Final Decision Deferred On ".xxx" Domains

Hugh Pickens writes "The Associated Press reports that the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has deferred a decision until June on whether to create a '.xxx' Internet suffix as an online red-light district, beginning a 70-day process of consultations on a domain that could help parents block access to adult sites. ICM Registry LLC first proposed the '.xxx' domain in 2000, and ICANN has rejected it three times already since then, but an outside panel last month questioned the board's latest rejection in 2007, prompting the board to reopen the bid. Backers of '.xxx' have billed the proposal as a way for the adult-entertainment industry to clean up its act, though some adult sites worry that governments would wind up mandating the use of '.xxx' and that sites with the '.xxx' suffix could easily be blocked by government web filters in the future. 'I am very concerned and fearful of censoring adult material that should be made available for adults. It scares the hell out of me,' says Malcolm Day, head of AdultShop.com, adding that if adult websites weren't allowed to have '.com' domains and could only register under the '.xxx' address, then 'many governments (across the world) would try to block them.'"

Comments

Exactly backwards

[Angst Badger]

People who want a "kid-safe" Internet should create a G-rated TLD for their material and block everything else. Having an adult-only TLD is just asking for trouble. I am reminded of the effort in the 80's spearheaded by Tipper Gore to label record albums. It started with profanity and sex, and before long, they we're trying to put "occult" warnings on anything that deviated from (their version of) orthodox Christianity. Ghettoization always leads to extermination.

It's high time we called out the censors for using children as human shields.

Re:Exactly backwards

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

No I think they got this going the right away around. The Internet will finally reach its full potential once everyone can filter out everything except .xxx domains.

Re:Exactly backwards

[desertfool]

I like the idea to create a kid friendly TLD. How about .kid? It would make the net nannying a lot easier.

Re:Exactly backwards

[wisty]

People who want a "kid-safe" internet could insist in embedded ratings. Some HTML tag with "xxx, violence" or whatever else they want to put in. Easy to block. Easy to implement. And people don't have to worry about domain squatters trying to register slashdot.xxx to shake down established sites.

Re:Exactly backwards

[tverbeek]

How, exactly, would you enforce the requirement to embed ratings? There are already such systems in existence, but for reasons that I wish were obvious, they cannot be enforced.... any more than a segregation of "adult" material into a separate domain.

Re:Exactly backwards

[wisty]

The same way you enforce adult sites to go to xxx - you don't. Embedded ratings could only be "opt-in" - just like most standards on the net. Just like .xxx would be. Anything else would just be too hard to enforce.

Re:Exactly backwards

[tverbeek]

What happens when someone puts sex-ed info on a web site in the .kid domain, and American Puritan Society objects? Or someone creates www.heatherhastwomommies.kid and the anti-homosexual lobby cries foul? Who decides whether it's OK?

If people want to create a walled garden online for their kids to play in, and use software to keep them there, I'm perfectly supportive of that. But the top level of the domain hierarchy is the wrong place to do that. Do it at the second level. Let private independent agencies or communities or whatever create walledgarden.org or keepmybabysafe.com or ohlookabutterfly.net, let them manage the content there according to their own standards, and let parents choose to use any of these sites (or none) to entertain their children. Restricting one's children to *.walledgarden.org is no more difficult than restricting them to *.kid. And meanwhile, the rest of us, who are not children, are free to use an internet that doesn't make decisions about content for us.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

Forced ratings are a freedom of speech issue: Freedom of speech means you can neither be forced not to say what you want to say nor forced to say what you don't want to say.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't agree any more on this. .KID should be created, not .xxx, .xxx won't solve a damn thing.

Any websites out there are free to create kid friendly versions of their websites too.
Of course, they'd have to follow very strict rules as to what people can do, such as no content embedding unless it is verified by staff. (which would essentially put most off from allowing it, period)

Of course, kid friendly websites are going to be the target of another person, why it is everyone's favorite friend, the pedofile.
Nothing you can do there really, unless you go through the awkward route of having to force any accounts to be verified by an adult and checked out through some route to make sure said kid actually exists.
Of course, if THEY have a kid, that is a whole other problem.

And a whole load of other tangled mess, but this is what happens when people get over emotional and start some bullshit Protect The Children crusade.
More like "Protect my kid because i never taught them a damn thing about life, give me free money too!"
Better yet, introduce a license to HAVE a kid in the first place. If you are too stupid, you shouldn't be allowed, period, getting a bit sick of having to pay for other peoples stupidity.

Re:Exactly backwards

[S.O.B.]

A kid friendly TLD is another way of saying pedophile friendly TLD.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Bozzio]

You make an interesting point... but wouldn't that raise quite a few technical issues? I can think of the following:

• Sites stemming from walledgarden.org will no longer be able to references external dependencies (e.g. for javascript, media, etc...) which don't stem from walledgarden.org.
• Authenticating website traffic might be more difficult or more susceptible to attack.

I'm no expert in this domain, so I expect the list is much longer. Any authorities care to jump in?

Re:Exactly backwards

[digitig]

In most places erotica is legal for adults, so a complete ban on xxx sites seems unlikely. Even most countries that have web filtering havent't tried to block all erotica, because the sex industry does actually have lobbying power. Frankly, I like clear labelling. If I want erotica I'd like to be able to find it. If I don't want erotica then I'd like to be able to avoid it. Same as hydrogenated fats, and same as some people with GM soya. Why is the sex industry almost as bad as the food industry over trying to hide what the content of their products really is?

Re:Exactly backwards

[KingMotley]

Yes, the same way of saying preschool is pedophile smorgasbord.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a freedom of speech issue. You are still allowed to say what you want, but you have to advertise the content is not appropriate for kids. This is no more than requiring movies to be rated "R", but of course we're talking about "X" rated stuff here. I don't see playboy claiming freedom of speech issues because they aren't placed dead center in the middle of the 7-10 year old section of toy's R us either.

Re:Exactly backwards

[TheLink]

Yeah. Having a .xxx domain is a good idea technically. It will make it easier to search for porn without getting too many false positives.

It certainly is a better idea than those stupid .biz and .info domains which are just "yet another dot com to milk".

The fact that the ICANN approves crap like .biz and .info and is taking so long to decide over .xxx just shows they aren't a technical organization ;).

Note: I am still a bit sore with the ICANN since they ignored my proposal years ago to reserve a .here (or similar TLD) so that everyone can have a domain to address "physically" local stuff - just like everyone can use the RFC1918 IP addresses without clashing with the rest of the Internet.

To me both .local and .here should be reserved for local/private usage (just like 10.x.x.x and the other two ranges are for RFC1918).

The .local TLD is currently used for stuff like Bonjour, but it still has not been formally reserved.

The ICANN can't even get stuff like that right.

Re:Exactly backwards

[hitmark]

no different then the "enter date of birth" or "warning, naked titties beyond this point" front pages.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Wingman 5]

Actually if you are running your own DNS server on your intranet you can use whatever TLD you want, so as long as they don't approve the plan of letting large company register their own TLD anything non in the standard ICANN naming system would be considered a private TLD.

Re:Exactly backwards

[TheLink]

I'm talking about doing things properly. What if the ICANN later approves the TLD you are using locally, for "yet another .com"?

You then need to spend resources to migrate your stuff to a new domain. All because the ICANN isn't doing a good job.

In my eyes the ICANN are a parasite. They allowed crap like domain front running and tasting.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Ernesto Alvarez]

Actually, having part of the hierarchy solely for kids would be a great idea, but not for the obvious reasons.

You should allocate kids.us (if you yanks are so worried about it, that's where it belongs, the rest of the world doesn't give a damn about it) for such content.

Then you could create penalties for posting "indecent" material into this subtree of DNS. Since we're talking about DNS, the penalties should go to the owner of the DNS domain. The meaning of "indecent" is irrelevant and can be anything (you'll see as I present my reasoning).

Now, when someone comes trying to do censorship "for the children", you can just point that there's a perfectly child-safe domain protected by laws, with very harsh penalties for not respecting its intended purpose. All of that would be true.

However, if you've had read the literature you'd know that making such guarantee is impossible. Therefore no sane person would get a subdomain of "kids.us". However any busybodies can be easily told they should stop complaining and use the tools given to them (after all, the subdomain would indeed be protected by laws, and they should really be enforced). If they balk at the prospect of having such punishments applied to them, telling them that they are obviously not that interested in the children and are clearly hypocrites (maybe they would be tempted to put something "indecent"? or maybe they just talk but aren't trully willing to take the responsibility to make a clean web for the future generations, blah, blah).

In the end, only extremists will be willing to get .kids.us domains, no sane people would be even interacting with that thing, parents would get to choose if they let their kids out of the walled garden (and if they fail to do so, when they wanted, then they're irresponsable parents), and everybody else gets to browse porn without being distracted by the think-of-the-children crowd.

I even have a slogan for the domain: "kids.us, the clean place for kids that sucks".

The most that can happen is that a few extremists get punished (or whatever) when the sites are inevitably hacked.

Problem solved.

Re:Exactly backwards

[__aavevi421]

I used to run 30 sites years ago and suggested the .kid TLD. At the time, disney had managed to make www.disney.kid active and I thought 'Good on them'. IRL we try to keep children away from the negative elements of society by herding them in to schools, playgroups etc - why not do the same with the internet? I'll tell you why, the pay-per-click promoters freaked out! Without innocent netters randomly clicking banners, their revenues would drop :( Arguing about the .kid TLD would attract pedo's is nonsense. This TLD could be monitored by all the TotC crowd to their hearts' content, websites could be heavily fined and/or shut down and parents could more easily lock down their child's browsing.

Re:Exactly backwards

[davester666]

What would be X-rated and what would be G-rated?

Everybody has a different idea about what these ratings mean, and in what context.

Some people would find a picture of a woman breastfeeding to be educational, others would say it is obscene.

And I guess there would also be a "Great Firewall of the USA", because the ROW wouldn't bother following along.

Even the stupidity of the Apple store, which required applications containing images of people wearing bikini's to be rated NC-17, containing explicit nudity, while disallowing any actual nudity [defined by me as displaying a penis/vagina/women's nipples], makes a mockery of the plain text of their self imposed ratings system.

And recently there has been a court ruling in one of the states saying the content produced and served from another state [and which one of their residents purchased for viewing] is obscene and the company serving it is liable for fines and further action if they don't stop enabling local residents from accessing it.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Alsee]

I completely agree with all the problems you cite for a .kids type domain, and I completely agree the correct thing to do would be for people to use second level walledgarden.org type domains. However the world sucks, stupid people routinely demand idiotic and destructive things, and politicians all too often give it to them.

So while I agree with everything you say, I support a .kids type domain to the extent that it can be used to siphon off these people and their bad ideas. It provides an outlet where these people can satisfy their crusade-compulsion and they can play out their bad ideas. A place where they can fight with each other over all of the problems you list, a place they can do all the dumb things they like and cause all the damage they wish, all within a contained area. All without causing any harm or damage outside their pointless harmless .kids domain.

You're right the correct thing for them to do is just apply for a routine second level domain where they can do whatever they like, but obviously they already can do that, and obviously they are not going to be satisfied with that. These activists don't actually want to set up some kid-safe area, they don't actually want to do anything themselves, they are fighting to make the do something. They don't want to solve their problem, they want the government to solve it for them. And their "problem" isn't that they don't like what they are accessing on the internet, their problem is that they don't like what other people can find on the internet. They don't want something fixed for themselves, they are crusaders who want to forcibly impose their "help" upon everyone else. They are fanatically "helpful" people who want to run around forcibly applying leaches to everyone in order to prevent fictional diseases.

I say a bad idea such as a .kids domain might be a useful idea if it gives these destructively-helpful people the illusion that they are successfully helping their intended victims.... err I mean helping their intended beneficiaries.

Now I admit that it may lead to a problem with these people making demands that schools and libraries have some sort of mandatory filter restricted to the .kids domain. And yes, I acknowledge that some children (and adults) may become victims of that sort of idiocy. However I believe that attempting to impose that sort of filter would be completely unworkable and it would be an almost instantaneous blatant failure. I believe it would result in far less harm than their current efforts to impose upon students some ideological-candyland version of the full internet.

Hell, in an ideal world I would fully support a .xxx domain. In theory it's a great idea. Let porn sites or anyone else grab a .xxx domain if they like, cool. The only reason I don't support it is because in the real world idiots view .xxx as some sort of "fix" for their "problem", and then they obviously expect that "fix" to actually work for solving their problem. They expect "bad" stuff is supposed to be in the .xxx domain, and only within the .xxx domain. So they expect laws to make that true, they expect laws to force things to actually work the way they want and expect them to work. They start demanding stupid destructive and unworkable laws to imprison anyone who puts "objectionable" material on a normal general website. And then all of the problems you list in your post become a catastrophic plague upon the internet itself.

The only problem with your post is that you offered a reasonable rational solution. You often can't fix an unreasonable irrational fanatical people-problem with a reasonable rational fix.

-

Re:Exactly backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

They're going to use the wrong domain. .xxx is stupid. Everyone knows it should be .cum!

Re:Exactly backwards

[Arccot]

People who want a "kid-safe" internet could insist in embedded ratings. Some HTML tag with "xxx, violence" or whatever else they want to put in. Easy to block. Easy to implement. And people don't have to worry about domain squatters trying to register slashdot.xxx to shake down established sites.

Sadly, this used to exist and W3 eliminated it, but I'm not sure why.

PICS was first. Then came POWDER. Then both were dropped. I haven't found a replacement for either.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

I really like the idea of making this .kid domain. Send all of the websites intended for children to this domain type. I have a nephew and niece who regularly use the internet, the oldest is 6, and kids aren't always doing what their parent's think they are doing (innocently of course). I remember at least a year ago or more, my nephew had just recently learned to spell his and his little sisters name, and they were googling their name and had somehow disabled the safe search, and their mother (my sister) walked in on them and apparently they found a picture of a woman with the same name as my niece who my nephew typed in.

Make the .kid domain, maybe someone could make a mozilla addon to stop all websites that don't have the .kid domain (Like a nearly failsafe parental control, add a password feature to keep kids from navigating away from any of these domains.)

I also like the idea of making the .xxx domain, but the owner of adult websites do have their net neutrality rights and I can understand why they wouldn't want this because it could kill some of their business in countries where the gov't tries to control adult content.

Re:Exactly backwards

[jonwil]

The answer is to make the kid-friendly domain a .kids.us domain
Then anything that is considered "G rated" by the US (i.e. what would be G or safe for kids if rated by the MPAA, ESRB or TV ratings people) would be allowed.

Re:Exactly backwards

[shentino]

That's the gayest idea I've ever heard.

Re:Exactly backwards

[tombeard]

Why not replace the server name? Make all kid friendly sites kid.abc.org, as a replacement for www.abc.org. No change to anything needed, just cooperation. Some people have complained about linking; I always thought hosting a www server implied permission to link. If you don't want to be part of the "web" call yourself something else and I will agree not to link. Make it "kid" for linking appropriate content. Social contract instead of government intrusion; the web gods can handle infractions.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Philip_the_physicist]

Mod parent up ! This is exactly the right way to go about it: each country has its own rules about what is suitable for children, and not just in terms of nudity. Many places have laws regarding advertising for children, profanity, drug and alcohol use, and so on, and these are so varied it would be impractical to choose a set of rules which are suitable even just between the Western nations, let alone the rest of the world.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Philip_the_physicist]

Lets say I have a website in some socially-liberal country with no requirement to use these labels. Now lets say it has some pictures which you find obscene on it, say photos from a topless beach or the like.

My local community wouldn't think that was obscene (after all, they allowed the beach in the first place), so they aren't going to make me put the adult tags on it, and likely as not, I wouldn't have any personal reason to bother to put them there either. Now what are you going to do? Marking only adult content isn't going to work.

What happens if I write a sex ed site for children, a perfectly legitimate one? Lets pretend it is used in schools here, but is too progressive for your moral guardians. Lets say it is suitable, in my community, for children 13+ to read, and I mark it accordingly, but your moral guardians decide that something that mentions homosexuality in a non-negative manner, or that suggests that condoms are a good idea, isn't suitable for anyone under the age of, say 16. What are you (or they) going to do about that? Obviously, the ratings need some sort of coordination.

We could let site owners assert that it meets the rules for specific countries ratings systems, but what about the "evil scary pornographers" who the moral guardians seem to think are going to try to show their precious babies porn "for teh evulz" or some other perfectly sensible reason? We can't go around trusting website owners, so we will have to use some sort of signed approval.

Now, lets say I have a legitimate site with a certification which has been hacked by the "bad men" and it has porn on it! Worse still, I could have had a legitimate site, but then replaced it with a porn site (because evil is fun). We can't let that happen, we'll have to sign the content of each page and image (you can't just fine me, I'm in another country). That's going to get expensive, so who's going to pay for that? Maybe you could refuse certification to any site not controlled from within your country, but that has other problems.

Wouldn't a .child.$CC (like .kids.us) be much simpler and cleaner? To register such a domain, I could be required to have a presence in that country, and that makes things much easier. If you feel that a country's rules are strict enough for your family, whitelist their children's subdomain. If you don't trust their list, or they don't have one, then don't use it.

If no-one wants to put a site on that subdomain, then you'll just ahve to face the fact that a whitelist isn't a good idea, and keep using existing filters.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Philip_the_physicist]

POWDER became a W3C recommendation as of 9th of September last year. try reading your own link!

Re:Exactly backwards

[smi.james.th]

Probably why it was posted by an Anonymous Coward...

Re:Exactly backwards

[smi.james.th]

I agree with this, actually... Even if we totally avoid the moral issues, or the "Protect the children" ones, (face it, if the kids want to get at it they'll find a way somehow), the fact that something is designated clearly will help a lot.

As a bit of an illustration the other day, me being quite a keen hobbyist I googled for "models", what I got wasn't exactly what I was anticipating, though. I realise that this is not exactly the same thing, but to illustrate, the .xxx domain will make a difference to URLs that are a bit ambiguous... With models.xxx there'd be no mistaking for what it is, whereas models.com might be a bit ambiguous.

Re:Exactly backwards

[badkarmadayaccount]

Two words: Prefix proxy.

Re:Exactly backwards

[h0dg3s]

Why do you need an entire TLD to yourself? Just register one .net domain and you can use as many subdomains off of that as you want.

Re:Exactly backwards

[TheLink]

Yes we can workaround crap. But a) it's still suboptimal, b) the ICANN isn't doing a good job, c) it makes it harder to create a standard foundation to build local services from.

Why should it be considered OK that everyone have to pay a few bucks extra/year and put up with unnecessary crappiness just because of ICANN?

And have you even tried to register a short non-totally nonsensical domain recently?

How much does it cost ICANN to just reserve one or two TLDs for everyone's private use?

I know it does make the ICANN and friends more money if we had to pay to register domains for internal use, or pay the ICANN USD180000 (can't remember the latest rate) just to apply for a TLD.

From a technical and efficiency ($$$ and time) POV it would just be better overall if a few TLDs were reserved for private/local use.

Re:Exactly backwards

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet your sister now thinks twice about naming her son "Dick Stiffington"

Top level domains wont make for less pron

[twisteddk]

I dont get this kind of thinking. Creating a toplevel domain surely would make it easier for people to find the porn they're looking for. Nothing less, nothing more
But BANNING domains on that note, would as far as I can see only lead to the downfall of the toplevel domain, as porn providers would stop using it as it's not good business.

And in any event, I dont really see the currently invested xxx providers as being willing to give up their lucrative .com or .org domains. So at most we'll get another toplevel domain that you need to register to "own" your own brand. Anyone for slashdot.xxx ?

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[sopssa]

Anyone for slashdot.xxx ?

Not a bad idea, we could use it to have nude pictures of slashdotters.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[tompaulco]

Not a bad idea, we could use it to have nude pictures of slashdotters.
Won't work for me. I don't have a wide aspect screen yet.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[Vellmont]

But BANNING domains on that note, would as far as I can see only lead to the downfall of the toplevel domain, as porn providers would stop using it as it's not good business.

Until countries make laws requiring "all websites with adult content in them are required to register under the .xxx domain". No big deal you say. I certainly don't go to sites like that.

Ever go to Amazon? Amazon sells adult videos. They also list a wide variety of sex toys, vibrators, etc that many people object to. Amazon doesn't sell this directly, but they do sell it through another company that lists on Amazon. Does that make Amazon belong under .xxx? Should the stuff that some people don't like be moved to a special amazon.xxx?

Creating the domain is but one step in the process of segregating the internet into various categories. Once you require everything to be in neat little categories you can start to control access to those categories, track them, etc. More insidious is creating these dividing lines is an attempt to make adult products which are already mainstream and have been for at least 40 years if not more into something not mainstream.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you know my dick was huge?

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[linhares]

Anyone for slashdot.xxx ? Not a bad idea, we could use it to have nude pictures of slashdotters.

I thought that's what chatroullette was for

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[twisteddk]

I whole heartedly agree with your assumption.

IF the internet (mind it IS international in nature, and heavily affected by cost driving factors, same as any other services) should ever "grow up" and force people to give up sex.com, whitehouse.com, etc. then Absolutely, you're right. But with so many domains under each toplevel domain, how do you decide who gets "sex.xxx" ? Is it the guy who owns sex.com, sex.org, or the majority of "sex.country_identifier" domains ?

I just dont see a plausible scenario for this type of transition, certainly not with the current structure, ownership and division of the internet, internet names, trademarks, copyrights etc. As you mention yourself, this is or will be an international endeavour. And getting the current 174 countries (or there abouts) to agree on simple stuff like national borders, official languages etc. has taken the better part of 10.000 years. So if we're to do the same with the internet, I'm guessing we have a long wait in front of us. Noone can push the agenda, for the simple reason that it's just not possible to make a fair division or law to neatly slice everything into these boxes. The current state of the internet just simply isn't suited for expansion of the type that people are requiring. And remaking the net isn't plausible either, so I understand why .xxx has been rejected in the past, it simply wont bring anything good or usefull with it.

I understand that people will want to filter the xxx content. But this needs to be a PERSONAL choice, similar to using netnanny or other services, because the only thing that will happen is that if .xxx is widely censored by countries or ISPs, is that it wont be used. If it isn't then the people owning whatever.com will then also register whatever.xxx, and have the new name point to their original site. Same as they've done for .org, .tv, .it, .nu, .no, etc. etc. ad inifinitum. In either event, people filtering .xxx will be met with the exact same amount of porn as now.

And on a sidenote on censorship: What about political spliter groups ? Should we also give them their own top level domain ? At least that way it'll be REALLY easy to track and deal with dissidents and rebels like say... Christians in China.
Censorship, control and division into neat little boxes isn't always exclusively a good thing.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[lunasee]

I whole heartedly agree with your assumption.

IF the internet (mind it IS international in nature, and heavily affected by cost driving factors, same as any other services) should ever "grow up" and force people to give up sex.com, whitehouse.com, etc. then Absolutely, you're right. But with so many domains under each toplevel domain, how do you decide who gets "sex.xxx" ? Is it the guy who owns sex.com, sex.org, or the majority of "sex.country_identifier" domains ?

I just dont see a plausible scenario for this type of transition, certainly not with the current structure, ownership and division of the internet, internet names, trademarks, copyrights etc.

Well, they should not just stop at the .xxx TLD. They should do subdomains, so sex.com gets sex.com.xxx, etc. Then as a transition, allow sex.com to redirect to sex.com.xxx. Let the porn sites keep their domains, but they can not host any porn on them.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[blackraven14250]

He was referring to your gut.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[Anonymous Coward]

Until countries make laws requiring "all websites with adult content in them are required to register under the .xxx domain".

Domain registry rules come from the registrars, a law in ireland requiring all irish pronographers to use the .xxx TLD would be stupid an ineffective as there would still be plenty of non-irish porn on .com/.org/.us

Ever go to Amazon? Amazon sells adult videos... Should the stuff that some people don't like be moved to a special amazon.xxx?

And that is different from the current problems with .com/.org/.net ambiguity how?

Creating the domain is but one step in the process of segregating the internet into various categories.

I wonder what we could call this categories of websites?

Once you require everything to be in neat little categories you can start to control access to those categories, track them, etc.

We should drop domains entirely then?

Given how ineffective ICANN have been at enforcing existing domain systems, it's not something you notice but the point of domains is so that when you access a site you know what your getting from the domain. .xxx would mean your getting adult material, .com means commercial material, etc. Obviously some sites are eligible for both (slashdot is a .org, reddit is a .com, and don't get me started on domain hacks), so using .xxx a filter would be impossible unless ICANN
1) made a rule that .com .org etc could not contain porn
2) enforced their rules .xxx would be a great optional domain for pornographic material, it shouldn't be catch all for anything remotely adult but useful to know your on your way to porn.

I'm not saying that .xxx is a great idea just that you are retarded and paranoid.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[Anonymous Coward]

Do a search for adult movies on amazon and you get Adventures in Baby Sitting (Elizabeth Shue version) .
Maybe the amazon.xxx store would be better ?

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[Vellmont]

I just dont see a plausible scenario for this type of transition, certainly not with the current structure, ownership and division of the internet, internet names, trademarks, copyrights etc. As you mention yourself, this is or will be an international endeavour. And getting the current 174 countries (or there abouts) to agree on simple stuff like national borders, official languages etc. has taken the better part of 10.000 years

Why would you have to get ALL 174 countries to agree? Sure, the internet is international, but having a presence in a country isn't. You think Amazon is just going to pull up stakes and move to Canada just so they can sell some dildos? Often times having a physical presence is a country makes you subject to the laws in that country. The point being that the way commerce and business work are far more involved than just looking at the laws of any particular country. I'm betting if only a few key countries passed such laws, it wouldn't really matter than the other 160 didn't have them

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[X0563511]

What happens if you happen to have adult content but it's not the primary focus of the site?

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[twisteddk]

Why would you have to get ALL 174 countries to agree? Sure, the internet is international, but having a presence in a country isn't. You think Amazon is just going to pull up stakes and move to Canada just so they can sell some dildos? Often times having a physical presence is a country makes you subject to the laws in that country. The point being that the way commerce and business work are far more involved than just looking at the laws of any particular country. I'm betting if only a few key countries passed such laws, it wouldn't really matter than the other 160 didn't have them

Obviously, it's the other way around. If only a few countries pass laws that says that vertain content has to be in certain top level domain names, then presumably, a large provider, like say, amazon would move their domain registration to a country where they can avoid problems with having to move around.
Case in point: Assume that in country A, it's illegal to watch people ride a bicycle, or to provide any such amusement to the citizens of the country. Me, being in country B, cannot be prosecuted for said offense, if country B doesnt have a similar law. So I can put videos of that stuff up on Youtube without worrying, the guy who lives in country A however, may suddenly and without any warning be subjected to my bicycle antics if he hits the wrong link.

This is pretty much what held thepiratebay.org open for years after a ton of cease and desist letters. Simply the fact that what they did wasn't illegal in the country where they did it. Their service however, might have been borderline in the countries that tried prosecuting them.

Thus, if even a single country doesn't uphold the rules, everyone can take advantage and register there. Like the "spamsafe" chineese hosts that majority of spammers use (unless they have an illegal botnet), because authorities disregard C&D notices, as spamming is not illegal in China.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[LordLucless]

The internet was designed to be segregated into different categories. Com = commercial, org = non-proft, gov = government, edu = educational. The problem is that the TLDs controlled by the US exercised no control over assignments to those domains, .com became a buzzword, and everyone grabbed for a .com, even if their content was better suited to another TLD.

In Australia, you have to have an ABN (Australian Business Number) to register a .com.au (it's not hard to get one, takes one phone call). You need to be a registered non-profit to get a .org.au. For personal use, you can get an .id.au.

I have no problem in an .xxx domain. If you're worried about being filtered (and I am - I'm in Australia after all), then you need to fight that battle where it counts - against filtering. As is stands, the non-country TLDs are largely pointless. The only reason to having more than one is to increase the namespace. Otherwise .com, .org and .net are functionally identical.

Re:Top level domains wont make for less pron

[Waccoon]

Do sex toys even belong under .xxx? If a vibrator is put into an ordinary rubber ducky, does that make it ban-able?

Only half a solution

[Locke2005]

I'm all in favor of a .xxx TLD, but it does no good unless accompanied by laws that mandate that obscene sites use only that TLD. I look forward to "goatse.cx" moving to the much more obvious "goatse.xxx", and I wonder... is there a waiting list to register the "se.xxx" domain, or is that already reserved for Swedish porn?

Re:Only half a solution

[tverbeek]

And who, exactly, would determine what is "obscene"?

(I'd offer to do it, but I'm a bit busy.)

Re:Only half a solution

[ardor]

Yeah, right. And who will decide what "obscene" means? The religious right? See the Tipper Gore comment above.
With .xxx, expect it to become opt-in. And then people know you watch porn. They have it in written form. This would be even worse if you had to apply for accessing specific .xxx pages.

Re:Only half a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm all in favor of a .xxx TLD, but it does no good unless accompanied by laws that mandate that obscene sites use only that TLD.

Of course! We'll implement it as soon as soon as you come up with a worldwide definition of 'obscene'.

Re:Only half a solution

[Thiez]

> With .xxx, expect it to become opt-in. And then people know you watch porn. They have it in written form. This would be even worse if you had to apply for accessing specific .xxx pages.

Well someone would simply start proxxxy.com... I think there is a fortune to be made there.

Re:Only half a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

That is why it should never happen. There would be no agreement and you can't force them to move to it anyway.

Re:Only half a solution

[KingMotley]

It does plenty of good, if you create a .xxx TLD and a .kid TLD. You can be *reasonably* assured of the content of sites using those TLDs. Now I don't expect that a site that has a majority of adult content to be forced to register a .com domain for those pages that contain absolutely no adult material, nor would I expect them to be forced to register a .xxx TLD, but being on .kid wouldn't be appropriate. .xxx -> almost guaranteed adult material .kid -> reasonably child safe .com/.net/.org -> Anything including content appropriate for kids, and adults.

That way the christian purists that limit their kids to the .kid domain and firefox/chrome can automatically delete all history/cookies whenever I visit tehfapsite.xxx.

Re:Only half a solution

[Alsee]

I'd do it, but I'm already too busy reviewing the evidence.

-

Re:Only half a solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it me or does this site really redirect to google? :\

Re:Only half a solution

[Thiez]

They're way ahead of us.

This Whole Debate Is Lasting Longer Than '4 Hours'

[WrongSizeGlass]

Enough already. Clearly they are afraid to make a decision which is in and of itself a decision. If I keep putting off deciding to do something then I am in fact not doing it - only under the guise of indecision, procrastination or requiring further consideration. Shit or get off the pot, guys. Either way a lot of people won't be happy.

The whole block/filter argument.

[The Living Fractal]

and that sites with the '.xxx' suffix could easily be blocked by government web filters in the future.

It's already very easy to block adult sites. This is pointless to mention and the real issue is not how easy it is to block these sites but that censorship in general is never a good idea, no matter how easy or hard it is.

Re:The whole block/filter argument.

[WrongSizeGlass]

I'm not sure the push is completely about censorship. I'd bet my stock in SCO that they want to charge a hefty registration fee for anything with the .xxx TLD. It's about funding ICANN't for the next year or two as much as it is "for the children" and "easy domain blacklisting".

No shit?

[Rivalz]

And it is unheard of for organizations to block .cn .ru. Still though I agree with most this would be ineffective and create more trouble then it alleviates. It is too bad parents cant use something along the lines of websense to filter out adult content.

Unfounded worry

[tompaulco]

It seems to me that a government could not legally block the TLD unless porn was actually illegal in that country. Therefore the only argument that I am hearing is that the porn industry worries that this TLD would make it too easy for the government to restrict them from operating illegally.
I'm not speaking out against porn, just trying to think logically. Porn doesn't bother me much. I'd rather some potential sex offender spend all his time looking at porn then go out and rape some poor woman.

Re:Unfounded worry

[tverbeek]

"It seems to me that a government could not legally block the TLD unless porn was actually illegal in that country."

You do realize that in most countries it's the government which creates the laws making things illegal?

Re:Unfounded worry

[cyn1c77]

It seems to me that a government could not legally block the TLD unless porn was actually illegal in that country.

But your internet provider could choose not to serve that content, saying that it was a company that respected family values and that those sites had high potential for malware infections.

I'd rather some potential sex offender spend all his time looking at porn then go out and rape some poor woman.

Potential sex offenders will become sex offenders regardless of their access to porn.

The real question for me is "Does an ".xxx" provide the public with any value? The only value I can see is that it will make it easy for groups to censor adult material. So I am totally against approving the existence of ".xxx" sites. Let's keep it difficult for the wannabe fascists.

Re:Unfounded worry

[revboden]

The jerk off vs rape logic is myth. Jerking off is about sex drive, rape is about power over another person.

Re:Unfounded worry

[aXis100]

No way an ISP would block it, they'd lose 90% of their customers.

Re:Unfounded worry

[tompaulco]

The jerk off vs rape logic is myth. Jerking off is about sex drive, rape is about power over another person.
That seems to be the pop psychology thought and one that is a helpful assumption to womens' rights groups, but the idea that rape is an act of violence and not a sexual act doesn't seem to be accepted by the professional psychology community. For one thing, rape and sexual violence are not necessarily the same thing, although again it is helpful for certain agendas to group them together.

Re:Unfounded worry

[smi.james.th]

I find it interesting that "morals" seem to be labelled as "facism" these days. If it so happens that the ISP does respect family values or not want malware, and if you actually DO want malware and whatever porn you feel you need, then I'm sure there will be other ISPs that will be glad of your custom.

Then we can all put our money where our mouths are, and let capitalism do the talking. See what happens. I am personally opposed to pornography, I think it's quite a despicable thing. That's not the topic of this discussion though, so without going on any more about my own moral reservations, I'm in favour of the .xxx domain, so that anyone who doesn't want to use it can avoid it more easily, and those who do want to can find it more easily.

And it's still a horrible idea

[hackiavelli]

Putting aside the entire debate on what qualifies as adult material, you still have the fact that the undisputed pornographic websites aren't going to change TLDs unless forced to hence defeating the entire purpose. It would also lead to the somewhat embarrassing situation of big companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple having to buy .xxx domains to protect their trademarks.

YRO?

[goldaryn]

It scares the hell out of me,' says Malcolm Day, head of AdultShop.com, adding that if adult websites weren't allowed to have '.com' domains and could only register under the '.xxx' address, then 'many governments (across the world) would try to block them.'"

They better not try that here, we have the Human Rights Act

(I don't care what anyone else says, fapping is a human right..)

I have the weight of the legal world behind me! (most of them are wankers :->)

Double Standards

[Poddus]

So who's to say what is "adult" and what is not? Some things are pretty easy to figure out, but I know plenty of art sites like deviantart that allow uploading of nude photos. Does that make it an adult website? Somebody is going to have to make decisions about these things and I think it would be all too easy to simply turn it into a place for all "objectionable content", whatever that may mean, pretty much destroying the idea of the internet as a bastion of free speech. Then again, I can't remember how many times I've gone to dicks.com thinking I'd end up at the sports shop website... but that is a risk that parents should take into account when allowing their kids onto the internet. They'd be better off outside anyway.

Re:Double Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again, I can't remember how many times I've gone to dicks.com thinking I'd end up at the sports shop website.

Oh yes, we all know that's the reason

Re:This Whole Debate Is Lasting Longer Than '4 Hou

[tompaulco]

Clearly they are afraid to make a decision which is in and of itself a decision. If I keep putting off deciding to do something then I am in fact not doing it - only under the guise of indecision, procrastination or requiring further consideration.
Uh oh, you've figured out how the government works. Some men in black suits will be by shortly to dispatch you.

Filtering would be the ONLY reason to have it

[Anonymous Coward]

If they could force them into the .xxx domain...I would be for that...everyone knows where to go if they want it...easily blocked. However, you can't force them, so there is no reason at all to do it.

Re:Well

[Thiez]

Assuming for the sake of argument that the statement is true, how is "men would have raped without porn" not a good reason to have porn? What are the downsides of porn that are so severe that they outweigh the advantage of less rape?

final decision on disposition of man'kind' delayed

[Anonymous Coward]

probably not for much longer? pay attention, it's way affordable, & could lead to your survival.

never a better time to consult with/trust in your creators.

Re:Well

[sopssa]

Why would you need a good excuse for porn anyway. You don't need to say "But I'm only human" or that porn saves people from getting raped. You can just say you enjoy fapping every now and then, it's not a secret that everyone does it. Even some girls do it daily, and it's also fun thing to do with your girlfriend. Those who are against porn have issues, not those who like to enjoy life and along with it sexuality too.

Look at just some of the ancillary...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at some of the ancillary companies that would be affected

The Kao Corporation [The makers of Jergens Lotion]
Kimberly-Clark [The makers of Kleenex brand tissues]
HanesBrands [Worldwide distributors of gym socks]
S. C. Johnson & Son [Manufactures of several cleaning agents, including Windex]
Safer Networking Limited [Developer of Spybot - Search and Destroy]
Chiquita Brands International Inc. [Grower of the famous Chiquita Banana]
Maytag Corporation [World famous creator of Washing Machines]

Won't somebody think of the private industry?!

Re:This Whole Debate Is Lasting Longer Than '4 Hou

[DMiax]

Shit or get off the pot, guys. Either way a lot of people won't be happy.

You got some weird fetish, man... May I suggest a .crp domain for that?

Clean porn ? No thanks !

[ciderVisor]

"Backers of '.xxx' have billed the proposal as a way for the adult-entertainment industry to clean up its act,"

Personally, I'd prefer if they kept the acts nice 'n' dirty.

Re:Clean porn ? No thanks !

[Conan The Accountant]

To call the domain .xxx is to pass up a perfectly good opportunity to call it .cum

Re:Clean porn ? No thanks !

[aldld]

Nah, .cum sounds too close to .com

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

My hobby is watching porn and masturbating.

Re:Well

[Jurily]

What are the downsides of porn that are so severe that they outweigh the advantage of less rape?

The "less rape" part is bullshit. You can jerk off even if nobody's fucking on a screen in front of you.

Aside from that, I don't see anything wrong with porn. Sex is exactly as natural as eating and breathing. Get over it.

This is many separate issues

[TheMonkeyhouse]

do not confuse the issues.
1) .xxx is a proposed domain for adult themed websites - not appropriate for children and ppl of a sensitive disposition - there is nothing wrong with this, it makes sense and is NOT censorship.
2) filtering out certain websites at home or work is perfectly acceptable and is NOT censorship.
3) the government or other ruling bodies prohibiting access to any sort of website IS censorship and it depends on your country if this acceptable/legal or not.
whether or not to have a specific domain for specific content is NOT the same issue as web censorship. as many people point out it is already easy enough to filter out what you don't want.

Re:This is many separate issues

[russotto]

The issues aren't separate. Once you ghettoize porn into an .xxx domain, it makes it much easier (both technically and politically) to block. In fact, it's likely the default would become to block the .xxx domain. Not just for corporations, but for ISPs (at the urging of the more prudish members of the community). Oh, and when the company filters websites at work it IS censorship, just on a smaller scale (and perhaps more justifiable).

Re:This is many separate issues

[Anonymous Coward]

And once that happens, it's also easier to discriminate.

Re:This is many separate issues

[TheMonkeyhouse]

i think you are missing the whole point. they are separate - classifying data is not the same as restricting access to it. they are two separate points.
they use .gov for government web sites and no one complains about that and it doesn't automatically imply censorship.
if someone blocks a domain you are not happy with then change ISP - there are always choices.

This is stupid!

[Anonymous Coward]

TLDs are not a content classification system, those supporting .xxx are admitting that they don't understand DNS and are unsuited to operate a TLD. If someone wants to operate an alternate DNS root with .xxx, they can do that (and good luck with it). There's no discussion or deliberation required.

Re:Well

[el3mentary]

I only watch porn for the plot and character development.

My picks for the .xxx domains in the US

[stoicfaux]

My initial list of what organizations that would be required to use .xxx domains in the United States:

• abortion doctors
• anything gay related such as dating sites, gay marriage rights, etc.
• hate groups
• offensive TV shows, such as South Park or Family Guy
• offensive art (meaning nude is just as bad as naked)
• offensive literature- Lolita, Catcher in the Rye
• offensive music such as music that glorifies violence or uses the N-Word(tm)(c)(patent pending)
• fringe religions such as polygamists, etc.

and for the coup de grâce, anything that would be considered offensive by local community standards would be automatically redirected to a .xxx address (www.foo.com -> www.foo.com.xxx) by the local ISPs serving that community.

Finally, taking the .xxx idea to its logical conclusion, any adult oriented material can only be sold from .xxx domains. Books like Lolita or Catcher in the Rye, or "gansta" rap could only be sold from www.amazon.xxx or www.itunes.xxx. Information about shows like South Park or Family Guy would be under www.comedycentral.xxx or www.tvguide.xxx

Re:Well

[Kong the Medium]

Yes Dude, I hear you. I recently watched a porn named "Logjammin" and was disrupted before the end. Since then, I started to wonder what had happend next: Did he fix the cable or didn't he?

Its not stopping you from looking at pornography

[Stan92057]

Its not stopping you from looking at pornography,it will stop you from looking at pornography at work,libraries,schools. Places pornography doesn't belong anyways. The XXX domain will not stop anyone from viewing porn,and the governments that don't want or allow porn are blocking it now. I'm betting most of you here are too young to remember before the internet and pornography,it wasn't out in the open for children and people that didn't want to see it,it was in brown paper wrappers,or sold in adult only shops. And whats pornography?? its whatever gets your dick hard or pussy wet,its just that simple.

Re:This Whole Debate Is Lasting Longer Than '4 Hou

[WrongSizeGlass]

.crp? .crp?? How did you know I was into carp? Man, I'd better make sure those new privacy settings on Facebook are working. I'd hate for my mom to see this - though, my birthday is coming up and I sure could use a few more coy for my pond.

Re:Well

[quantumplacet]

Don't be fatuous Jeffrey

Flamebait?!?

[stoicfaux]

Ouch, modded as flamebait? Do those who moderated my post not see the huge potential abuse for a .xxx domain in the US? Both Federal and State legislatures could have a field day with who's required to use a .xxx domain.

Re:Its not stopping you from looking at pornograph

[Anonymous Coward]

I always wondered why I got random boners when walking grandmom down the street. Now I know grandmom was just pornography!

Re:Well

[insufflate10mg]

I just a trolliphany and feel the need to point something out before attending my sister's 3D Ultrasound (which are pretty damn neat, by the way, especially for a geek).

Sex is to eating and breathing
as
commercialized pornography is to eating-then-purging and smoking cigarettes.

Wanna think that over again?

[langelgjm]

s/TLD/playground/g

as usual...

[hitmark]

i say the basic problem is the non-national TLDs, at least as long as this planet is not under one government.

why? because as long as that is the case, there will be multiple, conflicting interests about those TLDs.

and sadly, thanks to the dot-com era and similar, the economic sharks smell money in relation to trade in domain names, meaning it will be nearly impossible to dismantle the existing system unless someone pays the owners of the non-national domains at least as much as they payed for them in the first place.

Re:This Whole Debate Is Lasting Longer Than '4 Hou

[phantomfive]

I don't know, if I were the ICANN, I would be annoyed that this issue keeps coming up. They already rejected it three times, give it a rest already. I would be tempted to just keep 'considering' the issue indefinitely, so I don't have to deal with it again.

It's also possible that they are required by their bylaws to consider such proposals for a certain number of days before deciding. I really can't imagine they will hear any new arguments they haven't heard before.

Re:This Whole Debate Is Lasting Longer Than '4 Hou

[Blakey Rat]

It's worse than not doing it. It's not doing it, but then lying about making the decision to not do it.

Re:This Whole Debate Is Lasting Longer Than '4 Hou

[Superdarion]

Well, according to the wikipedia article linked, they HAVE made that decision some times before. They have already said NO to it, it's just that people keep reopening the case for them to consider with "new evidence".

In my opinion, they're just giving a fair and thorough consideration of every bit of information given to them... before they say No a fourth time, hopefully.

OH NOES

[Anonymous Coward]

The children might see SEX. Quick sacrifice everyone's freedom!

You can't filter the Internet, so just stop.

[geekmux]

You can't filter the Internet. Ain't gonna happen. No way in hell. If you think you can, take a look at the rather futile attempts done today. Websites and domain names are stood up by the hundreds every damn day, making the task pretty much impossible. You can't even filter it, and now you want to try and put "content"(as defined by whom, yet another issue) into TLD "buckets"? Riiiight. Give me a break.

Trying to control or filter the Internet is like trying to make the freeway safe for your new teen driver. You're not going to be able to tell ALL the other cars on the road to get the hell away from you, so you do what is best and reasonable and you deal with it. You teach your child about the Internet in much the same way you teach them to drive. Learn and acknowledge that there are dangers.

Most of all, learn to be a responsible parent, and quit relying on other products that do nothing but censor and filter and generally piss off the rest of us.

Re:You can't filter the Internet, so just stop.

[tombeard]

You can use any DNS server you want.

Re:Its not stopping you from looking at pornograph

[aflag]

It's not like you can't resolve a .xxx using a DNS different from the one which has it blocked. Heck, it could even be a web service. You open resolver.com, a site full with ads where you just paste the .xxx address and, in turn, get the IP. So .xxx is stupid no matter how you look at it.

They would be stupid not to establish it now

[damn_registrars]

ICANN has already told us that they will move ahead with the plan to start selling top level domains (TLDs). If they don't establish the .xxx TLD themselves, someone else will buy the rights to it. They might as well establish it themselves now so that they can make slightly more direct revenue from it than if it is sold entirely to someone else who can then run it however they see fit.

They will make decisions...

[damn_registrars]

Clearly they are afraid to make a decision which is in and of itself a decision

No, ICANN is willing to make decisions. They just aren't willing to make decisions that make any fucking sense. They have already decided some time ago to start selling TLDs outright, which will inevitably result in .xxx being sold outright to someone if they don't establish it first. And being as it would make sense for them to establish it first so that they could make some small revenue from it, they will instead continue to table the issue until someone else sells it and it no longer matters.

Sometimes it seems that ICANN is itself being run by people who have as their own goals the destruction of ICANN.

And while we're at it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets make a *.hack domain for sites that hack your computer.

What would get a .xxx?

[aldld]

So would the .xxx domain go only to hardcore porn sites, or would it also include anything with nudity, including nude art? What about drawings of stick figures having sex? I would hate to have xkcd blocked by the government.

Re:This Whole Debate Is Lasting Longer Than '4 Hou

[gmhowell]

Or as Pert, Lifeson, and Lee put it: "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

Duh

[BancBoy]

Everybody knows Anonymous Coward is a huge dick.

Re:Well

[NitroWolf]

My hobby is watching porn and masturbating.

Go 'way! I'm 'batin!

TLD is a dumb place to do any filtering

[Adrian Lopez]

Filtering at the TLD level is an all or nothing proposition: either all of an *.xxx website's content is filtered (along with all other *.xxx sites) or none of it is. As far as filtering systems go, it is the coarsest and least intelligent. While I'd be very much opposed to any kind of government-mandated tagging and filtering, if your goal is to filter based on a webmaster's idea of what's obscene then you're much better off using something like Lawrence Lessig's H2M tag.

Of course, what I really want is for people to stop being so uptight about sex and nudity.

Re:TLD is a dumb place to do any filtering

[jack2000]

Go back in time, kill Abraham ( no, not that one. this one) There problem solved. No more Christians, Jews or Muslims. We'll be all better off without them!

Make .xxx immune to age verification

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't remember the poster, but it was definitely on Slashdot where I saw this idea suggested, so I can't take credit for it.

Make .xxx immune from the legislation requiring age verification. No more entrance pages, no more 'adults only' or 'this site has porn, accept all this legalese', they can go straight to their front page. So for sites outside .xxx, they can host adult content exactly the same way they do now, and for .xxx the onus is moved back on the visitor to see it's an adult domain and either not visit it, or have it filtered by their own software.

Thus, everybody wins. There's an incentive for purely adult sites to move to .xxx because they get legal advantages, the 'think of the children' crowd get a much easier time filtering the stuff they don't want, and the 'grey-area' sites that want to stay with their .org/.com/etc domains continue with age verification.

I'm of the mind that if countries did try and make all adult content go to .xxx, the big companies like Amazon, eBay, the search engines (Image search, anyone?), etc would block it. None of them would be willing to move domains for certain content, and take on all the management nightmare it would involve.

Coat of Arms of Amsterdam

[ardle]

The coat of arms may only be used by others than the city with the explicit permission of the municipal government. In general permission is not granted to others, because the coat of arms designates the city of Amsterdam. Individual elements, such as the three Saint Andrew's Crosses or the escutcheon may be used by others without permission.

OMG!

[hesaigo999ca]

Just get it up already, move all the p0rn stuff to those sites, and then any p0rn caught not on those sites, get deleted from the web, not only can you properly monitor the p0rn web stuff for whatever x reason you have as gov., but also makes it safer for kids for a filter to just block a domain extension then an actual full list!