite a lot of undisputably hardcore pornography.

But that's one of the big problems, isn't it? The Arab countries, for example, have no use for this distinction, and would want their own standand. Meanwhile, the Netherlands and Poland are likely to have different standards as well.

Time after time, history has shown that classification is the first step to regulation: witness the ESRB ratings that were supposed to be advisory only, and legislators now wishing to hand the power to ban sales in "family" establishments to this private group.

So far, the maxim that the net "recognizes censorship as damage, and routes around it" has been true, but I for one would like to not have this tested too much.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the domain of your ISP or the Government to block these materials from getting into your house. It is you the user. More end-users need to have some brains and understand the technology a little better even my crappy home router can block websites based on wildcards and I know IE can block websites based on wildcards such as *.xxx and I can imagine that Firefox must have a plugin that does the same thing.

And to get on topic... I think they should have made a .xxx domain YEARS ago. Only reason they havent is because I assume theres a bunch of influential people who decide porn is bad just like a Church. And yet they allow people to register sex.com, a wide array of sites with bdsm in their name and other similar things. I dont get it. It just does not make sense.

Re:Why not?

[Kadin2048]

They're two sides of the same coin; many of the people pushing for .xxx as a TLD are in favor of schemes which could only work if all pornography occurred there. In fact, many of the justifications they use for creating the TLD in the first place (e.g. "protect children") are meaningless if you can't somehow magically put all the porn there.

If you accept that it's impossible to restrict porn to .xxx, and further realize that most porn sites will just register two domain names, one in .xxx and one in a regular TLD, then many of the reasons cited for having an "adult" TLD fall apart. At that point, the only people it benefits are the registrars and ICANN, because it would force a massive namespace land grab: everyone would need to get their existing names in .xxx, either to use themselves or just to keep someone else from getting and using. (You think Disney isn't going to buy disney.xxx just to keep it out of circulation?)

There's no point in just creating an .xxx TLD for the sake of having a new TLD. It wouldn't do anything to assist in censorship for folks who don't want to see porn; it wouldn't 'protect' anyone; and it wouldn't make the internet 'cleaner.' It would just make ICANN and Verisign a few billion bucks each.

Re:Why not?

[TheDormouse]

If it is voluntary, it will not work on principle, because every porn operator out there knows that the so called "blocks" will not be implemented only for children, but for everyone that is under anti-porn zealots internet jurisdiction, even who wouldn't mind to access this kind of content.

All you'd have to do is use someone else's DNS servers, right? Big deal.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism does not guarantee anyone's right to make a profit.

The government forcing him to change domain names is not capitalism.

Re:Why not?

[arkhan_jg]

You know, as a European, I'd actually agree with your argument without the tags... Sex is a perfectly normal thing, and children wanting to learn more about it is also perfectly natural. Statistically, societies with much higher controls on pornography (and the repressive attitude that goes with it) also have much higher rates of teenage pregnancy, as boys work much harder to actually have sex instead of wanking to porn.

Organised religion on the other hand, is responsible for inciting many of the past - and current - wars and atrocities. Iraq can oh so easily be classified as a religious war, just look at the portrayal of muslims in the US press. There really is a good an argument for filing religous websites away on a separate section we can easily filter - as much as there is for filing away sexual websites, anyway.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Difficult to define or enforce should not be a reason to avoid a law. What constitutes murder vs. manslaughter vs self defense?

That's totally different. In any of those cases, visible and obvious harm has been done - someone is dead - and the subtleties are merely a case of determining how far culpable the killer was.

The case of deciding whether a site is porn or not is much more difficult, because it becomes a question of determining whether there is potential that harm might be done if you accept a contentious theory that children's lives are somehow blighted by the sight of nipples. (Unless it's their own nipples. Or their mother's, before they're weaned.)

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a red herring. If I was a parent, I would like a way to regulate what my young kids come across online until they are old enough to make understand some of these things.

This is a red herring. There are dozens of such things available already, from this old-fashioned thing called "parenting" where you actually supervise your kids when they do things you consider dangerous, right through to genuinely capitalist solutions like porn blocking software.

All the responsible porn sites, the ones that would obey an order to switch to .xxx, already cooperate with the makers of porn blockers to ensure that their sites are closed off to people who have taken basic measures to avoid reaching them. So, the problem is ALREADY SOLVED, and introducng the massive can of worms that is .xxx would do nothing to make the internet safer.

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a "win-win" because implementing this requires extensive monitoring and will eventually cause the loss of freedom of information on the Internet. Oh and BTW, why are we having this discussion? Sex isn't the devil, porn directors and actors aren't Satan's disciples or "immoral" people. I don't see a TLD proposed for all those violent sites where you can see footage of people getting murdered as if it's entertainment... Indeed, it's this shit that really causes damage to the world-view of children! Or what's next a TLD for Islamic sites, so you could "lump together" all the "terrorist" sites?

So really, there's no solution to this problem. It's like wanting to regulate what people can talk to each other about. And anyway it's better to filter this kind of content on proxy/browser level, because actually implementing it would require an instance to scan the Internet for 'offenders'. And yeah and BTW who will decide what's porn? *Sigh* there's so much wrong with this proposition, technically and morally, it makes me wonder why it even being brought up, again and again. How many times does this idea have to be rejected before it's finally thrown into the bin? Oh yeah, I get it...

Re:Why not?

[thogard]

The solution is to issue everyone that as a .com the same .xxx and tell them that they have 30 days to decided which one to use but owning one locks out the other. If porn is found a .com after 60 days, then both domains are de-registered. You define porn as what is defined that way in the country of the hosting.

Re:Why not?

[Hao Wu]

It really is the stupidest statement ever made by a court.

It is exactly the opposite of what laws are meant to do- ie. spell out in detail: what is allowed, and what isn't.

Re:Why not?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Being x-rated (i.e. not rated) is not equivalent to being pornographic.

Re:Why not?

[Joebert]

So why is it called XXX ?
Is that not Tripple x-rated ?

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who decides what is an acceptable expression of art and what is filthy debauchery?"

The Courts do mainly, since it's so difficult to strictly define indecency. But judges in common law countries are expected to reflect public opinion, which is driven by hysterical drivel, crazy born again Christians, militant feminist social workers left over from the 1980s hungry for an issue to ride, and media who will beat up on ANYTHING to get some sensational stories.

The exception is child pr0n, which apparently HAS been tightly defined by defining it as potentially almost *any* image of a child that is vaguely physical or revealing, even clothed. Your family snaps may well be illegal and put you at risk of ending up on a SO website with a electronic bracelet around your ankle and the odd brick flying though the window.

The world has gone nuts.

Re:Why not?

[catmistake]

I agree... but at the same time... porn is so prevalent on the internet and usenet... I'd estimate that at least half to 75% of data transferred on the internet is porn.

Why the fuck don't they just get their own dedicated network? The Pornonet! Instead of just .xxx, they'd have .sex, .pov, .amr, .anl, .gog, .tit, .blk, .gzo, .pie, .tee, .gay, .orl, .mlf, .bi, .bln, .cum, .deb, .dom, .lez, .nat, .pee, etc.

Re:Why not?

[KDR_11k]

Well, without sex there would be no war...

Re:Why not?

[KDR_11k]

We've got so many redundant or ignored TLDs already (e.g. .us), one more can't hurt.

Re:Why not?

[Kadin2048]

We've got so many redundant or ignored TLDs already (e.g. .us), one more can't hurt.

All the TLDs we have now, exist for some sort of purpose. Granted, some of them are arguably underutilized, but they all were made for a reason.

A .xxx TLD wouldn't have any good, compelling reason for existence.

We shouldn't make TLD's just because "one more can't hurt" and we want to appease a bunch of idiots -- that's stupid. It just opens the floodgates for any number of stupid ideas and resulting TLDs.

We need to have a higher standard than 'eh, whatever ... what's one more?' before making a new TLD.

Re:Why not?

[bryan1945]

"Because nobody will want only a .xxx domain."

What about the movie XXX? It could have XXX.xxx! And besides, it sucked about as much as any porn I've ever seen.

IFOR?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that just leading to IFORNICATE?

they're not that different.

[User 956]

Once more the proposal has led to pornographers and religious groups finding themselves on the same side of an issue

Yeah, they both use the phrase "oh god, oh god" on a daily basis.

Re:they're not that different.

[geekoid]

As well as get down on their knees.

The similarities end there. After that religeon gets gross.

Re:they're not that different.

[Anonymous Coward]

that's the best post on ./ I've ever read!
Here in Italy the church and the gay spokemans are attacking each others on daily basis about basic civil rights a couple may have.
The more goes on the more I think is a battle between two different gay communities!

It would make it easy..

[Cstryon]

To avoid porn. I hate going to a .com and getting porn, all the time. A simple google search for Virginia will get you porn, all you have to do is make a typo. But with a .xxx it will make it easier to know which links NOT to click on.

Re:It would make it easy..

[Penguinisto]

But with a .xxx it will make it easier to know which links NOT to click on.

...so would checking the summary blurbs on Google's results for phrases like "the home of hot wet teen girl-on-girl action!", one would suppose...

/P

I'll tell you why not.

[uberjoe]

The problem is that there is no way to define what IS and IS NOT porn.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[ArcherB]

The problem is that there is no way to define what IS and IS NOT porn.

I think it's a bit easier than "I'll know it when I see it."

How about "if it shows nudity for non-educational purposes." If there's any doubt, you could set up a board or something to decide disputes. It's really not that hard to figure out. (pun not intended!) Ron Jeremy movies were not rated G for a reason.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[bobcat7677]

Thats why standards were invented. There will of course have to be some sort of rules created to define what constitutes porn. Hopefully standards that are very rigid and simple to cut down on the bickering. No "full nudity is ok if it somehow falls in the domain of "art". As much as I see an arguement for that, it's too easy to just call it all "art" and then the whole thing is useless. Nay, it has to be very simple...like "if the nipple or any identifyable portion thereof is shown in any form and any context, then it needs to go .xxx". Sure lots of people will complain about that...but that is the only way it can be clear, workable and enforacable.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[mrchaotica]

How about "if it shows nudity for non-educational purposes."

Is a family photo album site, which happens to contain pictures of a kid taking a bath, "educational?" Is artistic photography "educational?" I'd say "no" and "no." But neither of them are "porn," either!

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[QuantumRiff]

So, for sake of argument, lets say I setup a site with Girls in business suits but no shoes stomping on grapes. That is the subject of the entire site. Its just barefoot ladies, so it shouldn't be porn, right? What if its setup and marketed as a "fetish" site, does that make it porn? What if I also own a winery, and want to use the same site full of pictures for my .com, and .xxx, would this be allowed?

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[mdwh2]

How about "if it shows nudity for non-educational purposes."

What about non-nude pictures which have still been intended for sexual arousal? This is especially the case with less-vanilla stuff like BDSM material. And whilst you and I might count that as erotica rather than pornography, bear in mind that many people and Governments do not (e.g., the UK Government's definition of pornography in their plans to criminalise possession of simulated and consensual "extreme porn" is any image which was produced for the purposes of arousal, whether or not it shows nudity or sex).

On the other hand, there could be nude pictures which aren't porn, but aren't educational either. I mean, would a topless woman count? Breastfeeding? What about nudists?

Another problem, even if we have a fixed definition of porn, is that it's not easily to split everything up into different websites. For example, what if someone wants to post an erotic picture on their LiveJournal? Suddenly we'd have to have LiveJournal.xxx, and split it across two domains.

Personally I think rather than trying to split off "porn", it would be better to split off a "for kiddies [and anyone offended by stuff they don't have to look at] only" domain, leaving an "adult" Internet for the rest of us.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[ArcherB]

Is a family photo album site, which happens to contain pictures of a kid taking a bath, "educational?" Is artistic photography "educational?" I'd say "no" and "no." But neither of them are "porn," either!

Current laws define what porn is and yeah, it's subjective. Photo processing labs all over the country deal with this every day. Sometimes people get stupid and call the cops over a baby in the bathtub picture. Sometimes, people get stupid and take a picture of their child in the bathtub when the "child" is 12! So yeah, some of these are going to have to be handled on a case-by-case basis. And yes, those deciding will have to use common sense because it is subjective. Then again, so are murder laws and many other laws on the books. Are you suggesting that we throw out all laws that are not pure black and white? A baby in a bathtub is not porn. It lacks class in my opinion, but I wouldn't call it porn. Sites like Crush-photo, Met-Art, and even Playboy are done artistically, but I think they easily qualify as porn. I don't think you would find too many that would argue with that and deciding what is porn and what is not is not really that hard to do.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[jhfry]

Simply require sites that are in the business of "sexual entertainment". Sure some porn sites would argue that they are educational, but I think that most would agree that it's pretty easy to determine motive.

Sites that use pornographic ads, must simply host those ads on a .xxx domain, so that they can be easily blocked from loading.

This is not a true fix, there are always loopholes, however it provides a way for a legit porn site to operate their business without fear of upsetting a group of wackos that complain about stumbling into pornadoes (love that word). If the sites are on .xxx the group can't accidentally stumble into them. Especially because browsers could easily block them.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Joe U]

like "if the nipple or any identifyable portion thereof is shown in any form and any context, then it needs to go .xxx".

Great, your task is to explain that rule to http://www.lalecheleague.org/ .

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[daeg]

There's no reason for a .xxx TLD. If you are worried about your kids seeing porn, maybe you should examine your parenting, or why your children have unsupervised access to computers to begin with, or perhaps, you should learn to trust and let go. If you can't trust them, examine why.

Do not thrust your desire for someone else to do your baby sitting and force the creation of even more bureaucracy around the domain system, that, by definition, cannot work. Porn is on the Internet, you cannot regulate it away, no matter how hard you try.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[ArcherB]

What about non-nude pictures which have still been intended for sexual arousal? This is especially the case with less-vanilla stuff like BDSM material. And whilst you and I might count that as erotica rather than pornography, bear in mind that many people and Governments do not (e.g., the UK Government's definition of pornography in their plans to criminalise possession of simulated and consensual "extreme porn" is any image which was produced for the purposes of arousal, whether or not it shows nudity or sex).
Tough call, but there are porn laws on the books now. I don't see why ICANN just adopt some of the currently existing laws and use those. I get your point but I think something like foot-fetish sites would serve as a better example. It will be subjective, no doubt, but it is certainly doable.

On the other hand, there could be nude pictures which aren't porn, but aren't educational either. I mean, would a topless woman count? Breastfeeding? What about nudists?
Yes, probably no and yes.

Another problem, even if we have a fixed definition of porn, is that it's not easily to split everything up into different websites. For example, what if someone wants to post an erotic picture on their LiveJournal? Suddenly we'd have to have LiveJournal.xxx, and split it across two domains.
What about national geographic, Victoria's Secret or Sears & Roebuck's bra and panty section? I agree, it's subjective and some will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

Personally I think rather than trying to split off "porn", it would be better to split off a "for kiddies [and anyone offended by stuff they don't have to look at] only" domain, leaving an "adult" Internet for the rest of us.
Good point, but that's like doing away with traffic laws altogether except for "old people driving" lanes that are padded surrounded by blockades and have a speed-limit of 20!

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[fyngyrz]

Yeah, and the men's swimming sites as well. Nipples a-plenty. And sites that show animals suckling. Oh, and baby bottles. Yessir, nipples are bad! I never look at nipples, because I'm an honorable, upright citizen. Well, gotta go now, look at something healthy, like extremeviolence.com or shootinganimalsforheadtrophies.com, um-hmm. I can go with a clear concience, because I know it is a good thing that nasty, nasty SEX stuff will be in its own ghetto now! Man, that stuff is nasty. Did you know if you do it wrong, you can make a KID? Holy shit, you'll end up cleaning diapers, sending the little fucker to college, paying it a visit when it gets arrested for smoking pot. Phew. Sure am glad we're making a ghetto for sexuality, yes I am. Uh-huh. NASTY!

Now. Where's my gun?

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Arcane_Rhino]

Actually, I think this is one of the few areas where capitalism really could resolve the matter since websites have turned into something of a commodity.

If a someone wants to make money from porn, their site should be .xxx. So, to use an example from later in this post, if a website called "grape" is a site that depicts naked women doing odd things with grapes, it should be grape.xxx. If "grape" is about the Napa valley it should be grape.com.

Here is how the capitalism/self policing works out: if the Napa valley people want the site grape.com but grape.com is full of naked women doing odd things with grapes, they take their case to ICANN and sue for the site name demonstrating that it is a porn site and therefore should have the .xxx domain not the .com domain. Similarly, if farmer Joe discovers that people with foot fetishes drink a lot of wine so buys grape.xxx, but all it really depicts is a bunch of naked feet in grapes, the site that has the kinky grape women can also come and point out that naked feet are not pornography in any country where the internet is not already banned and sue to get grape.xxx for themselves. Other than arbitrating, the government does not have to directly police anything. The market will dictate and force the appropriate domains.

Initially it will be all hell as everything gets sorted out but I do think it would work out rather quickly, and, more importantly, not result in any nonsensical Governmental control attempts.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[mdwh2]

Here is how the capitalism/self policing works out: if the Napa valley people want the site grape.com but grape.com is full of naked women doing odd things with grapes, they take their case to ICANN and sue for the site name demonstrating that it is a porn site and therefore should have the .xxx domain not the .com domain. Similarly, if farmer Joe discovers that people with foot fetishes drink a lot of wine so buys grape.xxx, but all it really depicts is a bunch of naked feet in grapes, the site that has the kinky grape women can also come and point out that naked feet are not pornography in any country where the internet is not already banned and sue to get grape.xxx for themselves. Other than arbitrating, the government does not have to directly police anything. The market will dictate and force the appropriate domains.

I'm not sure how a single organisation making the decisions, or people suing, has anything to do with capitalism and the market?

Leaving it to the market would mean giving to the one who pays the most, and then allowing them to trade.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Cid Highwind]

Classifying any given email message as "spam" and "not spam" is fairly easy to do, too. Somehow I don't think that ICANN requiring all spam to be sent from mail servers in some newly-created .spam TLD would change anything at all to the stream of mortgage offers, penis pill ads, and stock scams that fill my inbox every day. My advice to the anti-porn crusaders^W^W .xxx TLD advocates: Have fun playing whack-a-mole with porn sites operated through the same type of tangled web of international ownership and hosting as spam and phishing sites. A decade of fighting with spammers teaches us that forcing a business that operates on the fringes of legality to comply with onerous new policies is very hard.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[heinousjay]

Hyperbole serves no master

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Randseed]

If a someone wants to make money from porn, their site should be .xxx. So, to use an example from later in this post, if a website called "grape" is a site that depicts naked women doing odd things with grapes, it should be grape.xxx. If "grape" is about the Napa valley it should be grape.com.

Of course, ICANN, InterNIC, and their ilk completely shot to hell the entire notion of separate TLDs for different kinds of sites when they started giving out random .com, .net, and .org addresses. As far as I'm concerned, these morons couldn't even figure out how to handle those three TLDs. What makes you think that they could handle an .xxx TLD?

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[drsmithy]

The problem is that there is no way to define what IS and IS NOT porn.

The person building the website (you know, the one who goes "I'd like to register penguinsex.xxx thanks") probably has a fairly good idea whether or not his site is pornographic.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[dryeo]

On the other hand, there could be nude pictures which aren't porn, but aren't educational either. I mean, would a topless woman count? Breastfeeding? What about nudists?
Yes, probably no and yes. And yet it quite legal for topless women to walk down the street (and you do see the odd one) in my country (Canada) and not unusual to see a women breast feeding.
At that in Canada we consider racism much worse then porn eg the famous super bowl with Janet's tit hanging out, the CRTC only got complaints about the beer commercial because it seemed racist.
Perhaps any racist site should have its own domain as well. And another for sites promoting hatred.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[dryeo]

So if I take a picture of downtown and there happens to be a topless women (or man) it is porn?
Some countries do believe in equal rights including the right for any one to take their top off and obviously someone walking down the street is not porn.
The problem is the USA has some strange ideas about what is porn and doesn't have equal rights or the right to free speech and wants to shove that down everyone else's throat.
(Most countries don't have free speech either, but at least they don't brag that they do)

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[fyngyrz]

Those without a racket master no serve.
Speaking tangentially, of course.
Would you care to cosign such an outlook?
Or have I thrown you a curve?

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[2short]

Right, so on a subjective, case by case basis, it's "doable" to go with with your personal prejudices. There are wildly varying porn laws on the books in different places, and they mostly don't work very well, and a lot of people don't think they are a great idea. Which ones do you think we should use, the ones from your hometown?

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Thats why standards were invented.

... like PICS. Of course, this has already been discussed in RFC 3675.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[ArcherB]

And yet it quite legal for topless women to walk down the street (and you do see the odd one) in my country (Canada) and not unusual to see a women breast feeding.

Well, I certainly wouldn't consider breast-feeding porn. Quite the opposite, actually. Nothing has turned me off of breasts faster than seeing a woman breastfeed. Not that it's gross or anything, but when you see something used for what nature intended, it kinda takes the thrill out of it!

But the first part of your argument is best I've read in this entire discussion. Deciding what is porn in the US is easy. Unfortunately, what we consider porn in the US is not considered porn in Germany, or Amsterdam, or Nigeria, or wherever else. So, who's standards do we use?

I don't have an answer for that except that maybe sites that end in .cn (is that correct for Canadian?), a Canadian board decides what domain name goes where. If a site ends in .uk, a board in the UK decides. An Italian board for .it domain names and so on.

The only problem with this that the US controls straight up .com names. I guess that's what you get for inventing it.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[innocent_white_lamb]

I mean, would a topless woman count? Breastfeeding? What about nudists? Yes, probably no and yes.
 
I think you're forgetting about "National Geographic" type photos of native women in Africa and so on. Would National Geographic have to move to an .xxx domain too?

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[cheater512]

Yeah I know. Like is furniture porn allowed to have a .xxx domain or not?
Very tough decisions for ICANN.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Kadin2048]

Define "sexual" in the context of 'sexual entertainment,' so that we'll all be sure exactly what type of conduct is acceptable or not. And, please, when you state your definition, ensure that it's equally applicable to Orthodox Hasidic Jews, Lakota Native Americans, U.S. fratboys, nudists, and traditionalist Muslims.

What exactly is an 'educational video' and what's 'sexual entertainment'? If I'm a pornographer, and you make it difficult to sell straightforward porn, it makes sense that I'm going to make them into "training films" if that helps me reach my audience (or my advertisers' audience, i.e., get eyeballs/clicks).

I can guarantee you that the page 2 bra ads in most major U.S. newspapers could probably be sold as sexual entertainment in some places, but they're also just bra ads. Since the internet is a global medium, how do you propose to determine which a person is doing? Which side are you going to err on? And who's going to be the final arbiter? (And if the final arbiter is not the U.S. Supreme Court, what are you going to do when they disagree, and the USSC accuses you of hampering someone's protected speech rights? And if it is the USSC, how do you avoid making people not living in the USA effectively subject to US laws? It's a lose-lose situation.)

A glib answer like "sexual entertainment" doesn't solve any problems, it just exchanges one ('what the hell is 'pornography'') for another ('what the hell is 'sexual entertainment'') and so on as you try to define it further ('what the hell is 'sexual''). There are no universal answers to these questions.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[AshtangiMan]

Here here.

IIRC the porn industry is pro xxx because it makes their sites easier to find. The arguments above seem to believe that these porn sites would rather fly below the radar or somehow remain not attached to the porn industry or otherwise obfuscated. From observing the current porn industry in non web based application (like video stores and magazines) there is very little trouble . . . the back room of the video shop, the store without windows, the magazines with opaque plastic hiding the covers, etc. Sure there are some problems, but current laws and arbitration handle these outliers. The only difference is that a web site is not regional, so these occasional battles would happen at a different level of jurisdiction.

On the other hand, when arguing for regulation of xxx is would be utterly specious to say that the xxx domain would do anything to eliminate child pornography . . . they are completely separate issues, but for some reason everytime the xxx issue comes up so does the child porn problem.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Kadin2048]

Tough call, but there are porn laws on the books now. I don't see why ICANN just adopt some of the currently existing laws and use those. I get your point but I think something like foot-fetish sites would serve as a better example. It will be subjective, no doubt, but it is certainly doable.

So, which law would you like to use? The U.S.'s? (I mean, obviously we should copy the laws from a country with one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the industrialized world -- clearly they must have some good ideas going there.) Even within the United States, we don't have a uniform definition of pornography or obscenity; the Supreme Court intentionally left the standard vague, realizing that it varies by community.

I'm sure some European residents would probably chafe at the thought of having their web sites judged under Puritannical USian laws; maybe we should use one of theirs instead? Somehow I think that this might not go over so well in Asia or the Middle East, and let's face it, if we go by population, they have the rest of us outvoted.

Your comparison with driving is silly. Right now, we have a "road" without "traffic laws" and the whole thing works very well, thank you. There are a minority of people who think that the whole thing is just too crazy and want to slow the whole thing down, and I think it's totally fair to give them a special, padded lane, if that's what they want. It's certainly better than messing with the working system we have right now.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[mrbluze]

This has nothing to do with segregation of "offensive" content into a single domain area, but marketing and backside covering. hotse.xxx will sell better than porn.com because it's more striking.

There would always be heaps of porn outside of the xxx domain area, without a doubt, so censorship won't be any different. However large commercial providers will like .xxx because it will protect them from litigation if minors get access to the site, since it would be easy to block using parental controls and they can claim to have taken reasonable steps.

Still, IMNSHO there should be tonnes of top level domains to choose from, but no rules on who has to have what where. Let the website providers decide how their site should look and what addresses to use, and let customers choose what they want to and not want to see.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its easy for people in the US to decide what's porn and what's not porn? Really?

In NEW YORK STATE its legal for a topless woman to walk down the street. Try that in Utah.

Another thing is, until the internet, pretty much NOBODY every referred to nude pictures, even with the intent to arouse, as pornography.

I never once heard of photos from Playboy being referred to as porn until after the internet - now NAY nude picture is typically considered "porn."

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Bastard of Subhumani]

The problem is that there is no way to define what IS and IS NOT porn.

I guess someone thinks they can. From TFA: they 'agreed to hire independent organizations to monitor porn sites' compliance with the new rules

I have two questions: one, who are these independent organisations. Two, are they hiring?

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[specific_pacific]

They shouldn't beat themselves over it

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing has turned me off of breasts faster than seeing a woman breastfeed. Not that it's gross or anything, but when you see something used for what nature intended, it kinda takes the thrill out of it!

Sexual pleasure is one of the things that nature intended for female breasts. Caressing your lovers breasts is no less natural, no less wholesome, than a baby breastfeeding. Sexual pleasure is a wholesome, natural thing in and of itself.

By the way, I personally don't associate breasts with sexual pleasure, but I'm a gay man, so no surprise there. Now if you will excuse me I have to go and look at something that definitely causes sexual arousal in me, but is not porn by anybody's standards, as far as I know.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Anonymous Coward]

The person building the website (you know, the one who goes "I'd like to register penguinsex.xxx thanks") probably has a fairly good idea whether or not his site is pornographic.

One of my favourite porn sites is Bel Ami Online {NSFW). Now, I regard it as porn: it features naked guys having sex with each other. That's why I go there.

But, from reading some of the anti-porn discussions on the net, Bel Ami is not porn, despite the (rather beautiful) explicit sex. In the anti-porn discussions I have read, people seem to say that porn is about one person degrading another, "one way" sex where the satisfaction of one partner is ignored, borderline rape where consent isn't clearly given, unsafe sex. Using that definition, Bel Ami is not porn, because it shows guys who care about each other (or who are playing characters who care about each other) having mutually satisfying consensual sex: safe sex too, in the films made in the past decade or so. By the standards of the anti-porn brigade I have encountered, Bel Ami is not porn.

I wonder what Bel Ami thinks they produce: porn or erotica? If I was them, I would have a hard time deciding.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

...but that is the only way it can be clear, workable and enforacable.

Your lack of imagination does not exclude all other options.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[FLEB]

The problem isn't about self-described pornographic websites trying to decieve, it's about works that might be considered by some to be pornographic, but by the owners to have some other use (artistic, literary, informative). By forcing the .xxx classification, it creates a swath of de facto universal censorship, controlled the whims of whoever is making the "porn" distinction. Viewing choice and classification should be made by the viewer, or by agents of the viewer (filtering software), not by a ruling organization that cannot possibly speak for everyone.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Must do justice. Parent is Informative.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[fyngyrz]

Moderation: Troll

Oh, look, how quaint. A moderator who thinks it is possible to ban nipples across the Internet... and wouldn't recognize humor if it bit them in the butt. You have to love Slash moderation; no oversight, no control, but most importantly, no sense. This is the precise reason we need accountability on moderation - who did what to whom. This moderator is abusing the system.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[KDR_11k]

Why care? Other TLDs don't get adhered to that strictly, either. How many non-commercial sites are on .com? How many French sites aren't on .fr? Each TLD defines what content it will host (e.g. .cx doesn't want to host goatse) and each website has a choice between all the TLDs willing to take it.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[KDR_11k]

hotse.xxx will sell better than porn.com

Hotse? That's one step away from Goatse...

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[falconwolf]

Tough call, but there are porn laws on the books now. I don't see why ICANN just adopt some of the currently existing laws and use those. I get your point but I think something like foot-fetish sites would serve as a better example. It will be subjective, no doubt, but it is certainly doable.

As the post you replied to here brought up which country's laws are you going to use? What's porn in one country isn't in another and what art in one country can get your head chopped off in another. In no way, shape, or form is this doable!

Falcon

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[falconwolf]

But the first part of your argument is best I've read in this entire discussion. Deciding what is porn in the US is easy. Unfortunately, what we consider porn in the US is not considered porn in Germany, or Amsterdam, or Nigeria, or wherever else. So, who's standards do we use?

Deciding what's porn in the US is DIFFCULT. The USSC ruled everyplace can decide for themself what is and isn't obscene as regards porn and what's obscene in one place is not in another.

I don't have an answer for that except that maybe sites that end in .cn (is that correct for Canadian?)

Canada's country doamin is .ca.

Falcon

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[mrchaotica]

The point of my post is that your simple heuristic ("either it's educational or it's porn") turned out to be insufficient, indicating that this is a much more complicated problem than you're giving it credit for.

Sometimes, people get stupid and take a picture of their child in the bathtub when the "child" is 12!

What, you're saying that that is porn? It's still just a person in a tub, you know. I'd go so far to say that pictures of anybody in a bathtub, regardless of age, aren't porn unless there's something else going on too.

Sites like Crush-photo, Met-Art, and even Playboy are done artistically, but I think they easily qualify as porn.

And yet, I'm sure other sites exist that are more artistic and less "pornish" than those. What about them? (Or what about this? (Link NSFW???))

I don't think you would find too many that would argue with that and deciding what is porn and what is not is not really that hard to do.

Unless I'm mistaken, in some places a picture of a woman that shows her face would be considered "porn!" Once again, I think you're vastly underestimating the difficulty of classifying this on a global scale.

Re:I'll tell you why not.

[heinousjay]

Well I'm impressed.

A bad idea

[Elvis77]

This is a bad idea IMHO - anything that makes mum and dad ignorant think that the Internet is a safe environment and absolves them of responsablitly for supervising their children on the internet is a bad idea. Some aussie groups want ISPs responsible for the internet content - I think this is a bad idea for the same reason

Re:A bad idea

[ArcherB]

This is a bad idea IMHO - anything that makes mum and dad ignorant think that the Internet is a safe environment and absolves them of responsablitly for supervising their children on the internet is a bad idea.

That's like saying anything that makes the sky blue... Most parents are already ignorant! You could also say that GUI's should be banned because they make the computer user ignorant... or that C++ should be banned because it makes programmers ignorant (as opposed to using straight assembly or even writing in true binary!). Should we ban cars because they make us fat?

I could go on and on here, but making something easy does not make people ignorant! It makes the ignorant able to do more!

Re:A bad idea

[WED Fan]

So, now we've got to protect stupid people and their children from our other protection schemes? The reason why people are so weak and vulnerable now is because we've shielded them too much from the harsh world around them. I'm starting to think that maybe we should let kids play with clackers, lawn darts, explosives, chemicals, and boiling water. Maybe if we lose a few and thin out the herd, the Rabid Church of Man-Caused-Global-Warming will stop whining about the population, and we might actually let Darwin kill off the inbreds, French, and people who like to talk on cell phones in movie theaters.

I used to think the Australians were a pretty bright bunch, but, you sir, have changed my mind. You now rank below the French-Canadians, who are now 2nd to the bottom on the list of Useful Cultures of the World.

Re:A bad idea

[Elvis77]

You miss my point entirely... but then I didn't really articulate it very well

A few years ago I taught beginner adult computer class

One of the mums in one of the courses was concerned about her 14 year old looking at porn on the net. I went through filtering software; how to monitor what he's wanting etc but I said the best way was to have the computer in a location that meant that he could be caught at any time (she had the pc in a downstairs basement). "Oh I don't want a messy looking computer in my living area". I suggested that her son would continue to look at porn then

My concern with a specific domain is that is simply will not give protection but Mr and Mrs Ignorant will think it does; it is the parent's responsablilty to monitor their children; not the ISP; not anyone else. So I certainly concede the point that people are already ignorant and that this won't make them more ignorant; maybe this will help but I just think it will make porn easier to find

Oh and what is wrong with coding in Assembler??? ;-)

Re:A bad idea

[ArcherB]

My concern with a specific domain is that is simply will not give protection but Mr and Mrs Ignorant will think it does; it is the parent's responsablilty to monitor their children; not the ISP; not anyone else. So I certainly concede the point that people are already ignorant and that this won't make them more ignorant; maybe this will help but I just think it will make porn easier to find

Good point. I agree that it is the parent's responsibility to raise their own children (the village can go screw itself!). I'm sure that your experience with filtering software showed you how ineffective it can be, especially with ignorant parents. This could be a tool that makes it easier to do. I'm not suggesting that it is the responsibility of the ISP to block questionable content, especially since, right now, I doubt that they could do a very good job of it! .xxx domain names could make it so easy that even an ISP could do it. Granted, it's not a cure. Domain names have no effect on newsgroups, IRC, bit torrent or other methods of sharing, so, like you, I will still recommend keeping the computer in the family room! However, will prevent the teacher from accidentally (ignorantly) typing in whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov.

Oh and what is wrong with coding in Assembler??? ;-)
About the same as writing letter to mum using a hammer, chisel and stone tablet as opposed to paper and pen. You end up with a much higher quality product, but it's hardly efficient :-)

Re:A bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, no one is lower than a French-Canukian. And none more annoying.

Re:A bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Back to the original problem.

WHAT THE FUCK IS PORN?
Why would a porn site move to a .xxx domain? They wouldn't. How does it benefit them? It doesn't. Why wouldn't they just keep the domain that everyone's familiar with? They would.
All this does is gives the domain name registrars large amounts of money as domains are snapped up by porn sites and yes, non-porn companies (why use a lawsuit when you can avoid one for a few bucks a month?)

Now if you don't mind, I'll be writing a script that will register sex.xxx the millisecond the TLD becomes available. I hope to break the world record for a domain name sale, $8 million.
I'll use $20,000 of it to build a LN2 cooled gaming computer which I will use to browse the millions of porn sites that stuck with their .com domains REALLY REALLY FAST.

CAPTCHA="bodice"

expanding porn?

[PlusFiveTroll]

...allow porn to expand even further onto the Internet.

Is that even possible... I mean unless Disney starts up an XXX line porn is pretty much everywhere already.

Re:expanding porn?

[WED Fan]

Expanded porn? Is that Al Gore in a speedo?

Seriously, more porn would be good. Maybe we can so totally piss off the fundamentalist groups that they all drink the cool-aid and go home to meet Jeebus early. The world would be a better place with more porn and less rabid Christian hypocrits who don't admit they luck screwing the wife.

Re:expanding porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Gore - The Incredible Bloating Man.

Porn - Good, fun, and keeps otherwise unemployable women off the dole. And, we get to see their hoohahs.

Fundamentally Retards - (not sure if this is the term you meant to use when you wrote "Fundamentalists") A more repressed bunch you will never see. I think they feel guilty for liking porn, enjoying the site of their wives naked, and want to poker their mother-in-laws in the ol' pooper if they got the chance. And, I'm not sure that Jerry Falwell didn't let his Mother-in-Law poke him in the pooper.

Strange, but...

[Penguinisto]

...wouldn't open proxies (and even to an extent anonymizers, depending on setup) obviate the whole ISP blocking of ".xxx", or any blocking software that parents/preachers get put on to avoid making it too easy to access?

Besides, considering the outright abuse of .org, .com, and .net, what's to stop ".xxx" from being turned into a mush of sites which may have little or nothing to do with porn? After all, I can think of lots of groups that would love to have an .xxx extension, just for the cool factor (bloggers, artists, and not-so-intelligent l33t h4x0r sites just as a ferinstance). Unless they have some intensely strict rules w/ the registrars - more than what they propose for it (e.g. give 'em the rules required to get, say, a ".mil" extension), it won't be just for pr0n - at least not for very long, IMVHO.

Don't even get me started on the domain-squatting and name-grabbing/auctioning, either... it'd make the Oklahoma Land Rush of the 19th Century seem tame by comparison.

Considering all of that, ICANN can prolly say "nope" yet again and call it good, for all the good it'll do. Seems like a headache all-around; and when both porn industry and fundies BOTH get all ate-up about not having it, you know something's inherently wrong with the idea.

/P

Re:Strange, but...

[Florian Weimer]

Besides, considering the outright abuse of .org, .com, and .net, what's to stop ".xxx" from being turned into a mush of sites which may have little or nothing to do with porn? After all, I can think of lots of groups that would love to have an .xxx extension, just for the cool factor (bloggers, artists, and not-so-intelligent l33t h4x0r sites just as a ferinstance).

A lot of .xxx domains will be registered for defensive purposes. It's likely that company running the registry will make a hell lot of money as a result (in addition to money from typosquatters funded through Google and Yahoo ads). In this regard, .xxx is no different from any other new TLD: it's an ICANN-granted license to print money.

Of course, you could force domain holders to run a web server which publishes porn, but this is not going to happen.

Re:Strange, but...

[asninn]

Don't even get me started on the domain-squatting and name-grabbing/auctioning, either... it'd make the Oklahoma Land Rush of the 19th Century seem tame by comparison.

Not necessarily - .eu and .info were also only launched relatively recently, and the introduction seems to have worked quite well in both cases.

a modest proposal

[fred fleenblat]

there could be .x domain name for soft core
and .xx for hardcore porn
and .xxx would be for weird stuff like deceased gay donkeys or whatever
and .xxxx is for the republican party and neocons

Re:a modest proposal

[mrchaotica]

Speaking of a "modest proposal," where would eating babies fall in? With the deceased gay donkeys, or with the neocons?

Re:a modest proposal

[anonicon]

Neocons, duh.

Donkeys don't have the ability to first skin the babies.

Re:a modest proposal

[Anonymous Coward]

and .Xx for childporn ? :p

Re:a modest proposal

[Larry Lightbulb]

You don't peel babies, that's where the vitamins are.

Government Control

[Anonymous Coward]

Some other things should have more government "control" to allow easier access ;)

What drives technology adoption?

[Original Replica]

allow porn to expand even further onto the Internet."

Is that really possible? In all seriousness,"Internet porn is a $2.84 bln market"http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P7960 How much of paypal's success is tied up in that $2.8 bil? What about faster bandwith, or video compression, or antivirus software? Gaming certainly plays a significant part in the adoption of faster computers, I think porn might play a similar part in the relm of data transfer. We are more eager to get new toys than to work more efficiently.

Re:What drives technology adoption?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much of paypal's success is tied up in that $2.8 bil?

Historically, I have no idea. Presently, somewhere around $0.

Paypal has a strict policy against adult content. You can not use Paypal or Ebay to purchase adult material with the only exception being vintage/historical.

You can not even use Paypal to purchase services related to adult-anything (such as an adult site accepting paypal payments for advertising services on the site etc.)

A LOT of adult webmasters had their paypal accounts shut down a couple of years back when Paypal made those changes to their terms of use policy.

One really weird and extreme example: there's a software package called Arrow Trader that monitors traffic and maintains link trades for TGP sites. They can't even use paypal to accept payments anymore. Although the software is developed for a specific type of adult site, the software itself is certainly not "pornographic" in any way. The point being that Paypal is ridiculously strict about their 'adult content' policies.

Re:What drives technology adoption?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that really possible? In all seriousness,"Internet porn is a $2.84 bln market"http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P7960 How much of paypal's success is tied up in that $2.8 bil? What about faster bandwith, or video compression, or antivirus software? Gaming certainly plays a significant part in the adoption of faster computers, I think porn might play a similar part in the relm of data transfer. We are more eager to get new toys than to work more efficiently

I'm sure some people might enjoy faster porn... 120fps 60 inch HDTV cum shots that cause whiplash.

I better post this anonymously.

Re:What drives technology adoption?

[innocent_white_lamb]

there's a software package called Arrow Trader [arrowscripts.com] that monitors traffic and maintains link trades for TGP sites. They can't even use paypal to accept payments anymore.
 
Funny... it says right here on that website that "Payment can be made with credit card (Visa and Mastercard), via paypal or by Wire Transfer."

Re:What drives technology adoption?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their web site is out of date. They released a news bulletin a while ago that went out to all existing customers (myself included) explaining that they can no longer accept paypal.

No Compelling Reason

[Frosty Piss]

It's just a real estate grab that has little or no practical use in managing porn on the Interweb. It's not like all these sites will give up their .com / .net / .org names, and I'll bet within 24 hours (probably a lot less) of .xxx going "live", there will be no names worth buying left. Land grab, pure and simple, there is really no compelling reason to have the .xxx TLD.

Well,

[Penguinisto]

I haven't seen any at any site with a .mil extension...

(but then, certain there are certain firearms afficinadoes who would argue with me on that point...)

/P

Stop the presses!

[Un pobre guey]

"...the religious groups worried it would make access too easy and allow porn to expand even further onto the Internet."

Yow! There is a physically possible act that has not yet been carried out that can allow porn to expand even further onto the Internet! What can this mysterious act be? Does it involve high energy particles from some monstrous new accelerator? Have aliens finally arrived from a distant galaxy, ready to share their vast and incomprehensible technologies? Is there now a 5th dimension, aside from space and time, that we mere mortals will soon perceive as easily as we drink a glass of water or click on URLs with our mice? Is some sort of perverse rapture imminent, wherein we shall all ascend into some terrifying multidimensional pornographic spiritual plane?

No! It is the dire threat of yet another TLD for which spending countless man-hours and obscene sums of money making new porn sites will be clearly more compelling than merely forwarding web surfers to the same old sites available now. A possibility so horrendous, so heinous, so depraved that ICANN has rightly gaveled it away twice before. No sir, our world is not ready for another TLD, particularly one devoted to porn. Why, what if my teenage children are exposed to the use of sexual images for filthy lucre? Unthinkable. Damn them! Damn them all to Hell!

Re:Stop the presses!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a physically possible act that has not yet been carried out that can allow porn to expand even further onto the Internet!

Creation of the .xxx TLD will do just that! Imagine: you go to some registrar, thinking to register a domain name for your kids (say, mermaid-friends.com). And the registrar's page tells you that the domain name is already taken, and offers you several other TLDs to choose from, one of them is .xxx...

And that's it! You would think: "To heck with that kids' site, I will register mermaid-friends.xxx and make millions by selling [insert any mermaid-pr0n-related item here]!"

Yeah, right

[mrchaotica]

It would make it easy to avoid porn.

Uh huh, I can totally see every porn site on the Internet, including those operating overseas, giving up their .com domain names. And the bureaucracy needed to enforce that kind of thing wouldn't be the least bit burdensome, no sirree! And violating civil rights? How positively ludicrous to think that might have a chance of happening!

Yep, blocking porn from .com (and all the associated baggage) is the best idea ever! How could those dumbasses at ICANN even think of voting it down, let alone doing so twice?!

hard and soft segregation

[davidwr]

Most domains are segregated voluntarily or for reasons other than content. Involuntary segregation based on content is a very sticky wicket.

There are some things that are clearly porn, some things that clearly aren't, and some things that are in that big grey area.

If this goes through, will Sports Illustrated have to move its swimsuit issue to www.sportsillustrated.cnn.xxx just because some small town with sex-nazis for a city council takes them to court over it? Probably not, but they'll still have to show up in court to defend themselves. Replicate this for every soft-porn/maybe-porn/Daisy-Duke web site.

Separate the domain from the carrier decision

[WillAffleckUW]

The reality is that .xxx content is the most profitable Net carrying traffic segment, with the highest markup, so all common carriers will carry it, just at a premium.

Anyone who doesn't will lose 4/5ths of their revenue.

PLEASE!!!

[jhfry]

I wrote a letter years back to my congressman recommending the .xxx domain, who later co-authored the first version of this bill, can't remember his name anymore. Anyway, to anyone who's the least bit technical, this appears to be the simplest method of segregating the pornography from the rest of the information on the net.

I don't feel that it should be required that all xxx material be hosted in the xxx domain, however I would imagine that most of the legit porn sites (feels funny saying that) would happily open XXX domains and forward traffic there for a while. Eventually, they could pass a law in the US forcing sites that specifically host content geared toward sexual entertainment be hosted on .xxx domains. But just having the TLD is the most important step in that direction.

I have no problem with the internet having it's "red light district", which is the greatest argument against this bill... it's far easier to avoid that area due to the red lights. The alternative is having the entire internet a sort of pinkish shade do to a nice even coat of porn.

Re:PLEASE!!!

[jtn]

Sorry. DNS is not a content-definition system. It is a system for translating IP addresses to human-readable (usually) names and the reverse. It is not for balkanizing the Internet into "districts".

It sets an ugly precedent for further dividing content into groups easily blockable by groups in control (governments, corporations, etc). Would you like to wake up some day to find that negative discussions regarding your government are deemed inappropriate, and subjugated to a TLD (by US law perhaps?) and then blocked by a majority of access providers?

Finally, uou nor anyone else are fit to define what content is available or grouped for everyone else. You are responsible for your OWN content viewing, and those you are legally considered guardian of, no one else.

Re:PLEASE!!!

[geekoid]

IT's not a solvable problem. The internet is not TV.

It is a very large ditributed network.
That means you can not enforce it.
Here it is again:
You can NOT enforce a domain specific activity.

"however I would imagine that most of the legit porn sites "

Why does that feel funny? Pornography is a perfectly legal trade.
But you hit the problem, many site would not move there..they would set up there ALSO. You can't control the world.

OTOH, don't like it? don't go there.
Or evelop sopme thick skin and a sense of humor.

aslo, define sexual entertainment? Out front of one of the building, there is a statue of three naked people Diving' through water. Is that porn? to some people, yes it is.

No offense, but:
"Anyway, to anyone who's the least bit technical,"
yes it would, like amany techincal things, they aren't as solvable as they appear.

You can eaither trust me, or the experts in the field*, or educate yourself in this matter.

*not so called expert, or self proclaimed experts, I mean the people that built the internet and the World Wide Web.

Re:PLEASE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's porn?

And why should you, or the congressman you wrote, get to decide?

It's awfully unlikely that my definition of "offensive content" is the same as that of a bunch of Bible-pounding fuckwits.

Re:PLEASE!!!

[jhfry]

Uhh.. since when.

DNS does indeed try to define content, not very successfully but it does. .edu = educational .com = commercial .mil = military .gov = governement .COUNTRY ACRONYM = ...

If I didn't want to visit sites hosted in .ru it would be trivial to block. In fact, I have done just that on machines I've managed as a small layer of security.

I never suggested that sites be blocked by ISP's or the Govt. Just the opposite. A system like this makes it trivial to block from the client side, it wouldn't be necessary to have the ISP or Govt. step in.

Finally, uou nor anyone else are fit to define what content is available or grouped for everyone else. You are responsible for your OWN content viewing, and those you are legally considered guardian of, no one else.

Exactly my point, the current 'system' prevents me from excercising my desire to not see such content and undermines my wishes. Organizing content into easily located and/or avoided locations is only sensible. That's why the DNS system is setup the way that it is, to help categorize information.

On a similar vein, I would love to see a bunch of new TLD's started and popular. If the information were organized properly into the correct TLD, and everyone knew that blogs were in .blog for example, they could determine what was on a site before they clicked a link. You could search for blogs about certain subjects by restricting the scope of your search. etc.

Re:PLEASE!!!

[Watson Ladd]

You cannot control what DNS entries refer to you. Read one of the RFC's titled .sex considered harmful for a discussion of all the problems. Also, what is porn? My standards for obscenity can be very different from yours.

Re:PLEASE!!!

[Cid Highwind]

DNS does indeed try to define content, not very successfully but it does. .edu = educational .com = commercial .mil = military .gov = governement .COUNTRY ACRONYM = ...

That's defining who owns the server, not what content is on it. Furthermore, it's not really enforced anywhere except .gov, .mil, and sometimes .edu. Any given large corporation has their name .org, .net, and every country code redirected to their .com site. Slashdot sells ads and charges subscription fees, but they still have a .org (nonprofit organization) domain name. Most owners of .tv, .am, or .fm domains have never even heard of Tuvalu, Armenia or the Federates States of Micronesia.

Re:PLEASE!!!

[z-j-y]

what about a blog on porns? and a porn of bloggers blogging each other?

Re:PLEASE!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this .xxx stupidity had been put to bed. The PICS system is an appropriate method of categorizing web content, DNS is not.

Re:PLEASE!!!

[cortana]

Ah, so it's you I have to blame for this mess. Please write out the following one hundred times:

The DNS does not categorise content. The DNS does not categorise content. The DNS does not categorise content.

If you are at all familiar with computer science then you will perhaps recognise the term "layering violation".

If you want to impose content filtering on everyone then you should push for laws requiring that all pornographic, violent, obscene, etc. content be classified with a labelling system such as PICS. Instead of misusing the DNS as a totally subjective and far too-coarse grained catagorisation system, you should consult those who actually thought about this problem logically and came up with PICS.

With PICS, instead of a subjective and fundamentally inaccurate 'porn/not porn' label, you rate HTTP resources based on their actual content. For further information, consult its website and the excellent RFC 3675 entitled .sex considered harmful.

Not true unless it's unique

[davidwr]

Invented-word trademarks are probably safe from alternate-tld cybersquatting, but a regular trademark is not, unless you can prove it's a sham.

If I run McDonald's Lawn Care Service, I can get any available McDonalds.* domain and the hamburger company can't do a thing about it except bribe me.

Now if you can show I started the lawn care company just so I can grab available McDonalds.* domain-names, then you may have a case.

Re:Not true unless it's unique

[KDR_11k]

As everyone knows, if you have a trademark dispute with McDonald's you flip out and kill people.

xxx

[grumpyman]

I like you. I like sex, it's nice.

This is Slashdot

[davidwr]

Gotta have a girlfriend first.

Slashdot lie detector:

Ask a Slashdotter if he's ever had a girlfriend.

Re:Yeah, but

[Lord Bitman]

don't tell me you wouldn't be right there with everyone else with a perl script and a while loop trying to be the one to register se.xxx, sex.xxx, teen.xxx, teens.xxx, asian.xxx, asians.xxx, ...

Set for life. Let the morons who bid for it figure out that it's worthless next week

THE definition of porn is easy.

[jhfry]

Convincing the extremists is hard.

Pornography, is sexually explicit content who's purpose is to entertain, stimulate, or pleasure. Nudity is not pornographic, sex is not pornographic, however videos/images of nude people engaging in sexual activities intended as a source of entertainment for adults is pornographic.

I agree that people try to move that line in both directions, but I think anyone rational will agree that the above is a fair definition.

Perhaps we need a new word, instead of pornography we can call it "sexual entertainment". It has no baggage, so it can be defined as we see fit. We can create additional definitions for sexual art, sexual education media, etc. and define those as well.

Once written into law, those definitions would be up to the courts to judge, but as long as they are written clearly it would be fair to assume that most sites could be easily assessed.

Hell, we do it with movies and music, we can do it with the internet. Just create an incentive to conform, perhaps free .xxx domain names, for life, for established sites.

Re:THE definition of porn is easy.

[mdwh2]

I agree that people try to move that line in both directions, but I think anyone rational -

And that is where the problem lies ;)

Re:THE definition of porn is easy.

[geekoid]

I engage is sex for the entertainment of adults. specifically my wife and myself.

bzzzt try again.

""sexual entertainment""
yes, it would be defined by religous groups to mean what ever they want it to mean.
Do you know there are people who consider a penis on a statue pornographic?

" but as long as they are written"
good luck with that. People have only been trying to do that for hundreds of years.

Why do I have to explain this on /. of all places:
"Hell, we do it with movies and music, we can do it with the internet.

The internet is not TV. It is NOT A movie house. If you could enforce these thing, don't you think it wuld ahve been done by the RIAA regarding file transferring?

You can't make people not trade music, and you can not use a domain to control content over all the other domains..and ftp, and telnet, and etc.etc.

The of course, what is an established site? what do you do

Re:THE definition of porn is easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pornography, is sexually explicit content who's purpose is to entertain, stimulate, or pleasure.

So every entertaining mainstream Hollywood movie that includes a sex scene is de jure pornography.

Cool. I'm so glad we have someone like you to draw these lines. Next year, you can have the whole box of crayons.

this is ridiculous...

[Sfing_ter]

what the religious right (here to for known as rr - {rr = ddd}) does not want is to be found "visiting" the .xxx domains...
maybe we could file them both under the same domain .xxx or .666, or .rid for ridiculous or .dum or .stfu, but .ddd is probably the best for the rr; then i want one for the geeks, .aybabtu seems appropo. :)

So the rr (or ddd) has no idea how the inter-tubes dump-truck functions; that or they just don't want to be "kept" from seeing the sin!!! If I were to be praying and believing in an all omnipotent entitty,(:) I would hope it would provide unto me a clue, for doth not the faithful followers of an all powerful all knowing god deserve to have unto them posessed, a FUCKING CLUE!!!!!

I don't sound bitter do I?

Finally what everyone wants

[selex]

"proposal has led to pornographers and religious groups finding themselves on the same side of an issue"

Finally religious porn. Its amusing and it teaches you good values. I'll leave the specifics up to your imagination.

Selex

Re:Finally what everyone wants

[dpiven]

Heh.

Onan refuses God's command to impregnate someone, and instead spills his seed. Onan gets the Heavenly Shithammer. Mary Magdalene kneels before Jesus and anoints his... hmmmmmmm.

"Tell me more, Father Kelly..."

(Today's captcha was "impious", by the way.)

Proposal sounds stupid

[hurfy]

Actually it just sounds like a money grab by this ICM company.

They still insist it is voluntary, so it does nothing to help keep it out. Tempting to add just to spite the idiotic rightwing arguement that with .com AND .xxx there would now be twice as much porn tho :O So i guess i disagreement with both arguements against it and am still against it....

They think these sites will rate themselves and need to spend more than a current .com registration to ensure compliance ?!? WTF, Putting up a .xxx and then say in ratings you have no nudity would seem kinda suicidal for a site. Why does ICM need money to insure against child porn, why would someone under this new label suddenly be more likely to have it up and require a new private cop to find as opposed to it being hidden among the zillion or so .com and others?

My choice would be to simply make .xxx available like .com .net etc. but without the overinflated fees for this ICM

The Wrong Way

[Bios_Hakr]

The person who came up with .xxx should be slapped. I mean, what kind of fucking idiot is this person/are these people?

If you want to clear the internet of pr0n and make it safe for kids, create a .fam domain and then make the registrar a board consisting of the LDS Church, Christian Coalition, Southern Baptist Conference, and Catholic Church. Before any site is accepted, a scan will be done on their code to ensure *every* link on the page ends in .fam.

Create e-mail servers that require a name, address, SSN, and valid phone number to activate e-mail. Have monks (like they have anything better to do) call every person who registers and verify their information.

After that, sell software that only allows .fam domains to be processed. Nothing from an IP address outside the .fam will be accepted.

Users should be classified based on their ages. If you are between 8 and 18 and you e-mail someone more than 1 year older than you, the e-mail gets sent to LDS missionaries (give them something to to besides annoy me) for review. If the content is inappropriate, your e-mail is revoked. Make it work the same way for older people e-mailing younger people. Just give more leeway.

In about 30 days and with absolutely no resistance, you could create a family-safe internet.

Seriously, if you or someone you know came up with the idea of .xxx, please turn in your geek card and go work a help desk in India and leave the real thinking to much smarter people.

Re:The Wrong Way

[2short]

"create a .fam domain and then make the registrar a board consisting of the LDS Church, Christian Coalition, Southern Baptist Conference, and Catholic Church."

Yikes! You think I want my kids exposed to those guys freaky ideas!?!?! That's your idea of "family-safe"? Scary! Keep those guys the hell away from my kids.

As for whoever came up with the .xxx domain, I think you're missing the key to the matter. They're not dumb, they're greedy. There may be some dumb ones defending the idea on slashdot, but the ones actually arguing for it in front of ICANN aren't saying just "I want a .xxx domain created" they're saying "I want to be the one who creates a .xxx domain, and sells the names"

Re:The Wrong Way

[cptgrudge]

In about 30 days and with absolutely no resistance, you could create a family-safe internet.

And even better, in another 30 days it would collapse as every user gets booted for minor infractions!

Re:The Wrong Way

[pandrijeczko]

If you want to clear the internet of pr0n and make it safe for kids, create a .fam domain and then make the registrar a board consisting of the LDS Church, Christian Coalition, Southern Baptist Conference, and Catholic Church. Before any site is accepted, a scan will be done on their code to ensure *every* link on the page ends in .fam.

How about we keep the big fat noses of any religious zealots out of it in the first place.

Let's face it, if the religious groups were doing their job correctly anyhow, we would not be seeing the breakdown of moral and family values that we are seeing today. It is perfectly possible to be a decent, honest, moral and law-abiding citizen without once setting foot in any religious building or reading any "holy" book - therefore, religions should be focusing on the weak-minded people who have no understanding of what it is to live in a society.

Any responsible parent has a duty to monitor what their kids do on the Internet. It's very easy to learn how to look in browser caches to see what kids have been doing plus there are hundreds of free tools a parent can use to discourage porn sites from popping up or being visited - Firefox and a few add-ons is a damn good start.

Re:The Wrong Way

[Bios_Hakr]

The Christian Right are the ones forcing the discussion of censorship on the internet, radio, and on TV. If we create a domain for them to bask in, then they will have no excuse to blame anyone else.

Re:The Wrong Way

[Bios_Hakr]

Since it's run by Christians, I assume they would forgive one-time minor infractions.

Maybe after praying with your pastor or confessing to your priest, you could get back on.

Re:The Wrong Way

[asninn]

If you want to clear the internet of pr0n and make it safe for kids, create a .fam domain and then make the registrar a board consisting of the LDS Church, Christian Coalition, Southern Baptist Conference, and Catholic Church. Before any site is accepted, a scan will be done on their code to ensure *every* link on the page ends in .fam.

While that's not a bad idea per se (although it'd probably be .kids rather than .fam), I'm a bit surprised that all the board members you're suggesting are non-orthodox christian churches with a presence in the USA. The obvious questions are, from least to most important: why not churches from other countries (like, say, the state church of Norway, or the Greek orthodox church, or even the Ethiopian orthodox church or whatever)? Why no other organised religions - judaism, islam, buddism, hinduism, shintoism, sikhism, and whatever else you can think of)? Why no *non-organised* religions, like neopaganism, wicca, and so on? And, most important, why should *religious organisations* be allowed to decide what's safe or unsafe for kids, anyway?

Another thing I don't understand is what you mean when you say "before any site is accepted". Do you mean that I'd have to design my entire site before applying for a domain? Do you also mean that once it's up, I could never change any part of it, at least not until I submit the site for a rescan to see that it's still "safe"? (For that matter, why is "links only to .fam domains" a sufficient criterion for determining "safety", anyway?) What about database-driven sites? What you're essentially proposing is a huge bureaucracy that's slow, inefficient and costly, and that - most importantly - wouldn't even work out (people do make mistakes, after all, and things *would* slip through).

The proposal to change email is also laughable at best. Even if you think that requiring an SSN to get an email account would be a good idea, how do you handle people from outside the USA (95% of the world's population, last I counted) that don't even *have* an SSN? For that matter, how do you handle people that ARE from the USA and don't have an SSN?

You also don't seem to be able to grasp the sheer volume of email that goes around the globe each day - and I'm talking about ham here, not spam. Do you seriously think that there enough "LDS missionaries" to read everything? And for that matter, again, why would you trust them? If I (just assume I'm below 18 for the sake of the argument) send an email that says "the LDS sucks", does it get blocked? If yes, what can I do about it? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

In about 30 days and with absolutely no resistance, you could create a family-safe internet.

No. You would've created an entirely new system that superficially resembles the Internet because it uses similar terms ("domain", "email" etc.) but that, in reality, is pretty much the polar opposite of the Internet.

Seriously, if you or someone you know came up with the idea of .xxx, please turn in your geek card and go work a help desk in India and leave the real thinking to much smarter people.

Smarter people like you? Your ideas are not just ridiculous, US-centric, based on religious convictions and ignoring any religion that isn't christian, they're also unworkable, and any smart person would see why right away.

So unless your entire post was very clever sarcasm/satire, you're not smart, to put it bluntly, and that's actually a good thing, too. If it WAS sarcasm, then I bow before you: you're a true master.

Re:The Wrong Way

[Bios_Hakr]

>>why not churches from other countries

It's too late to fix the TLD problem; com/net/org seem to be mostly US sites. Since the US policies are driven by right-wing christians, I'd create a .fam. Technically, it should be a *.fam.us. If Germany wants to create a safe internet with their standards, let them create *.fam.de.

>>Why no other organised religions - judaism, islam, buddism, hinduism, shintoism, sikhism, and whatever else you can think of)?

Those are fairly small minorities in the US. Judaism and Islam should probably be on the council too.

>>Why no *non-organised* religions, like neopaganism, wicca, and so on?

Again, it's a numbers game. When 50-million wiccans constantly force their beliefs on others, they get a say.

>>And, most important, why should *religious organisations* be allowed to decide what's safe or unsafe for kids, anyway?

Many people do not have a problem with unfiltered internet. It's mainly christian conservatives forcing the issue. Give them a solution and send them on their way. If $group is not happy with the .fam, let them have a .$grp and manage it their own way.

>>Do you mean that I'd have to design my entire site before applying for a domain?

In short, yes. It'd be hell on dynamic content, but the people pushing for this do not want community groups and dynamic blogs.

You'd have to give out very detailed information to apply for a domain. Your domain would be certified clean according to a specific set of written rules. If your site clears these rules, then you can start it up. If you violate the rules at any point (you put "fuck" in your blog), your domain is suspended and you have to pay a fine. Repeat offenses would bar you from the domain.

>>Do you also mean that once it's up, I could never change any part of it, at least not until I submit the site for a rescan to see that it's still "safe"?

If someone sees objectionable content on your site, they would have to contact you directly via email. The registrar would be CCd. If you did not respond (either "this site is fine" or "site cleaned up") within 24 hours, the registrar would step in and make a ruling. If the site *is* objectionable, they would suspend your account.

>>(For that matter, why is "links only to .fam domains" a sufficient criterion for determining "safety", anyway?) What about database-driven sites?

If you violate the TOS of the domain, you have 24 hours to return to compliance. After that, your site is pulled. If you can clean it up, you get it back. If you are a repeat offender, you lose your domain.

>>What you're essentially proposing is a huge bureaucracy that's slow, inefficient and costly, and that - most importantly - wouldn't even work out (people do make mistakes, after all, and things *would* slip through).

Since it would be managed by churches, it's up to them to deal with it. If they can't, then it's their problem. The parents themselves would be the police. They would report bad sites to the registrar who would then deal with it. No cost to taxpayers and less money in church budgets for crap like church buildings and missionary work.

>>The proposal to change email is also laughable at best. Even if you think that requiring an SSN to get an email account would be a good idea, how do you handle people from outside the USA (95% of the world's population, last I counted) that don't even *have* an SSN? For that matter, how do you handle people that ARE from the USA and don't have an SSN?

Again, this is being driven by the USA right wing. Why would a small-minded right-winger even want to talk to someone outside the USA. If they did have a valid reason, then they could ask mom or dad to remove the filter software/hardware and allow them to access gmail.com.

SSN was a bad idea. Maybe have the person go to a registry center and apply

One Compelling Reason

[Nymz]

There is one reason to separate out a group,
so that in the future you can discriminate against that group.

Whether you want all citizens to register their firearms, only later to round them up for disposal.
Or whether you want all citizens of a particular type to wear an armband, only later to round them up for disposal.

Re:Yeah, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the morons who bid for it figure out that it's worthless next week

Ah, PlayStation3 capitalism. I love it!

Postscript Misunderstanding

[Nymz]

I only realized after posting that my post may be misunderstood. Some might think I was impling that pictures of naked people was the target being threatened. Not so, the ideal being threatened here is free speech, of all types of speech.

An example would be the armbands again, they weren't just for jews, but also used for homosexuals, communists, social democrats, criminals, foreigners, work slackers, etc...

ok, i'm religious ...

[boxlight]

the religious groups worried it would make access too easy and allow porn to expand even further onto the Internet

Er ... is that possible??

OK, I'm religious, but that's about the stupidest argument *against* a .xxx domain I can imagine.

An .xxx domain and the restriction of adult content to it would be the best thing to help parents filter porn from their kids. But it's a pie in the sky idea. There's no way to prevent people in other countries from putting porn on whatever URL they want.

boxlight

Re:Who decides

[Dipdngold]

What if you have 3 domain names that have adult content?
example.com
example.net
example.org
Who decides the the allocations of the .xxx domain? Yes people may run out and buy a .xxx domain, but they aren't going to willingly give up their old and established domains.

what?? again????

[phantomfive]

I hope this d*** thing DOES pass this time so I never have to hear another f****ing article about the pros and cons of the XXX domain. Seriously! Get it overwith!!!

Not as a 'Top' level domain...

[Kaenneth]

Who then, will register Disney.XXX, Apple.XXX, Microsoft.XXX? Do those companies want to be associated with porn at all?, but do they want to risk letting someone else get their name? I offer a very simple solution to that particular problem: Notice how a lot (if not most) web sites on a domain have a specific prefix added to the front? WWW.example.com? Why not replace the WWW. portion with XXX.? A domain holder can choose to offer both a regular website, and an adult website, without a new TLD provider collecting millions, if not billion on registration fees. and filtering "XXX." would be just as easy as filtering ".XXX" from a URL Heck, you could even reserve a new specific port for XXX HTTP, so it can be filtered even if an IP adress is manually entered. Unfortunetly, port 69 is already reserved for TFTP.

Re:Not as a 'Top' level domain...

[dpiven]

Unfortunetly, port 69 is already reserved for TFTP. ... and it is well-known that if you leave port 69 open, eventually you will be screwed hard.

Redundant?

[OddThinking]

Wouldn't this be redundant if it becomes illegal to have porn on port 80?

xxx is too confusing

[z-j-y]

why couldn't we have the following TLDs?

.anal
.anime
.asian
.bdsm
.cum
.fist ing
.latina
.mature
.panties
.pedo
.redhead
.voyeur
.watersport

Re:xxx is too confusing

[dalleboy]

It's too restrictive anyway, what we need is a global tagging system, where site owners and users can tag a site/subsite.

slashdot.org - news, nerds, ...
politics.slashdot.org - news, nerds, politics, ...
wikipedia.org - encyclopedia, free, incorrect, correct, ...
scientology.org - scientology, religion, sect, good, bad, hoax, true-religion, pornography, ...

Then anyone can decide for himself/herself what to filter out... But of course this wouldn't work either.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're worried that some site will get thrown out of .xxx for *not* being considered porn when it really is? :)

(To be honest, I don't see what the fuss is over, except insofar as some sites could theoretically be forced to use .xxx domains and thus be blocked... unless you knew the IP address, subverted the filter, or did any of the things teens are wont to do when confronted with filters...)

No, don't read RFCs when making Internet policy

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

You people are idiots. (Score: -1, Redundant... This is Slashdot, after all.)

Please do the world a favour by tagging this article "rfc3675", then go read it.

Ooh, what can we register?

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

tu.xxx - Penguin Porn!

Right...good luck getting 6B people to agree.

[Kadin2048]

You're being far too US-centric. The proposals you outline might work -- I wouldn't go so far as to say "well," but might actually be feasible -- if you were talking about .xxx.us, but remember, we're talking about a global "porn TLD" here. You're being rather parochial.

Your definitions of porn aren't going to be the same (or maybe not even close) to what some people in other parts of the world are going to think. Who gets to decide on those "case by case basis" situations you're talking about? You? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The head of a family-oriented nudist collective from the Netherlands?

I've got an idea, why don't you get everyone in the world to agree on a standard for what's "obscene." Once you've got something that satisfies everyone, then you can come back and discuss imposing it on the Internet. But until that framework exists, there's no point in trying to implement a technological scheme that utterly depends on it.

If nations really want "porn zones," they can implement them in their own namespace -- we can have ".xxx.us" and the Dutch can have ".xxx.nl" and the Iranians can have ".xxx.ir". (Or, probably more usefully, if your goal is to provide censored internet service, create "clean.us" and "clean.nl" and "clean.ir" where nipples, strong violence, and bare ankles are verboten, respectively. Then people can just restrict browsing to the white-zones of their choice.)

But seriously, "common sense" is a very regional thing. What seems blindingly obvious to you, probably doesn't to someone on the other side of the planet, and your view shouldn't carry any more weight than theirs when we're talking about the fate of a global medium.

.xxx is an incredibly bad idea

[quokkapox]

videos/images of nude people engaging in sexual activities intended as a source of entertainment for adults is pornographic.

I'm not sure if you're a troll or if you seriously believe the utter bullshit you've ejaculated into this discussion.

Do you actually believe that there is something morally wrong with the type of content you mention in the quote above? Do you actually think that sex is "dirty" (whatever that means)? Come on, we ALL do it. Even bacteria conjugate.

You are claiming that there is something wrong with visual, auditory, textual, even ARTISTIC representation of a basic human need. Sex ranks up there with other important stuff like food, water and shelter.

Ever since I went to college there were guys that had a thing for strip clubs/titty bars/whatever you want to call them. I thought they were kind of silly and have never been inside one to this day. Problem solved for me, without banning them for others. Who am I to judge? Who are you? If you can't handle what's on the Internet, go watch basketball or something, and leave the interesting content to the adults (and probably quite a few precocious teenagers too).

Holy fucking shit, there is something seriously wrong with you anti-sex people.

Oh-no. I said "fucking" and "ejaculate" in this post. I contaminated your whole thread with filth. Better relegate this post to http://slashdot.xxx/ so the good people can't read my dirty words.

Re:.xxx is an incredibly bad idea

[jhfry]

When you have children, you will understand why it makes sense to keep things of a sexual nature out of the mainstream.

Not that I agree that it should be that way, I would love to have sex more open in our society. But there are limits, even more sexually open societies try and teach their kids that sex should be passionate, gentile, and between a loving couple; standards ignored in most porn videos I have seen. Our 8 year old knows what sex is, and is well aware that her mother and I have it on occasion. She's even seen some pornographic photos of it, though not by our choosing. But she doesn't need to see a close up a throbbing cock being slammed into some girls ass while she gives another guy head and rubs her pierced clit.

I will tell you that a tasteful image of a naked woman or man, or even tasteful shots of a couple engaging in sexual activity, is not offensive to me... even if my children see it. However it is very hard to make a distinction of what is tasteful. Thus it is simply easier to keep things of sexual nature in an easy accessible, but separate location. Like the magazine racks at your local liquor store.

Re:.xxx is an incredibly bad idea

[quokkapox]

When you have children, you will understand why it makes sense to keep things of a sexual nature out of the mainstream.

When you have children, you will understand why it makes sense to keep things of a religious nature out of the mainstream.

What's the difference?

However it is very hard to make a distinction of what is tasteful. Thus it is simply easier to keep things of sexual nature in an easy accessible, but separate location. Like the magazine racks at your local liquor store.

This is impossible to do on the Internet, because of its very nature. Unfettered access to the Internet is for mature adults. If you don't like what's on the unfiltered Internet, don't let your kid access it. Just like you wouldn't let your kid walk the streets in the city alone at night.

If you have a problem with the content on the Internet, create and define your own acceptable subset thereof, and only allow yourself and your kids to access that subset.

I wholeheartedly advocate the creation of a .kids domain or the equivalent. There's room for even more differentiation; you could have a .teens domain where teenagers can congregate safely. Or make a .christian.teens and a .buddhist.teens domain and have people who care police and regulate these subdomains. It's your problem to create, police, and limit your kids' access to these areas, not mine.

Acronym

[tux0r]

Just great. An International Foundation for Online Responsibility, Now In Control of All The Erotica.

IFORNICATE.

(Karma to burn!)

More bad ideas

[quokkapox]

Exactly my point, the current 'system' prevents me from excercising my desire to not see such content and undermines my wishes. Organizing content into easily located and/or avoided locations is only sensible. That's why the DNS system is setup the way that it is, to help categorize information.

On a similar vein, I would love to see a bunch of new TLD's started and popular. If the information were organized properly into the correct TLD, and everyone knew that blogs were in .blog for example, they could determine what was on a site before they clicked a link. You could search for blogs about certain subjects by restricting the scope of your search. etc.

I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about. DNS is not set up to categorize information, it categorizes site names on a vague, broad basis according to guidelines that were eroded significantly in the 90s during the explosive commercial growth of the WWW. Those guidelines are all but meaningless now.

Slashdot.org is not an .org. It really should have been a .com. What is digg? Is digg a blog? Is slashdot a blog? Is fark a blog? Are they all just entertainment sites? How about 4chan? How about everything2 ? What if the global wikipedia community decides it's appropriate to put up some representative photos of "pornography" on the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography ? Maybe we could even rotate them on a daily basis? "Featured Pornography Example Picture of the Day". Or does that not count as .porn because it's educational?

Go take a look at your local magazine rack in the supermarket. Instead of banning Sports Car Weekly, Guns and Ammo, and Stupid Celebrity Rehab Roundup (which I would advocate if I were as fucked up as you seem to be), instead you simply realize that you don't have to buy them, and you can teach your own kids why they're supposed to believe all those publications are chock-full of worthless, inane drivel (as perhaps I would). Or better yet, teach your kids how to make up their own minds. God forbid they grow up less stifled and prudish than you.

You don't want to accidentally see a scantily-clothed adult on a billboard advertising the local gym, eh? Well how do you think I feel--I think virtually all commercial billboards are garish, offensive monstrosities. Doesn't mean I get to ban them.

Re:More bad ideas

[jhfry]

Just FYI,

I love my scantily clothed women as much as the next guy. In fact I have a small but enjoyable porn collection of my own.

However, I don't like it when I inadvertently come across that material when I'm at work, or while one of the kids are sitting next to me. And I certainly don't like the idea of my, increasingly web proficient, 8 year old seeing it when she's on the web (always supervised btw).

I'm usually pretty good at avoiding the darker side of the internet, but sometimes you get an unexpected surprise.

I realize that my idea's are only pipe dreams, however it does seem like it would be more logical if things were organized in such a way.

And by the way, the magazines you mentioned are not pornographic, those mags are behind the counter with an opaque panel hiding the cover except for the title. Another example of keeping the freedom of choice for the consumer while also respecting the wishes of those who prefer not to be exposed. I have no problem with scantily clad people, or even nudes... I wouldn't be upset if my 8 year old girl were to see a tasteful photo of a naked man, however if that man was receiving head from a bimbo in crotchless panties and high heels I might be a bit angry to be put in that situation.

How do you explain that to an 8 year old, pornography is typically not realistic, it's not the way it 'should be' anyway. Porn almost never portrays sex between a loving couple, instead it's between two people who don't even know each other's names. When your raising a kid, you want them to treat sex as an expression of love... eventually they will learn the distinction, but you certainly don't want them going around thinking it's perfectly normal to just screw complete strangers for fun... even if it is during college ;-)

Re:More bad ideas

[quokkapox]

However, I don't like it when I inadvertently come across that material when I'm at work, or while one of the kids are sitting next to me. And I certainly don't like the idea of my, increasingly web proficient, 8 year old seeing it when she's on the web (always supervised btw).

So do I. I find religious propaganda highly offensive. I think it's dangerous for my kids to get exposed to such literature. The other day there were Watchtower publications left at the laudromat, right there at eye level for any impressionable kid to read and possibly swallow. Every day on broadcast television this lunatic named Pat Robertson and his cronies spout fundamentalism, religious extremism, and hatred. How am I supposed to protect my kids from that? I think the TV channels and magazines from cults and religious wackos are harmful and should be banned or at least constrained to behind-the-counter status.

Or I could teach my kids how to deal with such things they run into in the sick society we have today.

... Another example of keeping the freedom of choice for the consumer while also respecting the wishes of those who prefer not to be exposed. I have no problem with scantily clad people, or even nudes... I wouldn't be upset if my 8 year old girl were to see a tasteful photo of a naked man, however if that man was receiving head from a bimbo in crotchless panties and high heels I might be a bit angry to be put in that situation.

I don't want my kids to see TV shows that glorify violence and hatred and torture, but these things are broadcast daily on national TV. The 700 Club. 24. These things come in over the airwaves, whereas you are advocating the censorship of a medium (the Internet) which you have to specifically subscribe to and allow access to. Do you see the difference between consensual sexual activity which is harmful to neither party, and the garbage on 24 involving chopping off people's fingers and injecting painful chemicals, shooting people left and right, and proselytizing religious intolerance on the 700 Club? It's OK and mostly harmless to give or receive oral sex, it's NOT OK to torture and kill people or tell them they're condemned to eternal punishment for some improper conduct.

But regardless of what I think of all of that, it's my job, not society's job, to educate and pass on values to my own kids. It's impossible to shield kids from undesirable stimuli nowadays, so why not instead just accept the fact that they're going to see stuff you don't like, and you'll need to teach them why you think they shouldn't like it either?

Good idea, horrible domain

[hickory-smoked]

When I see "xxx", my first impulse is to think it's a variable. Even as a "rating", it doesn't even mean anything. It was something invented by porn theaters 40 years ago.

If we're making a whole new category for adult material, let's give it a proper name. dot-adl, dot-adult, dot-ero, dot-porn... I don't care, just not three xs.

Surely I'm not the only one who rants about this... right?

Conservapedia

[quokkapox]

Excellent points. Of course, this places the burden for the cost and tedium of administrating such a kid-friendly program squarely and solely on the potential "benefactors".

Nevertheless, they're testing out the possibilities: see Conservapedia

A week ago they didn't even have an article for Sex. Now it just redirects to "Gender".

Who decides what is porn?

[TheDormouse]

The site owners themselves. If they are selling porn because they know they are selling porn, it's to everyone's advantage that they live on a .xxx domain. Easier to find; easier to filter. Hopefully there wouldn't be enough porn left on non-.xxx domains to stumble upon it nearly as often. It's not a perfect system, but it's a step in the right direction. If a site thinks it's art, let it stay on .com/.org; people who disagree will complain just like now. If a porn site stubbornly stays on a .com, people can complain to the site and hopefully they'll move to .xxx where they belong.

YES

[cortana]

You hit it right on the head. Did you know that such a tagging system already exists? It's called PICS. It's a great idea. And it's being totally ignored by the morons who come up with these laws that seek to destroy what they cannot understand.

All religious sites should then be ,bs domains.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Hey its only fair. If they want to have .xxx domains just they can sue the shit out of you for posting pics of your girl showing her tits, on your .com... then i want to be able to sue the religious nuts for not keeping their religious bullshit propaganda on a .BS

Answering what's wrong with porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, every time an issue relating to the availability of porn is posted on slashdot, the masses like to talk about the stupidity of religious fundamentalists and the like, and champion the cause of individualism. What very few people ask is just why do most of the world's major religions place such a high emphasis on sexual morality in the first place? What importance does it have?

Sexual morality isn't about shielding children from sexually explicit themes in case they suddenly blow up and die; it's about preserving the longevity and function of a healthy society. Christianity has existed for 2000 years, Judaism about twice that, and Islam 1400 years. These religions have survived through the rise and fall of nations, kingdoms and empires. The have replaced other beliefs in conquered populations. They certainly haven't achieved this by creating a society of alcoholic, drug dependent, porn addicted, homosexual, chronic masturbators who use contraception and have abortions on demand.

Many people simply no longer form healthy and loving relationships with the female sex because of the widespread availability of porn. There is simply no longer as much desire to procreate and start a family in a stable relationship. Many men are now somewhat less interested in their partner because now they can look up their ultimate fantasies on the internet. However, the family starts with a loving man and wife, and it's a core principle to the longevity of civilization, as the current population needs to pass on its genes and knowledge to the next - today's children are tomorrow's adults. Societies that interrupted this process inevitably became conquered by those who didn't.

  Indirectly, it's exactly why the western world has an immigration crisis, especially with Europe and Islam - I can already tell you the future for native Europeans certainly isn't good. Europe's Islamic population clings to a strong sense of identity and traditional morality whereas the indigenous population is individualistic and fed an endless supply of bread and circuses. Europe's upper class doesn't want to let the future of civilization get in the way of cheap labor, consumer spending and tax revenue, so they resort to decadent entertainment to keep the masses from properly questioning the government. They arrogantly dismiss those with cultural concerns as being working-class rednecks, Christian fundamentalist loonies and racists. If these current trends continue, the current European leaders will be overthrown in an Islamic revolution into the future, and also have very little sympathy from the native population who may convert to Islam in the process. This is perhaps a perfect example of the decay of once all-powerful western civilization.

The conclusion is that the beliefs of the major religions are not that loopy after all. They are absolutely critical to the way a healthy society functions. Functioning societies ARE NOT individualistic; they all have their Chiefs and Indians. However, maybe they need to stop treating the masses like illiterate peons and actually explain WHY it believes x activity is immoral. Maybe future generations will look back on European civilization and ask why it fell. The answer will be exactly the same as the Roman Empire; bread and circuses, fiddling around while Rome burns, except this time to pr0n.

Re:Answering what's wrong with porn

[Anonymous Coward]

There is such an illogical confusion of wild unsubstantiated assertions in your post it's difficult to know where to start.

You totally ignore the great harm that religous sexual repression does. Profound ignorance about our bodies and the joyfulness of sex actually CREATES pr0n.

I've travelled widely in Muslim countries and I tell you, I've never met such a bunch of frustrated, horny beyond limits, sexually confused and tormented guys as asian men raised in fundamentalist societies (I was raised a strict Catholic and have never entirely forgiven the Church for the guilt and panic it has inculcated into anything sexual in my life).

In India, women outside of marriage are so covered up and unavailable (apart from prostitutes) that men and boys frequently have covert homosexual or bisexual encounters - though it's NEVER discussed.

I've repeatedly been bailed up my young men desperate to know if all Western women do the acts they have seen in the poor quality black market pr0n. Their desperation is driven by repression.

SEXUAL REPRESSION IS ABOUT POWER. The only real power is to control people's most initimate behaviors and desires. Because if these are not repressed, they lose their usefulness as an agent of control.

Try Freud, Marcuse, etc.

So .xxx will be the freespeech zone on the net?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Will US citizen's only be able to use words like "Fuck" "Tits" "Pussy, "Cum" "Anal" "Assfucker" etc on .xxx domains? What happens to a teenaged US Citizen that says "Oh god, i want to fuck the shit out of this girl at my highschool" on his website, or any other forum no located on a .xxx domain?

More so, will all citizens of the US be head liable for anything that is considered pornographic if they post it to their non .xxx domain?

I have a serious fucking problem with the idea of .xxx.

DO NOT let them take power of the net like that. It has little to do with the children seeing sex... because all they have to do is by accident, walk in on mom and dad fucking one day in their own home. What about other children in school ? What about hearing someone in the distance in public saying "dude, i fucked this girl last night so hard"...

What exactly is the point of a .xxx?

To make porn easier to block? Thats like saying a windows software firewall is going to keep your computer from being trojaned. It's just not as simple as they make it sound. Would myspace been completely liable for any teen that posts their tits on their myspace? because its not a .xxx?

What we're talking about here.. is giving people the legal right to prosecute free speech and expression. Not protecting children.

How far will they take this .xxx idea? I tend to think, if we give them this power, they will take it as far as they can.

The net is perhaps the last true openly free environment we have in the US with reguards to expression and speech. Infact it is the ultimate form of it, because we can do it by sharing our voices in audio, our lives through pictures, and our wifes face with cum on it through video...

You get the point.

Parents have enough tools at their disposal, that will do the same job as any .xxx site would. It's called parental filtering software, that can block every dick, cum, pussy, snot fucking word or rusty trombone phrase imaginable... along with any .jpg, .vid, or .com that has any matching material. The effect of having a .xxx woudl be the same as just running the parental filtering software.... because after all, nothing is fully secure.

The truth is, little jenny is going to see that picture of the guy with the giant tumor on his dick... because it'll be named Justin_Timborlake_is_hot.jpg. OR she'll see brazillian girls getting shit on by horses... by clicking on "mudpony.jpg" ... and of course lets not forget tubgirl... ah yes.. tub girl...

OR.. mom can have it this way...

Little jenny wont be able to get on any .xxx sites, but google doesnt know how old you are... and there's bound to be plenty of cached images of things little jenny shouldnt see. OR how about little jenny is curious about sex and instead of asking mom and dad, kind of wants to search for information on birth control, or how to kiss for the first time...

Surely there's no porn on torrents... Torrents have nothing to do with .xxx domains. Are you saying little jenny wont find porn on torrents or p2p? How about the newsgroups?

Will this be a way to legislate torrents and all kinds of traffic, under the notion that children may see porn on these said torrents because these torrents do not respect the .xxx domain scheme... and therefore our government decides to make all torrents illegal because there is no way that they can respect the .xxx domain plan?

Just how far, will people take this .xxx

How much power do they want?

They dont use parental software as is... They dont even use their fucking V-chip. And like i said, .xxx isnt going to solve the problem.... and who said theres a problem anyway

MySpace, Wiki, Youtube

[Wandering Wombat]

It's very, very easy to get pr0n, and LOTS OF IT, on those websites. Will they have to move to .xxx?

As a former teenage boy....

[shaitand]

I feel a must oppose this regulation for all that I am worth. Parents try to eliminate pornography from their children's gaze so that they might grow up without becoming deviants. Having to hide from parents and not being able to talk about things sexual instills a sense of modesty in children.

As we all know, parents don't actually succeed in this question and any parent who thinks they do is fooling themself. With a .xxx domain parents might actually be able to truly block porn and that would probably be detrimental to the development of the child. This is especially true if the child is male.

Expand FURTHER on the internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean there some porn out there I haven't seen?

What if a child saw a human body! Unnatural!

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiotic. Idiotic. Idiotic. Yes, it's idiotic.

All Christians know that only animals have sex. God-fearing humans do parthenogenesis while wearing wet suits in Holy Water.

Any classification attempt will function as a failed attempt at censorship. It's neither possible nor desirable to utterly control internet content, and it's about time the idiots gave up trying with all this "shock, horror, a naked body! How unnatural!" idiodicy.

If only Americans would get over their hypocritical puritanical reaction to the human body - we all have one, y'know. It's right there, underneath your clothes. Have a look sometime. The penis and vagina are particularly nice and your children have a right to understand what they are, what they look like and what they do. No, such knowledge will not turn them into gerbil-packing maniacs. So what if they enjoy it for a time - most of the titillation comes from idiotic societal repression anyway. If you are honest and open with them, the giggles won't last long. The best way to deal with curiosity is to sate it in a honest way. Tne reality is this: most pRon is as boring as hell after a while (and if a small percentage is enjoyable, well, good). But not if you hype it up and laden it with such paranoia and guilt that even non-sexual nude images become threatening.

Fight this crap. Pr0n is not dehumanizing in and of itself - these are just images of mostly statistically normal private activities with occasional curiosities thown in. But a puritanical terror of the human body most certainly _is_ dehumanizing and _does_ damage people.

We had much of this almost right in the 1970s for a while. No hangups. What happened?

xxx for profit

[Anonymous Coward]

Any other time a discussion about a new TLD comes up, Slashdot is quick to jump on the 'it's just for profit' bandwagon, and they're right. .XXX is exactly the same, but with the difference that it would make the guys behind it a HUGE amount of money.

All other 'reasons' and platitudes are simply excuses to make some businessmen very, very rich.

.xxx domain

[falconwolf]

I fail to understand why we DON'T have .xxx domain names. If we did, we could lump all the porn sites together, making them both easier to find and easier to block. No one would accidentally stumble upon a porn site while looking for something completely unrelated (remember whitehouse.com?). This also gives the added advantage of freeing up porn sites to do more of whatever it is they wish to do. Gone is the excuse of "What about the children?" because blocking it would be so easy, than even an ISP could do it. Imagine, all you have to do is call your ISP and say, "Please block all html-based porn. Thank you." All your ISP would need to do is simply block all .xxx domain names. Your children are safe and porn operators have that much more freedom!

I used to support a .xxx domain, apparently as you do, but now I am against one. One reason I do is in what you bring up, requiring porn sites to use it. You don't explicitly state it but once such a domain is established it won't be long before some politicans decide they want all porn sites to be required to use it. Heck, even religious groups are against it, "religious groups worry that '.xxx' would legitimize and expand the number of adults sites". Also it won't prevent children from visiting and seeing porn. If ISPs block .xxx domains all a person would have to do to visit a porn site is type in the IP address, 255.000.000.000 and someone will come along with a .com listing the ip addies of porn sites.

Falcon

How about "if it shows nudity for non-educationa

[falconwolf]

And who decides if it is or isn't educational? You? Not everyone agrees what educational and what isn't.

If there's any doubt, you could set up a board or something to decide disputes.

SO they get to decide for everyone else what is educational?

It's really not that hard to figure out. (pun not intended!)

But it is HARD to figure out. What's one person's porn is another's art. Many Christians groups are against porn yet they read a pornographic book, even swearing by it, the "Bible". The Bible is filled with gratuitous violence; gender and sexual discrimination; pornography; and murder and genocide.

Falcon

do porn sites support the .xxx domain?

[falconwolf]

IIRC the porn industry is pro xxx because it makes their sites easier to find.

If you had RTFA, you should of seen where it says: "I have not met one single webmaster or adult video producer that is in favor of `.xxx,' and I've met a lot of them." Further "Porn sites are largely concerned that the domain name, while billed as voluntary, would make it easier for governments to later mandate its use and 'essentially ghettoize sexual information on the Web,' "

In other words, some porn sites DO NOT support the .xxx domain.

Falcon

Re:do porn sites support the .xxx domain?

[AshtangiMan]

I can't find the source, but just because this article claims one thing does not make it so. Of course just because I do, or my other source did, does not make it so either. But, no, I did not RTFA.

standards forporn

[falconwolf]

Thats why standards were invented. There will of course have to be some sort of rules created to define what constitutes porn. Hopefully standards that are very rigid and simple to cut down on the bickering. No "full nudity is ok if it somehow falls in the domain of "art". As much as I see an arguement for that, it's too easy to just call it all "art" and then the whole thing is useless. Nay, it has to be very simple...like "if the nipple or any identifyable portion thereof is shown in any form and any context, then it needs to go .xxx". Sure lots of people will complain about that...but that is the only way it can be clear, workable and enforacable.

And who's going to decide what's porn? Arabs? Say Wabis? Or is China going to decide? How about Europe? What's pron in one place isn't in another. This is even true in the US. The USSC ruled each locality can decide for themself what is obscene and what isn't.

And then how are you going to enforce it?

Falcon

Uhm.... Isn't this the opposite of what we NEED?

[MicahEli]

Instead of having .xxx or .porn or WHATEVER... why are we trying to make a home for sites that ALREADY have a home? Getting porn sites to MOVE from the domain space that they helped make HUGE is ridiculous.

Why not have .kid or .k12 or .safe. Then, people could apply for a subscription to one of these domain types which includes people monitoring their site. People could then simply lock their browsers to .kid, .k12, .safe, or whatever and their children could ONLY surf in sites certified as "safe for kids". There could be exclusions such as gmail, slashdot, or whatever... but that sort of a filtering system makes WAY more sense than .xxx.