NKYKev

I sent in the following letter opposing the establishment of the .XXX TLD. They may not publish it, but I wanted to at least state my thoughts on the subject.


When the arguments in favor of the .XXX domain are closely examined, it seems to me that none of them are very persuasive. Moreover, when the other actions being taken by the U.S. Government are taken into account, it is clear that this initiative is nothing more than yet another attempt by them to regulate out of existence what the Constitution and Supreme Court (we hope) will not let them directly abolish.

How, exactly, is the .XXX domain going to keep children from accessing adult sites? In order to let adults access these sites, while barring children, some type of mechanism will have to exist to limit access to these sites. The answer we keep hearing is that filtering technology will be used - yet, the U.S. Justice Department is currently arguing, in the Child Online Protection Act case, that filtering technologies are inadequate and that credit card walls have to be established to protect children from accessing adult content. The credit card companies clearly state that their cards are not to be used for adult verification purposes, thus causing sites that use such a mechanism to risk losing their ability to process cards - which would effectively put them out of business. Furthermore, this solution would only apply to U.S. based sites, thereby not really diminishing the ability of children to access adult content at all - and what about free sites; how do they comply with the law - they either have to charge, or be shut down. There is much irony in the DOJ's position regarding searches for pornography. If that many people are trying to gain access to such content, is it not a "community standard," which is a defense under the obscenity laws?

But that is not the main issue here. It is only being pointed out to show that the U.S. Government's sole intention is to shut down adult sites, not regulate them nor come up with an effective way to protect children. Many adult webmasters have used the Internet Content Ratings Association ratings system, as well as other child protection technologies, to prevent children from accessing their content. In its new operating system, Microsoft is promising vastly improved parental controls and filtering technologies. If the browsers and search engine companies worked together with ICRA and other groups to improve detection and filtering, a solution for all children could be possible. But the DOJ is not interested in any solution that does not allow them an avenue to shut down sites; they want mandatory FTC labeling for adult sites - ah, yet another list they can use to prosecute and shut people down by using. Imagine my surprise; labeling doesn't work with ICRA, but will through the FTC? Does anyone doubt the real reason for this is so the FTC, one of the most draconian agencies of the federal government, can pass crushing regulations on how adult sites can advertise?

How, exactly, is protecting children possible with the "voluntary" .XXX top level domain (TLD)? Children will know, by typing a a name and .XXX, an adult site would appear - and searching for porn would be much easier unless - oh, yeah, filters are used. Not to mention, the ink will not even be dry on the establishing documents before the U.S. Congress will be trying to pass laws making it mandatory, adding all kinds of new restrictions and conditions, such as explicitly allowing any ISP to totally filter out .XXX traffic, with no penalties, or charging money to be able to access the .XXX domain. And once again, all these restrictions would only be on U.S. based sites - unless this truly is a mandatory thing for every country and every TLD.

Now, just for a moment, consider this - who gets to own the site sex.xxx? The owner of sex.com - sex.net - sex.co.uk - sex.de - just on and on. Some names are probably found in several TLDs - and only one gets the .XXX version? Besides making a ton of lawyers very wealthy, and a lot of webmasters much poorer, who, besides the .XXX domain registry company, which will be selling these domains at about $60 a pop, apparently (to start), and registrars who got paid for domains that might be seized away from their owners, benefits from all this? The situation is even worse if people have to give up their TLDs - or, if its just some TLDs that are affected. If sex.com and sex.net are abolished, but sex.de gets to stay, how fair is this? And, oh yeah - who, exactly, gets to determine what has to be behind the .XXX wall? Does the Netherlands, with its liberal society, have to follow the same rules as say Saudi Arabia, with its much more conservative view of sexual matters, on what has to be placed behind the .XXX wall?

The war being waged by the U.S Government on adult sites is being waged on several fronts - the COPA, the CDA (Communications Decency Act), 18 U.S.C. 2257, FTC labels, and abandoning Internet neutrality to allow the throttling and blocking of web sites and TLDs, a measure currently well on its way through Congress. Does anyone doubt that the .XXX domain would be the first one to be blocked, once this becomes legal? Does anyone else see the convenience in the timing of these two measures - net neutrality being abolished and the establishment of the .XXX TLD - both happening at almost the same time?

As discussed earlier, every so-called benefit of .XXX is already possible, should the ICRA labels be used as a guide by the technology companies, as the V-chip does now in televisions. But the DOJ is not interested in protecting children; their real goal is to stamp out the existence of the adult industry completely. No matter what ANY adult webmaster does - label with ICRA, put all material behind a credit card wall - the DOJ will still consider the content to be obscene and potentially prosecute it. .XXX is just another tool to help them in that task, and should not be accepted by ICANN.