ICANN Once Again Shoots Down .xxx TLD
from the try-try-again dept
The proposal to create a .xxx top-level domain for porn and adult content has been rejected by ICANN several times, as the group recognizes that it really isn't a very good idea. ICANN has again rejected the proposal, saying the company behind it hadn't adequately addressed previous concerns about how content in the TLD would be policed. What's odd is that ICANN board members said the group shouldn't be in the business of overseeing internet content, because it's inconsistent with its technical role. While that's correct, the position would appear to be at odds with ICANN's approval of the .mobi TLD for mobile content, in which it's given the .mobi registrar the ability to dictate what sort of content appears on sites in the domain (though, it looks as if they won't enforce their rules if you give them enough money). And money, of course, is why all of these useless TLDs keep being proposed and approved. Don't think that the guy behind the repeated .xxx TLD proposal has any sort of altruistic purposes at all -- in his own words, he's doing it "to make a pile of money.". ICANN doesn't need to give him (or anybody else proposing another pointless TLD) that opportunity.
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Equal opportunity...
It's only fair.
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Time to reform the adult area of the internet
It would be real nice to be able to filter out the adult content this way. This is not a free speech issue. We cannot shown porn openly in public and it should not be openly showed on the Internet.
I would imagine there are plenty of Internet filtering companies that would not like this idea because there service would be practically useless.
I do not believe these companies will ever protect there content enough to prevent children from seeing it. Thats why it would be very beneficial to quarantine all outright porn to a specific domain.
Of course what do you consider pornographic would have to be carefully sorted out. The naked human body isn't porn in my mind, but full-on penetration is.
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Re: Time to reform the adult area of the internet
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It needs to happen
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I forgot to say...
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Re: Time to reform the adult area of the internet
It isn't openly shown on the internet. You have to specifically tell your computer to fetch information* from the internet in order to view it. This is completely unlike, say, pornography being openly shown in public, where all you would have to do is look in the wrong direction.
* This, of course, disregards the effects of malware and malicious websites, which are already illegal.
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Seems to be it would make it easier.
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Last time I checked all the sites run on IP addresses and if people want porn they'll get it. Seems like all this time and effort going into trying to regulate the masses should go into making sure those checks and balances work in government.
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Won't work
Somone will open a website for their art using a .com address and others will be up in arms claiming it's porn and should use the .xxx address! Then the lawsuits start.
Others will open a truley pornographic site using a .com address, claiming it's not porn, but rather an educational or art website. Then the lawsuits start.
Believe it or not, it's not as simple as saying if a website shows a naked body, it's porn. Sex and the human body are not inherently pornographic, except to the naive. Even more, the comment that movies or photographs qualify, but not paintings or cartoons won't work either. I can show you paintings or cartoons that are so realistic, it would take an expert to determine if they were actual photo's or if they were drawn/painted.
Then what do we do about the great works of the masters? Are they pornographic? Do we limit ourselves to only works of art that are 300 years old or do we allow contemporary artists to produce and post on the internet art that shows the human body?
In some countries, women walking around topless is considered the norm, yet in the U.S. we consider it obscene. The internet doesn't have boundries like countries do. Given the ubiquitious nature of the internet, we (the global community) will never be able to agree on what's socially acceptable and what's not. That being the case, creating a .xxx address will only result in the lawyers making tons of $, but won't address the issue of keeping our children free of socially unacceptable content on the internet.
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Re: Won't work
I agree with what your saying, but I think if we defined porn as penetration and things like guys and girls spread eagle then we could force these vendors and their content into a .xxx domain.
Hardcore pornographic material really needs to be quarantined in some real way. I grow tired of pulling up porn unintentionally and a real solution for all people should be implemented because these norms about hardcore pornographic material exist in almost all societies.
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Instead of .xxx
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Re: Re: Won't work
I have no problem with their values and opinions, but my fear is given the opportunity, those opinions would creep into laws that I don't agree with. (e.g. Blue Laws of years ago).
I don't have an answer to the problem, although it's always been in the back of my mind that it might be interesting if every website page or internet content that's being 'sent' to my computer be required to send a token/cookie first, informing my browser that I'm about to load a page that contains content that's rated G, PG, R, X, XXX etc. I could then set my browser to accept all content to a certain level. Technically I'm not sure if this would work, plus it would probably involved the formation of a standards committee, but at who's expense? Who would enforce it? What would be the penalty for not transmitting a token? How would the content be reviewed and rated...and a thousand other questions.
This is a tough one.
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so only penetration is porn?
Don't try to act like that oh so not good label of porn is so easy to black and white define.
I like the idea of the .kid extension, but something similar to that got struck down already as well.
And let's be honest here, no matter how many governmental hoops we make the adult industry or parents jump through, there will always be those who blatently disregard the law and those are the folks that we should really be going after!
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Re: Instead of .xxx
Thats a great idea and would be far easier than trying to get every porn vendor into a designated domain.
I also liked the idea of being able to give pages ratings. They should be voluntary though as the last thing we need is another bureaucratic agency slowing down the internet.
I don't really think that most porn vendors are purposely going after under-age kids. It stands to reason that if options for content rating or a special domain was created that they would use it because it makes sense.
I like this scenario better than passing new laws.
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All about money
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Never mind sites with violent content, hate speech, bomb making instructions, online predators etc. Once porn is quarantined, all that will go away!
If your solution is to clean up the internet for kids, .xxx will not work (and is as easily bypassed, if not more so, than your existing internet filters anyways). .XXX is not, nor ever was a mandatory thing. Porn companies dont have to use it. The only way it would be mandatory is if government got involved. Do you really want to hand out yet another invitation for government to get involved in your life? We could find ourselves in the situation where, you accidentally show a picture on your political blog, critical of the government and get a notice requiring you to move your website to .xxx or face the consequences because there was a nipple slip in it you didn't see. Or someone decides a picture is to racy and you dont have documentation to prove the person in the picture is 18..
If your solution is just to try and further stigmatize or ghetto-ize certain forms of free speech, then .xxx is something you should support..
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Here's the thing...
There's your problem. You cannot "force" them to use that domain exclusively.
Don't get me wrong, I think it would be a good idea... but you would end up with sites using both .xxx and .com domains, and that would not solve the problem.
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