.xxx registry sues US government

An anonymous reader writes in to say that "ICM Registry LLC, the company behind the proposed .xxx internet porn domain, is to sue two departments of the US government for access to documents it claims show the US pressured ICANN into rejecting the domain. The Florida-based startup will sue the Department of Commerce and the Department of State to get them to release documents that they redacted when they responded to a Freedom Of Information Act request that ICM filed last year."

WTF? Redacted?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the government was only allowed to redact documents obtained under the FOIA to preserve national security. Since when does letting people have a naughty domain name threaten national security?

FFS, kick the knee-jerking puritans out of office already.

Why?! This .xxx registry is a big blockage.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Secondly, if .xxx sites get registered it'll make it even EASIER for kids to find porn now. "

It ALSO makes it easier to block. No more wack-a-mole with porn sites.*

Unless that your kind of thing. Nothing wrong with that.

Re:WTF? Redacted?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's the mentality of these people. Never tell the truth, or at least the whole truth, even if doing so would be the simplest course. Refuse to release information, withhold vital pieces of information, mislead, or outright lie -- but never just tell people what's going on. Honestly, I think there are an awful lot of people in government who do it, basically, for the little-kid thrill of saying "I know something you do-on't, nyaah nyaah!" It's an attitude which I saw way too much of in the military, and one which, in the *cough* post-9/11 era, has pretty much taken over every level of government from the White House to your local city council.

Re:Why?! This .xxx registry is a big waste of spac

[MidnightBrewer]

It couldn't be much easier than it is now; you hardly need a .xxx domain to find porn. Theoretically, it would make it easier to keep kids out because you simply tell your web browser to block everything ending in .xxx, thus segregating those sites. There are much better reasons why the .xxx domain is a bad idea. For one, there's nothing forcing the porn industry into investing in the registry, and nothing forcing them to drop their current domains. It'd be little more than a financial nuisance for those companies who felt it necessary to register their names in both. There is no clear-cut, determining factor as to what is porn and what isn't, which also makes the registry kind of useless.

Re:Why?! This .xxx registry is a big waste of spac

[Tatsh]

I'm not concerned so much about that (I would search porn all the time when I was under 18). But I think plenty of parents would agree to .xxx be approved and strict regulations that EVERY porn site gets put on that domain. It's easier to block this way. If they know anything about computers, *.xxx would work fine as a filter on any server or software (even Adblock on Firefox could do this). Any "easy-to-use" "dumbass" filter software could just have a tickbox saying "Block adult sites" meaning to apply *.xxx to the filter list. AOL would of course do this.

The issue I think is that so many sites on .com's and such would have to be moved if they are actually porn sites. It brings in more government regulation on pornography which is something obviously they don't want. I don't think any customers would like this either. So many sites shut down after 2257 was revised, and this just adds on to that.

From the start-your-moaning dept.

[19thNervousBreakdown]

I'm not really sure how to take that tagline...

Anyway, why shouldn't there be a xxx domain? Not mandatory, but if a particular site wants to say right up front, "Hey, I'm porn," what's wrong with that? Maybe it seems a little much to give a whole domain to a single topic, but if you don't want to accidentally see porn it gives you a decent way to greatly reduce the amount you see, and it's one of those universal things in our (and by our I mean the whole world's) society, there's some people that want to see porn and some that don't, and at most a very very small percentage that don't care one way or the other. Give the way TLDs are used these days it seems a hell of a lot more useful than any of the others beside .gov and .edu. Doesn't hurt anyone either, anyone that wants to find porn can find it in as long as it takes to type "porn [google.com]" in the Google search box.

Don't get me wrong, it's not a "strong" in the computer science meaning of the word filter, but it's decent and it helps out people on both sides of the fence. I don't see why this is being fought. Is disallowing this TLD going to stop porn on the Internet? Am I missing something here?

Re:WTF? Redacted?

[shutdown -p now]

Don't ask me why it was top secret, or even restricted; our government has gotten the habit of classifying anything as secret which the all-wise statesmen and bureaucrats decide we are not big enough girls and boys to know, a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear policy. I've read that there used to be a time when a taxpayer could demand the facts on anything and get them. I don't know; it sounds Utopian.

- Robert A. Heinlein, The Puppet Masters (1951)

Re:Why?! This .xxx registry is a big waste of spac

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh.

You just don't get it. Pron is not difficult to find now. What's a lot more difficult (relatively) is filtering it out. If you take all of the existing pron sites and force them to move to .xxx domain, then all you need is one simple rule and your job is done. No constant updating of filters, nothing slipping through the cracks - you're done. That's it - that's all.

I wonder what would happen if..

[Plunky]

I wonder what would happen if this company ICM just went out and bought some bandwidth (guess they already got some of that), and set up a DNS server that would handle requests from the .xxx domain, and started selling subdomains of it to people who wanted name resolutions there. Although ICANN are 'the domain authority' they have refused to handle this TLD so surely its up for grabs? ICM could advertise their services and its up to the DNS admins of all the DNS servers around the world if they want to add it as an authoritative server, surely? If some porn sites decide to get on board and offer free porn to all comers (heh) then the end customer demand might be high enough that ISPs the world over add it. I freely admit, I am no DNS admin and I dont know how it works.

Re:WTF? Redacted?

[Hercules Peanut]

It's an attitude which I saw way too much of in the military, and one which, in the *cough* post-9/11 era, has pretty much taken over every level of government from the White House to your local city council.

I tend to agree and hope the rest of the /. community (and America realizes) what I have come to sincerely believe. This isn't a Bush thing, it isn't a Republican thing, it's a government thing and we, the people, are losing control. I'm not really sure how to get it back but my approach right now is to vote against any incumbent regardless of party to make a statement that this is unacceptable.

So, who will our third party candidate be this year?

Re:The fundamentalists fear it will encourage porn

[Thing 1]

They don't want condom use being taught in school because it will increase teenage sexual activity. They don't want female nipples seen on television because it will encourge children to have sex. They don't want an XXX domain because it will make it easier for children to find porn, which will irreperably damage them somehow.

In addition, they don't want [go.com] a new vaccine that prevents early stage cervical cancer and cancer lesions caused by HPV infection, because this may encourage teenagers to be more sexually promiscuous.

To restate: they would rather watch teenagers die a horrible death through cancer, than allow teens to bump and grind a little.