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?

[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?

[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.

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.