Aus. Government pushing against .XXX

[NewbieNudes]

Coonan moves to block adult internet domain
By Phillip Hudson
April 15, 2006

THE Australian Federal Government is trying to stop the adult internet domain .xxx being created, saying it will increase the availability of pornography and do nothing to protect children from offensive material.

The Minister for Communications, Helen Coonan, has written to the international internet domain name body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, raising what she said were "serious concerns" about the proposal.

"The Australian Government would be concerned by the creation of an internet domain specifically for material which is largely illegal under Australian online content laws," Senator Coonan said.

"This Government takes a strong stand on internet pornography and we would not support any measure which could lead to an increase in offensive content on the internet."

A private company in Florida has applied to set up the .xxx internet address.

Those supporting the proposal argue the address would make it easier for parents to block adult sites, could restrict adult material to one domain, and say proceeds from selling addresses could be used for child protection measures and filters.

Senator Coonan said those promises were "vague and ill-defined" and it was difficult to imagine that all adult websites would voluntarily quarantine themselves to a new domain.

The Herald understands there are also concerns in government ranks that the new address could become a money-making scheme since it would force prominent people to buy the rights to their own name to stop it being used as an adult web site, such as johnhoward.xxx.

Senator Coonan has asked the internet corporation to delay its decision on the domain's future "until it has provided better evidence of its purported benefits".

"I am yet to be convinced that there are any real benefits from the creation of this domain that would outweigh the risk of legitimising this offensive material," she said.

Officials from the Department of Communications and Information Technology raised Australia's concern with the internet corporation at a recent meeting in New Zealand and Senator Coonan will pursue her objections at a meeting of IT officials at an international IT congress in Austin, Texas, next month.

The adult industry lobby group the Eros Foundation said it agreed with Senator Coonan. "We don't support it either," an Eros spokeswoman, Fiona Patten, said. "We can see no benefit for the adult industry, no benefit to anyone except the private company that has applied for the registry for that domain."

"Moving legitimate operators to .xxx is not going to stop child pornography or children accessing material. Controlling the computer at the terminal is the best place to do it with a filter or parental control."

The Liberal senator Guy Barnett, who is behind a trial in Tasmania of a statewide internet filter to protect children from adult content, said he opposed the .xxx idea.

"It's only encouraging special attention and interest in the pornographic industry."

Senator Barnett rejected as naive the idea that adult internet sites would give up .com or other domains to switch to .xxx.

The managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, said he opposed the .xxx domain.


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That's the most postive thing I have seen from the AU govt for a while relating to porn!

[Scotty.T]

Governmental opposition. Nice. She has a lot of very valid points in there that everyone here has said already.

[DaddyHalbucks]

Dumb fucks!

LOL.

[polish_aristocrat]

good news

[NewbieNudes]

Originally Posted by DaddyHalbucks

Dumb fucks!

LOL.

I take it that;

A) You're not in porn

or

B) You didn't read the article

[The Demon]

Now if they only do that in America.

[Jamie]

Like I've heard before, if they want to protect children they should just setup .KID

[d00t]

Originally Posted by NewbieNudes

That's the most postive thing I have seen from the AU govt for a while relating to porn!

AGREED78