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Too lazy to set a custom title
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 40,377
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Nice article / blog entry on .xxx
The Arguments For and Against the .XXX Domain, Summarized
http://www.thewhir.com/blogs/Liam-Ea...ain-Summarized
Quote:
We reported this week that ICANN had taken a second look at a revised proposal for the .xxx domain, submitted by the ICM registry. The domain was struck down in May of 2006 by ICANN, in a 9-5 vote that reversed an earlier endorsement by the governing body.
The ICM Registry's new proposal includes additions to the ICM Registry's efforts to protect children, ensure registrants label content clearly, prohibit spam, prevent certain religious or culturally sensitive names from being registered and donate money to child safety organizations.
The .xxx domain has been in the works for years. And in case you're just getting caught up, we happen to have paying attention from the start (In 2005, for instance, we published an interview with the VP of the ICM Registry, Jason Hendeles).
I thought perhaps I'd take a shot at summarizing the arguments for, and against, the .xxx domain - a project that has been particularly polarizing.
PRO
The arguments in favor of the .xxx domain generally have to do with its regulatory potential, or the fundamental value of compartmentalizing the Internet along the lines of the .travel or .museum domains.
Obviously, the domain would be a very effective classification for potentially offensive material. Hypothetically, adult material located on the .xxx domain would be much easier to: a) block, if you were a parent or a business owner; b) find, if that were what you were looking for; and c) avoid accidentally stumbling upon while innocently searching for something like "shirtless cowboys."
The specialized domain would, hypothetically again, enable easier regulation over the Internet's adult content, with sites hosted on .xxx domains held to certain professional standards, along the lines of the .mobi or .pro domains. Adult publishers would presumably be legitimized by virtue of their willingness to participate and submit to further regulation.
CON
Interestingly, opposition to the .xxx domain comes from people involved in the pornography business and from conservative Christian groups - two factions more typically found on opposing sides of a given argument.
The creation of an xxx domain would seem to imply a specialized area online for adult content. Of course, profitable, professionally-run adult businesses currently operating on .com domain in perfect compliance with every applicable law would not want (and, presumably, would not be expected) to give up their .com properties and move to the .xxx domain.
Despite the fact that the domain was not necessarily created to contain online pornography, adult publishers fear (and probably rightly so) that the creation of .xxx would inevitably lead to conservative legislators at least trying to legally limit adult content to that domain.
Whatever regulation the .xxx domain registry set out to impose would run into difficulty in accommodating standards of decency, ages of consent and other local variations from around the world. The other danger here is that the knee-jerk "solution" to that problem might be to impose American standards of decency on material hosted in other countries (not to mention the conflict inherent in anything that implies an American control over Internet oversight - a little ironic, considering that the US government's influence is the main reason the .xxx proposal was rejected).
The creation of the .xxx domain, the regulation it would impose, and the separation it would attempt to create would invite many difficult-to-answer questions about what kind of content can be described as "sexually explicit."
For existing adult publishers, of which there is certainly no shortage, the .xxx domain would seem to be short on tangible benefits and long on hassles. In a sense, it's just another domain to register, another property to manage, another channel in which to defend copyrights and another opportunity for cyber squatters.
The folks who object to adult material in general on ethical grounds object to the creation of a domain specifically for adult content because it lends that material a legitimacy they don't believe it should possess.
While the anti-pornography argument made up only a small slice of the overall theoretical objection to the .xxx domain, it was the overwhelming cause for the original rejection of the domain's proposal. Conservative groups like the American Family Association exerted pressure on the US government, which in turn exerted its influence over ICANN.
I'm skeptical whether the re-submitted proposal will have ultimately result in a .xxx domain. After all, the movement that saw the domain rejected in may was driven by an opposition to pornography in general, not by a rejection of the ICM Registry's specific plan for the domain's operation.
I'm also skeptical as to the value of a .xxx domain, as I generally am with sponsored top-level domains. I've never visited a Web address with a .aero extension, for instance. In fact, I couldn't name a single .aero site. But I suppose maybe the airplane business types don't want me nosing around their Web sites anyway.
The people building .xxx Web sites, though, they do want new visitors on their Web sites. It's their bread and butter. Frankly, I just don't see the domain's value.
(As with previous declarations of skepticisim, I'd like to invite anybody who feels they could offer up another pro or con to leave a comment.)
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