India To Ban .xxx Domain

An anonymous reader writes "The Indian government have said they will introduce measures to block the newly approved .xxx domain from the country. The Economic Times reports that 'India along with many other countries from the Middle East and Indonesia opposed the grant of the domain in the first place, and we would proceed to block the whole domain, as it goes against the IT Act and Indian laws.'"

Comments

Ehh

[ae1294]

That was really fast!

Re:Ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it is an interesting approach to preventing discrimination by maintaining the status quo. You can read more on my blog here [blog.com].

Re:Ehh

[mwvdlee]

Banning the entire .xxx TLD; I didn't see that one coming.

Re:Ehh

[Skarecrow77]

Isn't this the same culture that wrote the Kama Sutra?

That's a hell of a turnaround.

Re:Ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think Kama Sutra is porn, you don't know Kama Sutra.

Re:Ehh

[Dan541]

Yea, not like porn sites have any other TLD they can use.

Re:Ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the more backward countries don't want their porn on the xxx domain, and prefer it served on arbitrary domains instead.

Re:Ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither did I. Giving Amsterdam its own TLD may have been a bit... generous, but to ban it in response is really taking things too far.

Re:Ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, many culture were very open and free in the past. But that all changed after the islamisation. The large area from middle east to india use to be a mix of various peaceful cultures. Buddhism was eradicated from the middle eat in less the a century by muslims. The Taliban recently destroyed one of the last vestige of buddhist culture in the region. The doctrine of "convert or die" worked very well for Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullh and his followers.

PS: I am not saying islam is the only one to blame, i am not troling anti-muslim crap. All violent cult cause this, including christianity. Actually all monotheist cult.. i doubt that a concidence. The believe of a single one true god must be the cause to exclusion of anyone believing anything different. If you are not one of them you are a blasphemer, a heretic or a infidel which is most of the time punishable by death.

Re:Ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

Kama Sutra is not porn, but it show openess of that culture. The beatiful culture that made this book was destroyed and buried by islamisation. Everyone must wear black, women but be covered head to toes and no one is allowed to drawn animals or plants.

Ya sure, there is always less faithful individual that will be use to masquarade what the cult is really is. They may not extremist, but it is only because they are following a soft religious leader. That leader can change, and the follower will go where ever the new leader go. All religous peoples are dangerous because they can turn extremist anytime. Personal drama or endoctrinment can change them any time.

Let not forgot the history lesson of all the country that have fallen under islam.

Re:Ehh

[Lanteran]

Eh? I thought the kama sutra was written by Indian Hindus. As I understand it, shortly after gaining independence, India set aside Pakistan and Bangladesh for the muslim population

Re:Ehh

[SteveTheNewbie]

You do realise that India is around 80% hindu no ?

Re:Ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

Kama Sutra is not porn, but it show openess of that culture. The beatiful culture that made this book was destroyed and buried by islamisation. Everyone must wear black, women but be covered head to toes and no one is allowed to drawn animals or plants.

Ya sure, there is always less faithful individual that will be use to masquarade what the cult is really is. They may not extremist, but it is only because they are following a soft religious leader. That leader can change, and the follower will go where ever the new leader go. All religous peoples are dangerous because they can turn extremist anytime. Personal drama or endoctrinment can change them any time.

Let not forgot the history lesson of all the country that have fallen under islam.

You're an imbecile, Indians are mostly Hindu.

Re:Ehh

[Grishnakh]

While India does have a sizable Muslim population, I thought the beautiful culture that made the Kama Sutra was destroyed and buried by British conquering and colonization, and their prudish ways.

Islam certainly isn't very friendly to such things either, though. Interesting how the cultures that have become dominant on Earth are the ones that hate fun and freedom the most.

Re:Ehh

[Grishnakh]

I haven't read the Wiki pages about it yet, but I thought Pakistan forcibly broke itself away from India during its independence, and the people running India (namely Gandhi) didn't want that, as they believed unity was more important.

Re:Ehh

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to set this correct - India did NOT SET ASIDE Pakistan and Bangladesh. Pakistan wanted freedom for itself, fought it dirty and hard, and got it's 'independence' from India the hard way - at least know the history of something before discredit it -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

Bangladesh was essentially Pakistan's own creation - India just made sure it happened.

And just to add something more about your "hindu" bullshit - India has third largest populations of Muslims in the world, and it is a secular country embracing all religions equally rather than being a Hindu nation.

Get your facts rights before going crazy with your bullshit about countries you don't even know.

Re:Ehh

[t2t10]

That same "beautiful culture" also had a caste system and a history of enormous inequality and poverty stretching back three millennia. While the British certainly did some damage, a lot of India's social and cultural problems are old and home-made.

Re:Ehh

[Grishnakh]

So what? These aren't valid criticisms, because almost every culture has them. Inequality? British culture was full of inequality back then, and still has it. Ever heard of the King/Queen? That's no different from what the Indians already had, with monarchs and hereditary rulers. Even today, inequality is becoming greater and greater in places like the USA, which is now more of a banana republic than any other, as it has a greater difference between the rich and the poor than just about any society in history.

Poverty? 1700s-1800s Britain was full of terrible poverty.

The British taking over India certainly didn't fix any of these problems. What the British brought to India wasn't any better than what the Indians already had, and was mostly worse.

Re:Ehh

[bhagwad]

It's overkill. I suppose many regular brands will want to protect their names. For example, I'm sure Google will buy up "www.google.xxx" . According to the Indian law, this will be banned? For what possible reason? The courts will surely overturn this.
Is there any law which says that all ".xxx" content HAS to be pornographic?

Re:Ehh

[zach_the_lizard]

Just because every other culture may have had a caste system doesn't make the criticism less valid. They still have problems with the caste system to this day.

Re:Ehh

[Vegemeister]

I would welcome a google.xxx if it would autocomplete profanity.

Re:Ehh

[t2t10]

Many cultures have inequality and hereditary entitlements, but those are quite different from the Indian caste system. Point is: India's "beautiful culture" has a dark side as well.

Nowhere did I claim that the British fixed anything. Maybe you should learn to read properly.

Re:Ehh

[Lanteran]

No need to be an asshole, I wasn't entirely clear on the history of a nation 10,000 miles away from me, been a few years since I took a history class. And you seem to be extrapolating just a *tiny* bit. I didn't ever say that india was a hindu nation, I just said the kama sutra was written by hindus who happened to be from india. Going crazy with bullshit? I wrote two fucking sentences.

Re:Ehh

[Tink2000]

Not really law, but convention. .xxx is a Sponsored TLD, which means there is a consortium of sorts who will approve or deny applications for the domain name. There are rules and regulations for the registrants of the domain, and I suspect that part of those rules would be a registration fee of some sort -- a token one at a company level, but painful for an individual, say $2500 or so -- in addition to the normal domain registration fee of $10 or whatever it is. I also imagine that while there most likely will be an ibm.xxx, it will be a redirect to ibm.com.

One of the reasons that this has taken so long to be placed into action is how inefficient a system this will become. No one is required to register a particular tld. There are more rules keeping registrants out of tlds or forcing them to give up their current tld than there are forcing registrants to adopt a particular tld. Tlds were never meant to be implemented as a way to filter content.

Also, currently successful sexually themed sites are very unlikely to forego brand recognition. Why should mostviewedsite.com switch to mostviewedsite.xxx when the .com is the recognized brand name? Yes, they'd probably buy their .xxx counterpart, only to have it redirect to .com. In a very real sense, this new tld will likely double the number of adult-content sites, but not necessarily double the content. However, groups opposed to this sort of content will now be able to cry louder than ever that the internet is "full of filth."

It seems to me that the only winners in this are the registrars and the certifying authority. I doubt little else will change.

Good

[mapkinase]

Alhamduli Allah.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

crazy religious zealot

Re:Good

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

And Hare Krsna, too.

"Who put the Ram, in the Rama Hare Krsna?"

Re:Good

[shutdown -p now]

So, what does the Islamic Law say on open proxies, Tor and Freenet?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I checked and proxxxeee.net is not registered

Here's a free business idea. Register proxxxeee.net and then create a proxy such that you can type thepr0nsite.proxxxeee.net in your url bar instead of thepr0nsite.xxx with an advertising bar blended in (this transparent so it works for any .xxx (sub)domain). Ka-ching!

Re:Good

[mapkinase]

They are Halaal per se, but the usage of them could be Halaal or Haraam depending on what it is done with them.

Say, it's Halaal to use them to inform other Muslims about oppression that is going on in the land where Internet access is limited.

And it's Haraam to use it for subj

Re:Good

[shutdown -p now]

In other words, they wouldn't be banned (since you cannot detect the nature of the use, only the fact of that use).

Then what's the point of filtering plain connections, if it's all so easily circumvented by any who would actually want to get porn?

Unless the argument is that they are haram in a properly implemented Islamic state, because, by definition, they cannot be used for something good there?

Re:Good

[mapkinase]

"they wouldn't be banned" being banned and Haraam are two different issues. It depends on how the tool is used. If there is widespread abuse, it could be banned.

Nobody saw that coming

[guyminuslife]

Excuse the pun.

This is exactly why we didn't want the .xxx domain name. It seems like it exists for the sole purpose of being censored.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[guyminuslife]

Errr, top-level domain, oops.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, there you go, motherfuckers. To all of you douchebags that were bitching about the US not approving .xxx saying we are religious nuts, etc., well, this is why we didn't approve it for so long. What next? .gay? dot$INSERT_WHATEVER_YOU_DONT_LIKE? Hope you fucks are happy.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I haven't quite decided on whether it exists to be censored, or as some sort of unwholesome baptists/bootleggers coalition between those who want censorship to be easier and those who want smut to be yet more profitable(and some of that cash to go to them).

A given human-readable domain name in some TLD just has to be DNS-able back to an IP with something on it in order to be functional. There is no requirement that it be the only domain name that points back to that IP, or that it only point back to one IP. Given that, I'd expect that a fair slice of the .xxx names will simply be purchased by porn outfits who are already online under .com, .net, or others and will point back to exactly the same IPs and servers. Those will represent easy money for whoever runs .xxx; but blocking them will achieve very little, since they will just be a second alias pointing to something that is already pointed to by 'respectable' domains(or obscure TLDs that are super cheap, and who cares as long as our pagerank is good).

Anybody who is .xxx only will, indeed, be fairly easily censored; but that won't be too helpful to the powers-that-be unless someone manages to require all smut to show up only on .xxx(and how exactly would that be accomplished? Individual nations can restrict use of their own TLDs, or make operating porn servers criminal, or what have you; but nation X can't really tell smut.net in nation Y what TLDs it can or can't have domain names in...) Whether or not .xxx is largely a tool of people who just want another TLD to spin money from(not as bad as those "hey, let's let literally any string be a TLD!" nuisances; but in the same vein...), or whether there is a bloc of ignorant moralists who think that .xxx will magically force all the smut into that one area, where it can be blocked, or whether the moralist bloc is playing a long game, and the eventual plan is some sort of legislative shove is not yet clear to me...

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly why we didn't want the .xxx domain name.

We?

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[mewsenews]

This is exactly why we didn't want the .xxx domain name. It seems like it exists for the sole purpose of being censored.

I would argue the exact opposite and say that this is why we DID want the TLD to exist.

Reputable smut dealers don't exactly try to hide what they're selling and will have no problem hosting their domains under the .xxx TLD.

Most people have no problem with the product in adult hands, but would like it to be as easy as possible to block traffic from .xxx domains to an elementary school library without some stupid third party whitelist or blacklist.

It works out for everybody except porn fans in puritanical countries, as TFA illustrates.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Seumas]

Yeah, and censorship is totally an acceptable price for sheltering poor defenseless brains of mush from things they aren't ready for! Now, on with more TLDs!

Seriously, your kid can find pretty deviant and repulsive stuff at their local library. Let's not go around making censorship easier to facilitate all in the name of nerfing the world for little tykes.

Oh, and by the way, who gets to be the devine arbiter of what is classified as what on the internet? Maybe we can follow the lead of the MPAA and assign the task to a dozen middle aged morons and two religious representatives?

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[guyminuslife]

Well, certainly having a .xxx TLD would be a prerequisite for requiring adult sites to use it, but I'm not panicking about that...yet.

I would bet that the real reason the domain was created has nothing to do with either the pornographers or the moralist crusaders, and has everything to do with domain name registrars wanting a piece of action. I read somewhere about a week ago that over 200,000 .xxx domain names had already been purchased. That's a tidy bit of cash, especially if adult websites in the future feel the need to register both .com/.net/whatever AND .xxx.

On the other hand, I don't really see this as being conducive to anything.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[icebraining]

Reputable smut dealers don't exactly try to hide what they're selling and will have no problem hosting their domains under the .xxx TLD.

They do, because they want to sell to "porn fans in puritanical countries."

India has 1.15 billion people, it's not exactly a small market even for a foreign porn producer.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[_0xd0ad]

We all knew that it would be banned. We also all know that it will be very profitable to give access to the people who want access to it.

So, who's going to start the first VPN service targeted to .xxx surfers in India...

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it exists for the sole purpose of selling domain name registrations.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Archwyrm]

I suspect that there is a big market in the Middle East as well. One night I turned on the satellite TV during a recent trip to Europe and at a certain late hour many channels start advertising porn for mobile phones and sex hotlines. There was an absolute ton of channels in Arabic advertising this stuff. There must be a market if so many satellite TV channels can stay in business with this stuff.

I would imagine that India is the same. Only opposed to porn in public no doubt. Behind closed doors on the other hand, the smut is rampant and whack shacks abound.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[dgatwood]

The thing is, it's not exactly possible to censor a TLD. About all you can do is mandate that ISPs block it on their DNS servers. You can't realistically prevent an entire country from running their own DNS servers, nor from using DNS servers outside the country, nor from using a VPN to tunnel DNS requests, etc. And if there's a market for it, somebody will sell access using just such a VPN.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

"It works out for everybody except porn fans in puritanical countries, as TFA illustrates."

Sure, if you leave out the fact that it won't work anywhere else, either. Reputable porn dealers might move to .xxx, but the huge number of porn dealers who post link spam, comment spam, etc. absolutely will not willingly move their sites to a TLD like this that routinely gets blocked, whether by governments, nannyware, corporate firewalls, "family-friendly" ISPs, or whatever.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[NevarMore]

Well actually you can. It just takes a few more steps.

1. Get a list of all .xxx domains
2. Query the DNS for the IPs for those domains
3. Block IPs
4. Go pick up a whore in the red light district of Calcutta now that you've blocked internet porn

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Having a distinct TLD, rather than just a series of domain names that you have to collect manually, or assemble by some keyword mechanism, or some other messy setup, doesn't make blocking any easier, it just makes identifying your targets easier.

It doesn't make your censorship mechanism any more sophisticated. ISP DNS server mandates are still the easiest and cheapest and least disruptive to constituencies who matter. Mandating that ISPs block attempts to reach 3rd party DNS servers isn't too much harder or more expensive; but is much more likely to make a mess of some number of 'legitimate' applications used by constituencies who matter. Selectively rewriting or blocking DNS lookups for specific TLDs is more difficult and expensive; but a bit less disruptive.

I suspect that this is a mixture of pandering to the clueless moralists and creating new niches for registrars to make money for comparatively little effort; but it does make assembling a target list somewhat easier(with the exception of the, likely extremely high, percentage of porn outfits who have a domain name in a second TLD...)

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

What? The Conservative agenda in the West doesn't get a warm reception in the East?

I'm shocked that cultural differences, ideologies, and law aren't compatible across international boundaries!

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[dgatwood]

Not without a lot of collateral damage, you can't. There's nothing stopping a single hosting server from serving Whitehouse.gov and Whitehouse.com on the same IP.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[modmans2ndcoming]

Ah... I know... resolve the IPs of all .xxx domains, block the IPs... done.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[NevarMore]

True, but they've already shown that they don't care about the basic social contracts of the internet and are equally ignorant of the technical issues. Why would they care about collateral damage?

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Fred Ferrigno]

Most people have no problem with the product in adult hands

Here, "most people" excludes India, the second most populous country on the planet, and presumably China, the most populous country.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Cronock]

It's not exactly censorship if it's an opt-in system. But as a site admin I'd approve of one more way to limit my liability in the terms of children accessing my content and providing an easy way for admins of networks where my content would be inappropriate (work, public terminals, etc.)

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Daniel Dvorkin]

There is no requirement that it be the only domain name that points back to that IP, or that it only point back to one IP.

Not yet. India's action is one half of the censorship that was (accurately) predicted for when .xxx became a reality; the other half, which will probably happen about five minutes from now, is exactly "requir[ing] all smut to show up only on .xxx." What constitutes smut? Why, that's up to "community standards" or some equally ill-defined phrase, of course.

It doesn't matter if the laws are meaningfully enforceable. It's just another move in the pass-laws-that-makes-everyone-a-criminal game. Double standards, hell -- there will be a different standard for every single case. Nobody at Playboy has anything to worry about, but people at Joe's Porn Shop will face a serious risk of fines and/or prison time because some zealous moralist prosecutor in East Donkey Creek, Mississippi, and equivalent places all over the world, sees an opportunity for mischief.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[davester666]

No. This is just India continuing in their long cultural tradition of never having anything to do with pornography, or even nudity.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[sjames]

Where it is censored, porn in .com will probably also be censored. OTOH, the porn site operator with only .xxx domains has the advantage that nobody can plausibly claim they wandered in and were morally outraged to find porn when they expected child friendly content.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[SuricouRaven]

Not so long as IPv4 is in use. Due to the use of vhosts, that would also block a significent number of non-.xxx sites.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[SuricouRaven]

Everyone, really. The anti-porn crusaders hate .xxx because they view it as legitimising pornography - creating somewhere for it is akin to approval. The pornography industry hates the idea because they fear it could be the first step in creeping censorship, forcing them into an online ghetto. The only people who support .xxx are those at ICM Registry, who stand to make many millions of dollars off it.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people have no problem with the product in adult hands, but would like it to be as easy as possible to block traffic from .xxx domains to an elementary school library without some stupid third party whitelist or blacklist.

Won't somebody think of the CHILDREN!?

How exactly does pornography hurt children? If anything, adults are just worried about having to explain sexuality to children, which is another societal mental disorder.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me? My girlfriend has the best "top-level domains", if you know what I mean.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Still waiting for Whitehouse.xxx!

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

And societies that pretend some level of puritanism. Like here where we block porn (amongst other things). Its not done particularly well. People still like to look at porn. People in power still like to look at power. But people don't like to admit it, especially if they are in power.

That would be most societies.

I expect .xxx will be blocked here too shortly, by people who like to look at porn but won't admit it. And they will be voted for by people who like to look at porn but won't admit it. And nobody will really care - it is just lip service, as the porn is still available on other domains.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[TheCarp]

Though, how will they do it? Web proxies? Will they block DNS resolving? What stops a person from pointing to external DNS?

Trivial to get around. Now maybe they will spider the xxx domains and ban them by IP? That would be awesome... then all someone needs to do is register an XXX domain and point records at IPs.... whoops can you say denial of service?

Makes me want to register an XXX domain and point records at every IP in ipv4 space. See if they drop off the internet entirely.

Hopefully, this is good for the tor network. Aside from that, it just makes me laugh. As if they will accomplish anything.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people have no problem with the product in adult hands,

What world are you living in? Because I'd like to move there.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Pharmboy]

The thing is, it's not exactly possible to censor a TLD.

Not only is it possible, it is relatively trivial to do. All they have to do is get all ISPs to redirect all port 53 requests to internal DNS servers, then filter their own DNS servers as they wish. Then it is a matter of the DNS server essentially returning "127.0.0.1" for *.xxx That should take care of more than 99% of users. Pretty effective by anyone's standards.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue the exact opposite and say that this is why we DID want the TLD to exist.

Reputable smut dealers don't exactly try to hide what they're selling and will have no problem hosting their domains under the .xxx TLD.

Do you ever say fuck or shit or piss or goddamn on your website? The Internet Decency Act of 2021 says you must have an .xxx domain name. The fine is $500 per dirty word and permanent seizure of your old domain name. It doesn't matter that you wrote it before the bill was passed since any time you serve up a web page counts as a new action on your part.

By the way, the Internet Decency Act of 2018 says all ISPs in your country must block access to the .xxx domain. Don't worry, you won't lose all of your readers. A reform is under way which will allow individual Internet users to choose to access .xxx sites if they register with the government and employer background-check services as a potential sex offender, so people can still read your site if they really want to.

If you're an American and you think the First Amendment will protect you, you've never heard of the Federalist Society or seen what's happened to the Supreme Court since the 1970s.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[drinkypoo]

It works out for everybody except porn fans in puritanical countries, as TFA illustrates.

I can't help but notice the influence the religious reich holds over American politics...

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[h4rr4r]

The internet is not for children, .com is not for children and learning about sex is not going to even harm children. Get over it.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[ultranova]

Most people have no problem with the product in adult hands, but would like it to be as easy as possible to block traffic from .xxx domains to an elementary school library without some stupid third party whitelist or blacklist.

I wouldn't. The easier it's to block something from elementary school library, the easier it is to block it from my home. And once they've come for porn peddlers, it's easier to continue to silence wikileaks, IRC, P2P, etc. After all, they'll have a previous example to point to, and besides anything that can transfer information can transfer porn.

I saw porn as a preteen kid, and it didn't kill, scar or pervert me. In fact it didn't affect me at all, it simply looked weird. It won't kill, scar or pervert anyone else either. I wish people would stop with this idiotic idea that children are harmed if they see sex already.

At some point, having a puritanical upbringing stops being an excuse for harming others with your hysterics.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[frisket]

If it were possible to enforce a rule that all porn merchants had to use a .xxx domain, then being able to block the domain would surely be a positive benefit for jurisdictions opposed to porn. But it's not, so it won't be.

How about forcing all fundamentalist sites to be on .fundie? Or all right-wing sites to be on .fascist? Then we can block the whole lot of them in one swell foop.

Great idea, huh?

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[sjames]

You find it objectionable that I support a porn site's ability to freely choose a domain that makes it perfectly clear they offer porn?

I do not advocate making use of xxx mandatory. I suggest that some porn sites might appreciate leaving complainers and whiners no leg to stand on.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[kasperd]

1. Get a list of all .xxx domains

Is it guaranteed that such a list will be available?

2. Query the DNS for the IPs for those domains

Most of the interesting stuff is actually not going to be on the naked domains (no pun intended), but rather on subdomains. You can be sure there will be domains for which the list of subdomains will not be made available. As a matter of fact, there may even be cases where a domain is implemented in a way that make it technically impossible to provide a complete list of subdomains.

3. Block IPs

That would be a quite easy target for DoS attacks. Buy xxx domain, point A record at site you don't like. Voilà site is blocked, and somebody did all the hard work for you.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a nice little idea:
1) register some .xxx domain
2) point it to some legit site (government, bank, etc) IP
3) legit sites are now blocked and flagged as porn
4) win!

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Ash-Fox]

nobody can plausibly claim they wandered in and were morally outraged to find porn when they expected child friendly content.

Children are supposed to use kids.us tlds, not .com. Get it right.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[mapkinase]

I haven't heard .com forbidding pornography domains, so your point falls flat.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Ash-Fox]

The thing is, it's not exactly possible to censor a TLD.

It's an easy rule to setup in IOS (Cisco router OS), just drop DNS packets that query or respond with .xxx domains.

You can't realistically prevent an entire country from running their own DNS servers

Wouldn't need to. The above rule handles that issue too.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[sjames]

There are also adults who find porn objectionable. The advantage for porn sites in .xxx domains is that those adults cannot claim that they were surprised to see porn when they pulled it up.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Ash-Fox]

There are also adults who find porn objectionable.

There are also adults who find 'swear words' objectionable.

There are also adults who find 'women without veils' objectionable.

There are also adults who find 'white people' objectionable.

There are also adults who find 'eating animals' objectionable.

There are also adults who find 'Christianity' objectionable.

There are also adults who find 'Americans' objectionable.

Honestly, I find that argument very weak.

The advantage for porn sites in .xxx domains is that those adults cannot claim that they were surprised to see porn when they pulled it up.

Sure they can:

"I never expected to see gay men with hairy chests on .xxx! I thought I was going to see thirty bears... After all.. it says bears dot thirty!"

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[sjames]

Fine then, lets drop all TLDs because they mean nothing and chap your hide. You can then be free to violently debate the subtle shaded meaning of 'is' with yourself.

Some people want .xxx, it might or might not do any good. Nobody has to use it. Just what is your problem?

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Ash-Fox]

Fine then, lets drop all TLDs because they mean nothing and chap your hide.

Many people have been saying the difference between sites on .com, .net and .org doesn't seem to mean anything anymore and arguments related to this make sense.

Just what is your problem?

Broken 'solutions' that seem to exist to extort money yet in reality, don't solve anything (60USD per year to protect your brand name? 60USD as an alternative for a 6USD .com that is adult related?).

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[sjames]

Now we're getting somewhere! It's not so much the potential usefulness (or not), it's the cost of brand maintenance.

I can somewhat sympathize with that, no TLD should cost $60/year and it does seem there are a lot if you want to be yourname.everything. It may be that the best answer is to recognize that brand and domain name are not necessarily the same thing or at least that domain registrations deal with domains and brand disputes are separate (much like it isn't a sign maker's job to enforce trademark). Another strategy is to make the TLD an explicit part of the brand name.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, it's not exactly possible to censor a TLD.

Not only is it possible, it is relatively trivial to do. All they have to do is get all ISPs to redirect all port 53 requests to internal DNS servers, then filter their own DNS servers as they wish. Then it is a matter of the DNS server essentially returning "127.0.0.1" for *.xxx That should take care of more than 99% of users. Pretty effective by anyone's standards.

But that doesn't work so well if you have DNS over TCP...

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Pharmboy]

While DNS typically uses UDP, not TCP, you can redirect TCP just as easily as UDP. It is a single line of code in iptables, it is that easy: One line.

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

the point is its an obstacle to free and uncensored expression, genius

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Devoidoid]

Where are my mod points when I need them...

Re:Nobody saw that coming

[Anonymous Coward]

It is also very trivial for someone to circumvent this.
VPN, onion routers can easily access this domains and i bet there are other ways to do it and as someone said, if someone can gain something out of this (money or popularity or just win a challenge) it will be done.

Excellent play

[NFN_NLN]

Excellent move by the Indians.

Nobody wants there porn censored out, not even the Indians (except a few crazy religious zealots). By declaring they will censor it immediately this will surely kill the .xxx domain AND ensure they can get their porn the good ol'fashioned way as they've already been doing.

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

The religious zealots are also the ones consuming. You can look at the consumption rate in Utah for example. (It is much higher)

http://techliberation.com/2009/03/02/conservatives-porn-and-community-standards/

Re:Excellent play

[binary paladin]

Their prescription drug abuse tops the charts. Who needs to loosen up with a beer when you can get Vicodin for a hangnail. Remember, if your doctor okays it, so does your god!

Re:Excellent play

[oliverthered]

all that really says is conservatives think they should pay for sex, liberals may well, being liberal and all, get the stuff for free.... possibly off some other liberal hippy chicks.

or a million and one other reasons (e.g. liberals put out easier than conservatives so there are more people in conservative places who ain't getting any)

But there is one thing that should be noted.... people tell you about themselves... so if they think that only dirty perverts watch porn, they must have gotten that idea from somewhere and have some idea what a dirty pervert is. Given Theory of Mind and other models... chances are it's cos they are dirty perverts.

Re:Excellent play

[Gohtar]

From the article you posted: "in an age of nationally distributed hotel pornography, there was little difference between the consumption habits of hotel guests in Salt Lake City or Las Vegas." I am not sure where he got that Utah residents have higher subscription rates than any other state. But that quote is the data set he used. Even if it were true, I would think that the rate would be high not because the state is filled with hypocritical religious zealots, but because of the lack of any other source of porn in the state. The porn seekers have only the internet to turn to. Seriously, check some of the laws. I think the .xxx tld is great. From a business standpoint it is nice to be able to block a tld that you know you do not want in the work place. I am not a porn viewer, but I still believe that for an ISP or government to block the tld is wrong.

Re:Excellent play

[tobiah]

That's some funny stuff

Re:Excellent play

[shutdown -p now]

Nobody wants there porn censored out, not even the Indians (except a few crazy religious zealots).

So far as I know, India is pretty conservative (at least as far as societal norms go). I mean, we're talking about a country where homosexuality is a criminal offense punished by a few years in prison.

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not a porn viewer

Seriously, WTF is wrong with you?

Re:Excellent play

[NFN_NLN]

Nobody wants there porn censored out, not even the Indians (except a few crazy religious zealots).

So far as I know, India is pretty conservative (at least as far as societal norms go). I mean, we're talking about a country where homosexuality is a criminal offense punished by a few years in prison.

"The Kama Sutra (Sanskrit: , Kmastra) is an ancient Indian Hindu[1][2] text widely considered to be the standard work on human sexual behavior in Sanskrit literature written by Vtsyyana. A portion of the work consists of practical advice on sexual intercourse.[3] It is largely in prose, with many inserted anustubh poetry verses. "Kma" which is one of the three goals of Hindu life, means sensual or sexual pleasure..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_Sutra

I could have just replied with the word "Kama Sutra" but the opening lines did a pretty good job of driving my point home that I couldn't resist.

Re:Excellent play

[antdude]

"their" :P

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, we're talking about a country where homosexuality is a criminal offense punished by a few years in prison.

Wrong. There is no such law.

Re:Excellent play

[rubycodez]

yes there were, Indian Penal Code section 377, overturned in July 2009 http://trendsupdates.com/homosexuality-legalized-in-india/

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

So far as I know, India is pretty conservative (at least as far as societal norms go). I mean, we're talking about a country where homosexuality is a criminal offense punished by a few years in prison.

Homosexuality in not a crime in India now, research before you post.

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

Kama Sutra was written a long time ago, before Brits came and "civilized" Hindis by making them prudes (among other things).

Anyway, I was somewhat wrong, as corrected by another poster - the law has been repealed. 2 years ago.

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

Homosexuality was decriminalized in 2009. A little late to the decision but it is most definitely not a criminal offense.

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, homosexuality is not a crime in India anymore. The law was changed 2 years back.

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

Homosexuality is no longer a punishable offense, that law was repealed just last year. Publishing pornography is an offense, yes.

Re:Excellent play

[SuricouRaven]

I don't think it'll be that big a help - it'll let you block the reputable porn sites easily enough, but those already pose little problem as they are easily identified. It's all the ones that promote themselves with spamming, aggressive advertising and search engine abuse that you need to keep filtered, and they arn't going to move to .xxx. Even if it were somehow possible to force them off .com, they'd just set up in the country-codes instead.

Re:Excellent play

[Anonymous Coward]

they can get their porn the good ol'fashioned way

Canvas and paintbrush?

Re:Excellent play

[shutdown -p now]

Thanks to everyone else who replied to my post, politely (e.g. without starting the reply with "Stupid bigot") correcting the wrong claim that homosexuality is still illegal in India - apparently, I've missed the developments of the last 2 years, during when it was decriminalized.

Well, now I'm torn

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship is always a step back, but .xxx is such a stupid idea.

Re:Well, now I'm torn

[Anonymous Coward]

...now I'm torn...

Pull yourself together man!

paying attention, very affordable, very important

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY2DKzastu8&NR=1&feature=fvwp

thanks gen. clarke. never thought we'd be saluting anyone.

clearly not just a war of words, media hypenosys etc...-- wee key (diaper) leaks group, perishability & play-dates pending world disarmament

xxx? some sites about religious training?

So...

[The O Rly Factor]

Isn't this EXACTLY what we said would happen?

Re:So...

[hedwards]

One it's India, so unless you were saying that India would ban it it's not exactly what some people said. Secondly, I doubt very much that this really changes much because all reputable porn purveyors already voluntarily have themselves added to various blocking programs anyways. There's also the issue of the .xxx TLD not being compulsory, if that happens, then I think we need to really worry, at this point it's just optional.

Plus there are ways in which it could be useful for all parties involved, I just know better than to expect that level of discourse and negotiation.

Why are they against the domain?

[Kaz Kylheku]

Why are they against porn being collected into a domain that they can easily block?

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[Osgeld]

I just got done telling my wife that I was not totally against it, from a private user stance, from the stance of our corporate / government overloads mismanaging it, well thats why

lets say your living life just fine and some "group" pops up and outright pressures your local branch ISP to block all *.nrd sites, you might be a little miffed

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[tacarat]

Exactly. If you lived in those countries, porn access wasn't allowed anyhow (pretty much unenforceable, though). It won't change anything. Porn sites will keep their .com/net/sheep TLD names and have a .xxx one. Countries or networks with filters in place will still have circumvention by whatever means are needed. The politicians and folks in power can now make empty boasts about cleaning up the internet and the rest of us can still enjoy the things from the pre-.xxx world like nothing happened.

Wake me up when the US Bible belt states try to ban access to a certain classic that has a part where two daughters get their father drunk specifically so they can have sex with him.

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

a certain classic that has a part where two daughters get their father drunk specifically so they can have sex with him

SAUCE NAO!

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[modmans2ndcoming]

right... and... uhh... an ISP as a company would probably not block it for everyone but rather offer it as an account option for the customer.

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[Baseclass]

Genesis 19:32-36 (King James Version)

Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit, I created a cat pictures site under an xxx domain. Should have known my pussies would be blocked.

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they are easily blocking it... or did you miss that in the summary?

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me up when the US Bible belt states try to ban access to a certain classic that has a part where two daughters get their father drunk specifically so they can have sex with him.

And that's porn to you?

Re:Why are they against the domain?

[grapeape]

They aren't going to bother with banning the book...they are just going to rewrite it...

http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project

It's almost like

[Anonymous Coward]

they created a this domain for these purposes...come guys, if you're going to censor us, at least phase it in. Don't go blocking domains a week after they're approved, let it wait a little bit.

Not first!

[slushslash3]

UK appears to ban it as well

Re:Not first!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's twice you've got me now!

Good trolling to you!

Re:Not first!

[kvvbassboy]

GOATSE!

Re:Not first!

[snkiz]

You must be new here hehe

Re:Not first!

[PPH]

Next thing you know, they'll block blog.com.

If ever a /. story needed

[milbournosphere]

a 'toldyouso' tag, it's this one.

They want another domain :)

[hotfireball]

They probably need .kamasutra domain instead. :)

Re:They want another domain :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the Indian porn industry could register .cow domain, and use that, instead.

Now Who's..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. going to be blocked from visiting my new website, giantrumbottlecalled.xxx?

Makes me wonder

[Nikker]

Kinda makes you wonder though, if so many people are against pornography that they had made it law, why would they need the law since none of them would look at it anyway?

Re:Makes me wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Because these kind of folks are the type that want to control what other people do. I have nothing at all against their beliefs - but dammit, let those beliefs just apply to them. It is this insatiable need they have to push their form of morality on others that defines them for me as anti-social bigots.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Wingnut64]

Slashdot comment pulled from my quotes file:

Social conservatives keep demanding laws to regulate everyone because their usual tools of ostracism and shame are only effective within their own communities.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Kjella]

Because religion puts you up to being a busybody. As individuals I mind my business and you mind yours as long as it doesn't have too ill effects on each other. But if you're seeing this as a sin and an offense against god, then it's not just my choice and your choice but a Right and a Wrong choice.

To religious nuts it's like trying to say that a cancer cell isn't better or worse than other cells, just different. They want a society that encourages people to make the Right choice and discourages them from making the Wrong choice. They want to push their way of life, their moral systems and their belief on you. They want to cleanse society of sin and taint and if you like your sinning ways that's a problem that needs solving, not a choice to be respected.

As for why pornography? Because lust is such a basic feeling in people, I doubt there's any religious man who isn't at least feeling somewhat guilty for having naughty thoughts. That's the hook that makes people work for religion, they give you guilt then let you work towards forgiveness. Religion is a bit like evolution, it doesn't care how it survives it's only about numbers - births and converts.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Burning1]

Laws are about making sure other people don't do the stuff you want to do yourself... E.g. tax evasion laws. If there is no incentive to do something to begin with, there is no need for a law.

Re:Makes me wonder

[hedwards]

Religion doesn't put people up to that, they do it on their own. Islam, Christianity and Buddhism in particular do not allow for that sort of behavior as a route to the goal. It's something which the ignorant amongst them do, and if you actually study up on the theological aspect it's really clear that such individuals are not in keeping with the religion.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't want you looking at it, because then you are less likely to follow their boring religious ways.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Kjella]

Religion doesn't put people up to that, they do it on their own. Islam, Christianity and Buddhism in particular do not allow for that sort of behavior as a route to the goal. It's something which the ignorant amongst them do, and if you actually study up on the theological aspect it's really clear that such individuals are not in keeping with the religion.

If you claim the ignorant is 90%, maybe. Christianity and Catholicism in particular has been doing it for 1500 years at least with absolution of your sins. And if you think being a good Buddhist is easy, try following the Eightfold Path and you'll quite quickly see it's near impossible to be that good. So to offset that you haven't been a living saint, you donate to the Tibetan monks or whatever. When you add up the collective guilt of a people you get a lot of money and a lot of power. You do know a fairly central part of the Lord's Prayer is "and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us," - it's pretty clear you need to seek the Lord's forgiveness and often too. And don't get me started on Islam, between halal and haraam and prayers and pilgrimages and then some there's more than enough to give the average Muslim guilt too. Of course on the flip side you could say this is simply religion asking us to better ourselves, but in practice the bar is such that almost no one feels pious enough.

Re:Makes me wonder

[LordLucless]

I think what the previous poster was saying is that those religions don't encourage imposing that sort of behaviour outside their community. All the rules in the Bible are for either the Jews (OT) or the Christians (NT). Pretty much the only thing Christians are supposed to do in regards to non-Christians is to tell them about Jesus.

The problem exists when you have a theocracy - which was essentially what we had during the middle ages, and what some Americans believe the US has now. In a theocracy, everyone must belong to the religion in question, therefore state laws applying principles that should only be applied to members of the religious community is somewhat consistent.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct way to punctuate a sentence that states: "Of course it is none of my business, but -- " is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about." — Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough for Love)

Re:Makes me wonder

[Ubi_NL]

I agree with your intention but your reasoning is wrong. It's like saying "Why make a law against homicide if most people wouldn't kill someone anyway"

Re:Makes me wonder

[Doc Ruby]

A religion is defined by how it's practiced and defined by its officials. Of the ones you mentioned, I know that Islam and Christianity are full of officials putting people up to enforcing their definition of morality on other people. Buddhism very well might also - I don't know that many Buddhists or see them on TV, print or Web.

If you study up on the theological aspect of practically any religion you can find plenty of justifications for doing nearly anything, no matter how self-contradictory. That is the great value of a rule system based on a nonexistent yet all-powerful being.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Doc Ruby]

No, it's pretty clear that post means a religious person telling anyone other than themself what to do according to a moral code. In Christianity, that kind of meddling control freakery is all too common, especially in the US. And for many American Christians, that freakery rises to the level of theocracy. So far it's the exception and usually local. But it's despite long tradition and wide opposition (when people are aware of it), often the product of large scale organization, and shouldn't happen at all. So its regular gains in power over the lives of people who don't believe, through government rather than directly through religion, is a troubling threat of theocracy in general.

Re:Makes me wonder

[the_womble]

The most busy body societies have been run by atheists (think of the Soviet Union or Communist China).

Re:Makes me wonder

[the_womble]

Theocracy is a natural extension of a feudal society where individual freedom is very restricted. Even now the most theocratic societies are feudal, middle Eastern Ones: only the gulf Arab states compel all their citizens to follow a single religion.

The thinking of people who want a theocracy follows the usual pattern of thought of politicians and terrorists: "I know what is best for everyone so I should force them to do it".

Re:Makes me wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the hook that makes people work for religion, they give you guilt then let you work towards forgiveness. Religion is a bit like evolution, it doesn't care how it survives it's only about numbers - births and converts.

Just to clarify. Sounds like you're talking about "Christianity," not "religion."

Too bad

[rongage]

They don't know what they are going to be missing... :)

Because that creates a policy on what porn is

[slushslash4]

The only practical use of this TLD is to force porn sites to use it. But who will decide what is and what isn't porn? This blog has a good story on this

Re:Because that creates a policy on what porn is

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. That was deep.

Re:Because that creates a policy on what porn is

[Daimanta]

Goatse troll. Mod down. Now excuse me while I throw up.....

Re:Because that creates a policy on what porn is

[Seumas]

Irony.

Yeah, it would really suck if...

[seanbruckman]

All above-board porn sites migrated to the tld for legitimacy and it was incredibly easy to block the lot from any computer. No pun intended.

Re:Yeah, it would really suck if...

[hedwards]

It's already easy to block the above board porn sites as they're already listed on the major web filter lists. They do it because it's not in their interest to have to deal with the additional charge backs that would occur, not to mention the extra regulatory attention that it would provide. If the industry voluntarily places itself on a filter list, that's that much less reason for congress to step in and mandate it.

this is perfect.

[Punto]

The people in India and the middle east have their governments, and those governments want to block porn. Now they have a simple way to do it. Why would they not want that? Were they really successful in blocking .com porn sites? And the sites that don't want to deal with that will go to .xxx. It's a perfectly civilized solution.

Re:this is perfect.

[Krishnoid]

Dogbert figured this out a while back. Let's hope CNN lets us know how it works out for these governments.

Who cares?

[Threni]

Seriously, if you don't like the internet and all it stands for, fuck off.

Umm... isn't this a good thing?

[lullabud]

No porn sites that exist currently use .xxx. Any who choose to use .xxx for marketing, SEO, etc. may do so, and they don't have to forfeit their current domains to do it. On top of that, any porn sites that choose to abide by any and all filtering that is desired by corporations or governments can now do so easily by only hosting on .xxx.

Nobody says you HAVE to host porn on .xxx. It's an *option*.

Options are good, right? I mean, it's not like we're losing redtube or whatever.

Re:Umm... isn't this a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Options are good, right?

Until the first country makes it mandatory for porn sites to migrate to .xxx and declares it illegal to host under a country or another TLD.

Re:Umm... isn't this a good thing?

[Grishnakh]

So what? If Bumfuckistan decides to pass a law requiring all porn sites, anywhere, to move to .xxx, what does that matter? It only matters what the countries the porn sites are located in do. I'd guess that most porn sites are in the USA and northwestern Europe (the Danish and Germans seem to have a lot of porn), so as long as those places don't pass any such laws, it doesn't matter.

Re:Umm... isn't this a good thing?

[Fastolfe]

I'd guess that most porn sites are in the USA and northwestern Europe (the Danish and Germans seem to have a lot of porn), so as long as those places don't pass any such laws, it doesn't matter.

OK, whew. That'll never happen.

Re:Umm... isn't this a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think there are porn-sites in Germany, you are ill-informed. No German company could comply with our ridiculous youth-protection laws.

The whole xxx thing is a joke

[cfalcon]

How will these domains be distributed? What constitutes porn? Obviously google.xxx and ford.xxx and microsoft.xxx will be bought up quickly just to prevent a squatter from photoshopping Bill Gates humping a goat as a whole domain, but what about, say, the rest of us?

I would like an XXX domain for the hell of it, and I wouldn't put any porn on it. I'm just some random guy- I'm sure plenty of people would feel that way.

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like an XXX domain for the hell of it, and I wouldn't put any porn on it. I'm just some random guy- I'm sure plenty of people would feel that way.

This is an interesting question, actually. Could you be accused of violating someone's TOS for *not* putting porn on a domain of yours?

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[Seumas]

This is why I disagree with idiots who go around touting the whole "PROTECT THE CHILDREN!" bullshit with the intention of nerfing everything in the world at the expense of free expression and consumption by adults and in favor of someone's children. Nobody is forcing parents not to parent. Nobody is forcing parents not to censors their children's content. There's too much risk and corruption in allowing some organized body of people (think the MPAA creeps, here, which are composed mostly of people in their 50s or later with children in their 20s or later, plus a protestant and a baptist minister who don't vote, but offer their thoughts to the censors who vote in secret and offer no guidance on what is or isn't obscene, but they know it when they see it) to classify content for people.

If the consequence is that your precious little snot-producing dimwit may or may not come across a pair of tits or a couple of dicks at some point in his life and completely lose his shit over it, then so be it. I don't see any purpose for making exceptions or allowances here. The potential price of going down that road is too steep.

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite interesting that freetards think that Bill Gates is still in charge of "M$".

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[hedwards]

Part of the issue is that the registrar for the .xxx TLD has neither the mandate nor the resources to ensure that the sites registered are legal sites. Meaning that the various sites feature consenting adults doing whatever freaky stuff the site features. If having a .xxx site provided some assurance that the materials were legal that might be a competitive advantage, at least in places where sex laws are serious business.

As it is the .XXX TLD is basically just a .com TLD for porn.

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sick of that "protect the children" garbage. I don't even care about the children. Why? Because they'll be fine. Most of them won't go insane from seeing people having sex, playing a video game, or watching a movie. A grand majority of them won't even be affected, as far as I've seen. Keeping them in a little bubble is pure idiocy in my opinion.

There will be a few who "aren't ready" for this, but there aren't many of them, they were already likely 'insane', and the parents can just be parents and tell them that it isn't real and that they shouldn't take life advice from it. You know, educate them about the facts, not mindlessly censor everything like a paranoid imbecile.

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[swabeui]

As it is the .XXX TLD is basically just a .com TLD for porn.

That is 5x the cost. .XXX is expected to be around $50/yr. Content producers are pissed because they will have to registered all their brands under .xxx to protect them. They can't really use them because .xxx will be far more likely to be blocked so all they will do is bounce to the existing .com site.

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[Kalriath]

Well, ICM won't let you register a domain unless you already have a porn site, and you use the exact same name for your .xxx as your existing site.

Thereby defeating both purposes, in one fel swoop.

Re:The whole xxx thing is a joke

[BiggerIsBetter]

Vin Diesel and Ice Cube might want one too.

Laws are for the lawless.

[mosb1000]

Laws exist for the lawbreakers. If you make something illegal people will assume you don't do it because it's illegal.

Re:Laws are for the lawless.

[Doc Ruby]

The cost of people assuming you don't do something wrong only because it's illegal is minor compared to the savings from the law preventing people doing that wrong who otherwise would have done it.

Re:Laws are for the lawless.

[mosb1000]

The cost of assuming that the cost is minor compared to the savings is probably higher than you know.

That didn't take long

[Anonymous Coward]

And nobody saw that coming.

[har]

India: They don't need no lousy .xxx

[no-body]

They have their khajuharo temple with different background

OLD, missing info

[Anonymous Coward]

Old. This was posted on the India times website around last Thursday I used it for my Lit & Films class. The post is missing the part that it is Illegal in India to provide adult material but there are no laws for viewing the material or having it.

source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/internet/India-to-oppose-xxx-domain/articleshow/7778783.cms

Who would have thought.

[pclminion]

A sovereign nation taking steps to enforce their own moral and legal standards. What is the world coming to?

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

Nations aren't supposed to enforce moral standards.

Re:Who would have thought.

[hedwards]

The US bars and prosecutes people for cannibalism when it comes up, but in the past their have been societies that engaged in it from time to time as a part of the culture. I'm not sure if any still exist, but that's definitely a moral call and one that has the full force of law.

The relevant question is at what point it becomes reasonable for a government to regulate it or ban it or has to just deal with people having other morals.

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

Those societies? Yes... I've heard of them. Actually, they supposedly don't partake of cannibalism anymore, but certain marker diseases were discovered among them that are only transmitted by the consumption of human flesh. (Or so I've heard.)

But no, the objection to cannibalism is purely on moral grounds, as you said.

Re:Who would have thought.

[Alex Belits]

Why not?

In most of the world people expect some degree of uniformity in public behavior and expectations. Americans do it, too, they just usually believe that their (often outright disgusting, and not in a sexual way) behavior is universally acceptable.

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

Why not?

Separation of church and state.

In most of the world people expect some degree of uniformity in public behavior and expectations.

If there is a good reason for social behavior. As opposed to a purely "moral" reason for it, since everyone's morals are different.

Unless you want to be a theocracy with the ruling religion setting the rules? I don't.

Re:Who would have thought.

[H0p313ss]

orly

Re:Who would have thought.

[guruevi]

Cannibalism was/is not something that happens or even happened all that often. It was either used in rituals, usually when fighting with another tribe and then only certain parts (brains or vital organs - wherever your soul or power was considered to be located) or in extreme situations (survival) but most of all it was used to dehumanize an opponent and morally authorize savagery from the other side. It is associated with a Creutzfeldt-Jakob type disease in humans but I don't think that it's prevalent anymore because of that even among less developed tribes.

Re:Who would have thought.

[Anonymous Coward]

ya rly

Re:Who would have thought.

[pclminion]

Nations aren't supposed to enforce moral standards.

Because you say so, I guess?

Re:Who would have thought.

[Alex Belits]

Religion, being a politically privileged form of superstition (and often fraud), has nothing to do with morality. Government may or may not be given a task on encouraging moral and discouraging immoral behavior depending on how much the society finds it important or necessary. The idea of amoral government is an quirk (or, usually, delusion) that is popular in some places and unpopular in others, and there would be much less conflicts in the world if neither of those side tried to make their traditions universally accepted.

Re:Who would have thought.

[a whoabot]

The things which are "moral" in the sense of "morally good", and the things for which there are "good reasons" must tend toward the same reference, varying only with what exactly you mean by a "good reason". Certainly any morally good end must have a morally good reason for it to be chosen, insofar as it is possibly an end which is deliberately aimed at by a reasoning person. If some "to be done" thing did not have a good reason to be done (whether accessible or not), then how could it be said to be morally imperative for a reasoning person? Reasoned choice, as a result of pure deliberation, is made purely on the basis of reasons, so the quality of such a choice (as something which is made, as the action of a subject) can only be grounded in the quality of the reasons which ground the choice. So, ceteris paribus, if there are morally good reasons for choosing some thing, the choice of that thing is morally good. And, in the other direction, if the choice of some thing is morally good, then there are morally good reasons for choosing that thing. And any such thing is only described as "morally good" as the choice of it is morally good, in the use or implementation of it, because morality is about what should be willed, but such things don't will, but are rather what are willed (into existence or into some particular arrangement, i.e., they are chosen to be used or implemented in some way). In these senses there is equivalence with the things for which there are good reasons and the things which are moral. So if there is good reason for some social behaviour, then that social behaviour is moral, and if someone uses legislation to implement that social behaviour, then they are using legislation to implement what is moral.

Re:Who would have thought.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you want to be a theocracy with the ruling religion setting the rules? I don't.

This is precisely the GP point. There are people who are fine with this. The are entire societies that are fine with this. Your values are not universal. America (or the Western Civilization as a whole) is not a beacon of freedom or anything.

Let's have an example.

Iran.

Iran used to have pro Western government and went into a lot of liberalization. People using western dress, movies, music, and so on. Then a popular movement made the country into a theocracy, because people as as whole supported conservative values. Put that on your founding fathers pipe and smoke it.

Saudi Arabia has a similar story, although there wasn't a regime change but the government gave power to the religious police and confined the western way of life to expat compounds after a popular uprising.

Your values aren't universal. Never were. There a lot of people in the world who can only see the blood trail you let into the world when doing your "destino manifesto".

Go back home, yankee, please.

Re:Who would have thought.

[Anonymous Coward]

The British Empire did.

The Rule of Law, Fair Play, Cricket, Warm Beer and Afternoon Tea. Not a bad set of morals in anyone's book...

Re:Who would have thought.

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget infanticide, genocide, and slavery, all described as acts of a moral god acts or moral behavior for religious members in the Christian bible.

Re:Who would have thought.

[sudon't]

"The relevant question is at what point it becomes reasonable for a government to regulate it or ban it or has to just deal with people having other morals." That's an easy one: When it violates the Golden Rule. As long as you're not harming someone else, or interfering with their freedom, you should be free to do as you like. Clearly, killing and eating someone interferes with the murdered person's pursuit of happiness and causes them harm. Consensual cannibalism might be up for debate, but you'd have to question the mental state of an individual wishing to die and be eaten. That is, are they capable of consent? Pursuits such as getting high or jacking off to porn, for instance, harm no one, and are no one else's business. Now, I know some are going to torture the definition of "harm", so we'd need to make that clear. But just because someone is upset at what another may be doing shouldn't constitute "harm".

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

There are also entire societies that are fine with slavery and female genital mutilation.

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

The idea of amoral government is an quirk (or, usually, delusion) that is popular in some places and unpopular in others, and there would be much less conflicts in the world if neither of those side tried to make their traditions universally accepted.

And as a counter-example to that, Jews and Muslims share very much of the same beliefs and customs and traditions, but they've been trying to kill each other for basically ever with no apparent end to it anytime soon.

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

Because moral standards vary from person to person and governments should enforce things that everyone can agree on.

Re:Who would have thought.

[Alex Belits]

I never said that support of the idea of amoral government is the only source of conflicts. I have already mentioned religion as a politically privileged form of superstition -- that has to be a source of conflicts.

Re:Who would have thought.

[Alex Belits]

One of them being US.

Re:Who would have thought.

[sudon't]

Unless you mean "several decades" when you say "for basically ever", you're perpetuating a political myth. Regardless, the issue is, ostensibly, religion on one side, that is, "God gave us this land in perpetuity", but it is about stolen land and property on the other and so, not so intractable as they'd like you to believe. You can't characterize what's happening in Palestine as religious hatred. It's more properly viewed as ethnic cleansing.

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

The US formerly being one of them.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

So an amoral government is a source of conflicts, and a moral one is a source of conflicts. Jolly clever of you. Sounds like there's no way around conflicts, when you put it that way. Almost like they're an inseparable part of human nature.

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

Unless you mean "several millennia" when you say "several decades", no u.

Re:Who would have thought.

[Alex Belits]

Stil is, and ingrained in American culture. Why do you think, BDSM porn is so unusually popular in US? Slavery. In Japan it's popular due to different but also historical reasons -- extremely strict social hierarchy. Everywhere else it is less popular because for centuries social progress was defined as reduction of one person's power over another, so very few people associate control and pain with success and safety. US and Japan stick out like sore thumbs.

Re:Who would have thought.

[_0xd0ad]

You think porn is real life?

I'm very sorry for you.

So why did they not support it?

[Roger W Moore]

It seems like it exists for the sole purpose of being censored.

Exactly...which is why you have to wonder at what the Indian government was thinking when the article also states that "India along with many other countries from the Middle East and Indonesia opposed the grant of the domain in the first place". Shouldn't they have been campaigning for it since it makes it easier to ban?

Re:So why did they not support it?

[jrumney]

Perhaps they opposed the introduction of the domain because the politicians like their porn as much as any other red blooded male (perhaps even more due to the repressed society in which they live), and now they have no excuse not to block it.

Re:So why did they not support it?

[Xtifr]

Damn, it's rare that a post deserves both +1 insightful and +1 funny, but you pulled it off! :)

Combat Zone / Red Light District

[retroworks]

This is just like Boston 1970s politicians protesting the Combat Zone. They'll finally build Park Plaza on top of the red light district, and the money will go to Providence... or .PROV

For the money

[kegon]

There's no point getting irate about freedom of speech. The whole point of domain names is to make money. The only reason .xxx was introduced was to "offer a new product", i.e. another TLD that could be subdivided and sold. Who would have thought it, people would pay money for the equivalent of a memorable telephone number.

Paul Mockapetris, inventor of DNS, said that "The DNS was built to be simple and predictable" so why is it handled by an organisational committee who make political decisions ? If it was only about ease of use then .xxx would have been decided years ago. And why do you have to pay more than a nominal admin fee to have your details entered into the DNS database ? It's all about money.

Re:For the money

[Thing I am]

It's always about the money. Always. Always. Always.

Ah, India.

[toriver]

A country so prude you can get a year in jail for kissing in public, yet so corrupt the police blatantly ignore child brothels in Kolkata.

FIX UR CNTRY. Then worry about internet domains. Kthxbye.

Re:Ah, India.

[Anonymous Coward]

"a year in jail for kissing in public" is in Dubai. And Dubai is not in India, last time I checked.

In India, "kissing in public" is frowned upon by "elders". But not a punishable offense.

RSS and VHP are publicly hated "extremsits" who frown upon any public display of affection.

Re:Ah, India.

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment makes the other comments in this thread obsolete.

Re:Ah, India.

[metacell]

If you have mod points, pls mod parent "informative".

The more you know...

Re:Ah, India.

[toriver]

Well, certainly less than a year then.

"In India, public display of affection is a criminal offense under Section 294 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 with a punishment of imprisonment of up to three months, or a fine, or both. This law has been used by the police and lower courts to harass and prosecute couples engaging in PDAs.[4][5] However in a number of landmark cases the higher courts have dismissed obscenity proceeding against kissing couples.[6][7] Attacks by vigilante groups also are a danger for those displaying affection.[8]"

Well, at least ...

[PPH]

... jobs developing apps and administrating .xxx sites won't be outsourced to Bangalore.

That's half the point of .xxx

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to block pornographic websites, (whyever you would is beyond me), and all you have to do is filter out the .xxx tld.

Once the transition takes place, you know a lot of schools and companies are going to be doing it. If they are so intent on banning pornography, why are they protesting something that will make the job a LOT easier?

Re:That's half the point of .xxx

[SuricouRaven]

The anti-porn types are upset because they see this as legitimising porn. They would like to see it banned altogether, and this seems like a form of approval.

wait....

[modmans2ndcoming]

Isn't that the entire point of wanting the .xxx domain? Then laws can be passed to require pornographic sites to use those domains and anyone who does not want pornography on their internet connection can block them easily?

Good job India... you're using it for the reason it was proposed!

Re:wait....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I don't think the point was so that you could make laws forcing sites to use it.. it's a voluntary thing. Porn operators don't want to have to age verify people or constantly worry about stuff like that either... if they park their host on an xxx domain, they will be getting censorship for free where they want it.

Re:wait....

[ags1]

You can't pass laws against the internet. If you make porn on a .com illegal the site will move to another country where it is legal. Take away their domain name, they will have a new one in under an hour. Law enforcement will be playing a very expensive game of internet whack-a-mole. I prefer my cops out on the street fighting crime. They should create a .kid or .safe TLD. The domain should be hard/expensive to get, like a .edu or .gov domain is. The expense will go to paying auditors/reviewers to rate the site. If a sites rating is too high, they lose their domain and have to reapply. This makes it extremely easy for schools/parents/anyone else to provide a safe internet experience by blocking everything but the .kid TLD. "Kid Friendly" companies like Disney will gladly pay the fee to buy exclusive internet time with our children. .XXX is a way to make icann more money, it has nothing to do with protecting the children.

.xxx domain should be about censorship

[animepunkw]

This is why that .xxx domain should be created. It enables us to choose weather we want these sites or not. It is undeniable that porn makes up a large part of the internet. The only problem with the .xxx domain is that the pornography providers providers still have the option of buying the .com, .net , etc at the same time rendering the .xxx useless. The only real purpose it can provide is a quick and easy way to filter adult content. I do not agree with an entire country being told what they can or cannot view,. but i do agree that parents should be able to with in there own home with a simple block on .xxx

We don't need peeps watching sex.

[Nyder]

With our population problem, it's best if peeps didn't have sex on their minds. -- Indian Official

Re:We don't need peeps watching sex.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, well, as an Indian myself, I can say that that statement is absolute hypocrisy & downright denial. Adolescent and young adult human beings WILL have sex on their minds. Period. Now I'm not saying porn is good. It's never been & never will be even a shadow of a substitute for any meaningful relationship, but it's not for the Government to decide what we see & hear. It's for individuals and families to decide. It's one thing to block porn at workplaces, but to ban this nationwide is overreach. Sigh... what else is new anyway... Governments throughout the world seem to be doing everything EXCEPT governance these days.

Re:We don't need peeps watching sex.

[Anonymous Coward]

If population "problem" you want to solve, use the Nuke on several Indian cities, ipso facto , population solved.

OTOH if you want to keep that population "problem" happy , stop corruption ( dont take bribes, dont encourage bribes stop your colleagues taking bribes be honest to the coutrymen you serve) -- Indian Citizen who is paying for you to work with his hard earned taxes.

Re:We don't need peeps watching sex.

[souravzzz]

We need some bureaucratic who actually has some brain. And may be some politicians who can rise over vote bank policy and can take stern measures. Why not just make a single child rule like China? Because that would enrage the Muslim community? Utter BS.

Re:We don't need peeps watching sex.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, maybe they should read more of the studies that show that porn can actually interfere with healthy sexual relations in relationships--porn may very well be the *solution* to overpopulation as some guys lose their sex drive in the presence of an actual woman...

Or just tax the living hell out of couples with children.

Trying to control internet porn, however, is a lost battle.

Re:We don't need peeps watching sex.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if peeps cannot watch it, they'll just do it...

Non-porn problem too!

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

Countries are going to have to block the 123.com and 123.net sites to have an effective 123.xxx block. This is a problem because anyone will be able to block a non-porn competitor in many countries by simply registering competitor.xxx; competitor.com competitor.net competitor.org could also become blocked

Wouldn't work, fix it with a plugin and proxy

[BlueCoder]

Seriously all it would an proxy program that reroutes all the XXX domains to a public DNS XXX cache. You really think the online porn industry doesn't have the incentive to get around stuff like this? They could also just make a plugin for browsers that changed all XXX domain to a sub domain of something else that resolves to the same addresses. Wouldn't cost much bandwidth at all.

If India blocks a whole TLD

[formfeed]

.. how can one get phone support for that TLD?

Welcome to the 1950s

[megahakujin]

Population: That side of the world.

In the land that has given us kamasutra

[Anonymous Coward]

"sex" and "porn" are popular searches on Google

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

What are the requirements/cost for xxx?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I migrate my site from .com to .xxx, does that mean I won't get forum-spammers from Indian addresses anymore? (And please don't explain I'll just get the same spam from European proxies instead; I know that.)

Can you imagine www.disney.xxx?

[G3ckoG33k]

".xxx is largely a tool of people who just want another TLD to spin money from"

I am not sure all in the money crowd are eager to go there. Can you imagine www.disney.xxx?

Re:Can you imagine www.disney.xxx?

[lessthan]

Yes! Pocahontas has been a naughty girl!

Re:Can you imagine www.disney.xxx?

[cowboy76Spain]

Why not? Yet, it probably won't direct you to www.disney.com but to a simple page stating that Disney owns the trademark and won't condone its use for porn. Or at least, Disney will buy the domain to avoid somebody else using it.

there are no .xxx sites

[blackest_k]

from icann

The Board intends to complete the process for final approval of the New gTLD implementation program at an extraordinary meeting of the ICANN Board to be held on Monday, 20 June 2011, at the ICANN public meeting in Singapore.

which is why there are 0 sites for india to ban yet as none exist.

As an Indian lawyer who reads erotica

[Kream]

... my opinion is that this development is just to score political points, or, more accurately, to pre-empt your (right wing) political opponents from scoring political points. Technically, it's illegal to watch, read, store, sell, purchase, write or distribute porn, just as its illegal to urinate in the open in urban areas. But reality has little to do with the availability of porn or the practical freedom of all Indians to piss and shit wherever they feel like. Indian censorship of Internet porn sites such as this one has little to do with a government of a billion+ people feeling they have to protect the population from the reality of sex. It has a lot to do with not allowing the right wing to score easy political points and with the fact that there's no organised and public body of people calling for citizens' right to read and watch porn. Also, before you jump at it, no, reading porn is not protected under free speech laws in India.

At any rate, all I need to do is buy a cheap $4.75/mo VPS package and run a socks 5 proxy on it. Or be lazy and buy a $9 vpn service to get around it, if I could GAF. literotica.com isn't moving.

Stupid bigot

[SmallFurryCreature]

Do your research. India has decriminalized homo sexual activity in 2009 and nobody has been convicted for it in twenty years either.

Re:Stupid bigot

[shutdown -p now]

You're the fifth person who posted that same exact comment in response to mine. I suggest you follow your own advice regarding doing research first before calling other people stupid.

Re:Stupid bigot

[Doc Ruby]

So your only response to being shown totally wrong by several people is to attack the latest of them for being one of many? You should at least also apologize for being wrong and looking like a bigot. But since you didn't, you tend to confirm that you're a bigot, and don't really care whether you're right or wrong.

Re:Stupid bigot

[shutdown -p now]

So your only response to being shown totally wrong by several people

The point on which I was wrong does not affect the premise of my post. So I didn't know that India decriminalized homosexuality 2 years ago - yeah, that totally makes it different, surely it's a shining beacon of tolerance now. This indicates that India is becoming a less conservative society, but this takes much more time than that.

(For the record, yes, those US states where homosexuality was only decriminalized by Lawrence v. Texas are in the same boat and get no slack either. But TFA is not about them.)

is to attack the latest of them for being one of many?

I didn't say anything to other people who merely explained how I was wrong. Anyone who will read the thread is going to see 5+ replies correcting the wrong stuff straight away, so why bother? Heck, the my post even starts with "so far as I know", it doesn't proclaim it to be a God-given truth or anything.

  I only responded to a guy who called me a "stupid bigot", and only for that reason. The sheer irony of a person on a crusade in the name of tolerance diving straight into insults, towards a person they do not even know, over a dozen neutral words that you have to try really hard to interpret as "bigoted" (by which I mean you have to fill in more blanks than there are words!) was too just hard to pass by.

But, actually, you gave me a good idea...

Anyway, I apologize for getting one particular fact wrong (as noted, not of much relevance to the overall premise of my post) . I won't apologize for being a bigot, because nothing what I wrote in my original post can be construed as such. It's not bigoted to point out cultural differences. Especially since I didn't even judge that difference, but merely pointed out that it's there. If that fits bigotry by your definition, then world (what with cultures actually being different, you know) must be a harsh place to live in!

Re:Stupid bigot

[Doc Ruby]

No, you were wrong about the premise on which you based your assertion. Totally wrong.

Now your non-apology apology just makes you look like an asshole. An asshole who can't accept that being so wrong in public requires at least some humility, and really some introspection. You put it on the line, you lost, and you should change at least a little. But you aren't. Therefore, irredeemable asshole. Anyone can be wrong. It takes your kind of self-absorbed arrogance to be an asshole.

Shut up already.

Goodbye.

Re:Stupid bigot

[Doc Ruby]

BTW, you're clearly a bigot. That requires not simply judging someone "they don't even know". It requires judging entire classes of people based on wrong certainties about them. You demonstrated undeniable bigotry about Indian people, that you continue to demonstrate on the issue - despite proving your expertise is only ignorance. That's all we need to know about you to know you're a bigot. The rest of your life is irrelevant, now that your actually relevant behavior is on display.

Though you underscored your status with your assholery in response.

Now enough free clues for you. You've got more than you need to change into someone decent enough to be worth corresponding with.

Until then, goodbye.

Re:Stupid bigot

[shutdown -p now]

It requires judging entire classes of people based on wrong certainties about them. You demonstrated undeniable bigotry about Indian people

In none of my posts did I write a single word about Indian people. I wrote about Indian society. Do you understand the difference?

Furthermore, in none of my post did I judge anyone. Go ahead, find any place in my original post that says that being conservative is "bad" or "evil". It's only in your head - you have it hardwired that "conservative" equals "bad", and therefore someone else using that word is surely doing so as an insult.

You "PC police" folks would be funny if you weren't so numerous - it's as if for everything you read, you try to mentally bend the words such that they would give some, even the slightest, hint of racism or something like that - and then, as soon as you can spot it, start to froth in the mouth crying "bigots!" etc. (On a side note, by doing so, you're actually doing a great disservice to people who deal with real bigotry and racism - the "cry wolf" scenario.)

Doubly ironic is that I'm practically certain that you are not an Indian; and yet "India society is socially conservative" I've heard from many Indians, some of which are my friends. They must all be self-hating bigots also.

The only bigotry here is in your head, because you want to see it in others.

Off-Topic ? Porn not relevant in India ??

[Anonymous Coward]

Its Ignorant politicos and politicians who are criminals as well as illiterate in the traditions and teachings of Indian religions and culture who would stoop to any low if it can win them votes and elections by any unfair means.

India has long been a country of tolerance and acceptance. Despite all the moral / social / political issues we face, entire spectra of people living in India continue to live those values.

What we need in India is banning corruption,banning criminals from public / civil services,having responsible government and re-establishment of the peoples' faith in doing good, being good and working for good towards well-being of all Indians.

So the Porn blocking ain't gonna do it for India, it aint gonna get it done, so pretty much a non-issue.

Unfortunately thats why xxx will never work

[grapeape]

While I'd love to see the web create an enforceable red light district (it would make my job much easier and be easier for parents). Flat out banning the entire tld will just ensure that those wanting to get around the "ban" simply wont use it or maintain both .com and .xxx domains defeating its entire purpose.

Can anyone register a .xxx domain?

[Dwonis]

I'm seriously considering moving some of my websites to .xxx and not having porn on them (anybody want to register laughingsto.xxx?). Are there any restrictions to registering whatever you want on .xxx?

Oh, and for the record, RFC 3675 anticipated this whole mess.

Re:Can anyone register a .xxx domain?

[Ash-Fox]

I'm seriously considering moving some of my websites to .xxx and not having porn on them (anybody want to register laughingsto.xxx?). Are there any restrictions to registering whatever you want on .xxx?

I'm intending to run a 'color me in' website for children on a .xxx domain, once the price goes down for the .xxx domains.

Re:Can anyone register a .xxx domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can get Whitehouse.xxx, then I'd say go for it.

so ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess my new adult clips "The Hijra perform the Kama Sutra (Part 2 : Chapters 1-10)" won't be warmly embraced.
 

.xxx domain AND IPv6

[OldSoldier]

If you believe this article the powers that be should force all porn providers to use IPv6 addresses too. If porn helps push technology forward then this should help IPv6 rollout.

.GFX doman is the way to go

[TheReal_sabret00the]

That's what we've really been needing.

this xxx is intentionally designed for censorship

[lhlkly]

Given to the existance of Great Fire Wall, this definitely gonna happen in China..

Idiots....

[hesaigo999ca]

They are really stupid ....the whole point is to force the adult content to move to the .xxx domains so as to make it easier to block through ISP and parent monitoring, by saying no, you are saying yes indirectly to sites keeping their regular .com...and when your son sitting at the comp types in douche bag indian government and finds a picture of some transvestite cross dresser doing go knows what, you will have wondered if stopping the .xxx was a good idea....