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

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

[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

[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.

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!

Why are they against the domain?

[Kaz Kylheku]

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

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

[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:Ehh

[mwvdlee]

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

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.