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

[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

[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: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.

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 :->)

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?!

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:Well

[el3mentary]

I only watch porn for the plot and character development.

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?