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Censorship The Internet United States Government Politics

Top Level .xxx Domain Concept Under Scrutiny 678

Posted by Zonk from the not-in-the-cards dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Bush administration is objecting to the creation of a .xxx domain, saying it has concerns about a virtual red-light district reserved exclusively for Internet pornography. This is despite the the .xxx domain being approved in June and New.net selling domain names using the .xxx suffix for many months before the approval." From the ZDNet article: " The sudden high-level interest in what has historically been an obscure process has placed the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in an uncomfortable position. ICANN approved the concept of an .xxx domain in June and approval of ICM Registry's contract to run the suffix was expected this week Other governments also have been applying pressure to ICANN in a last-minute bid to head off .xxx. A letter from ICANN's government advisory group sent Friday asks for a halt to 'allow time for additional governmental and public policy concerns to be expressed before reaching a final decision.'"
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Top Level .xxx Domain Concept Under Scrutiny More

Top Level .xxx Domain Concept Under Scrutiny

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  • US Constitution vs. Censorship (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bigwavejas ( 678602 ) * on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:47PM (#13333441) Journal
    Amendment I of the United States Constitution clearly states:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    I'm not justifying pornography, in fact... I find much of it is deplorable. BUT, doesn't the Constitution afford us freedom of speech/ press? It seems to me the government trying to thwart the .xxx campaign, is flirting dangerously close to being unconstitutional.

    • Or not... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sterno ( 16320 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:54PM (#13333525) Homepage
      Creating a .xxx domain would actually be potentially more risky to free speech than to prevent it. Here's the problem. If you have a .xxx domain, then it's possible to distinguish between the part of the internet that's supposed to have objectionable material and the part that isn't.

      So this would open the doorway for regulation to go after merely indecent material on non-xxx domains. They could argue in court briefs that it's not preventing them from existing. This would make it far easier for the merely indecent material to be isolated out of the mainstream Internet. Then the filters get put in place and suddenly people get a controversey free Internet.

      So for once I agree with the Bush administration but probably for the exact opposite reason.

      • Re:Or not... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by lgw ( 121541 )
        The .xxx domain sounds like a true boon to censorship. Perhaps we should be grateful for the administration for not "getting it", but if we're going to have federally-mandated censorship software, I's prefer that it only censors what it's supposed to.

        Once you have a .xxx domain, you can just block that (and attempt to outlaw porn on any other domain - which of course would never work, but lawmakers don't need to know this).

        • Re:Or not... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by shotfeel ( 235240 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:10PM (#13333737)
          OTOH, it would make it a lot easier to "censor" my kids' web browsing. Just like I don't let them watch XXX movies. Not all censorship is bad.

          I simply prefer that web sites, movies, video games be up-front and honest with what they contain and let us make the decisions for ourselves. Doing stuff like "hiding" porn in places like whitehouse.com instead of allowing it to be in whitehouse.xxx just seems wrong to me.

          I don't buy the argument that once you can identify porn, all of a sudden it will be censored by the government in a way that prevents or even hinders adults from accessing it. Its not like you can't walk into just about any convenience store and buy porn in the US. The web will be no different.

          • Re:Or not... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by lgw ( 121541 )
            I agree completely (except that it's too late). Not all censorship is bad, and if we're fated to have it even when we don't want it, at least it would be targeted. I can't understand the objection to this.

          • Re:Or not... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by damiangerous ( 218679 ) <1ndt7174ekq80001@sneakemail.com> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:17PM (#13333810)
            OTOH, it would make it a lot easier to "censor" my kids' web browsing. Just like I don't let them watch XXX movies. Not all censorship is bad.

            A porn domain won't fix that. There are a million things that aren't porn that I'm sure you don't want them to see. The only thing that will help you there is a ".kids" TLD with a central vetting authority. Of course, it would probably have to be US-only (or at least a ".us.kids", ".fr.kids", etc), as every country has their own idea about what's kid-friendly.

            • Re:Or not... (Score:4, Insightful)

              by SamSim ( 630795 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @08:03PM (#13335596) Homepage Journal
              Countries? If only it were that easy. Every PARENT has a different idea of what's appropriate for his or her kids. Different ideas for each kid, in fact, and those ideas will change as they mature. Kids-friendly domains aren't going to solve this; pre-configured censorship software isn't going to solve this. The only solution is parenting.

          • Re:Or not... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by maxpublic ( 450413 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:30PM (#13333920) Homepage
            I don't buy the argument that once you can identify porn, all of a sudden it will be censored by the government in a way that prevents or even hinders adults from accessing it.

            It won't be limited to just obvious porn. Proponents will argue that other kinds of "objectional" material are also pornographic and should be restricted to the .xxx domain. Soon you'll find nudes, art sites, fan fiction, and a host of other things being railroaded off the 'main road' of the internet by assholes pressing their own personal agenda.

            I simply prefer that web sites, movies, video games be up-front and honest with what they contain and let us make the decisions for ourselves.

            We already get to make the decisions for ourselves. The point is to not let others *make the decisions for us*. These fuckers need to shut up and mind their owned damned business for a change.

            Max

          • Re:Or not... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Pxtl ( 151020 )
            The worry is that a bunch of politically-averse ISPs are going to start dropping packets sent to/from .xxx websites the same way that they drop objectionable websites from their hostings without any review process.

            A law against kiddie-porn could easily be used to justify this "Well, Jeb says we have to block all kiddie porn access that may travel through our system. Let's just block all porno and be done with it."

            Enough soccer moms complain and the easier option becomes attractive.

          • Re:Or not... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Urchlay ( 518024 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:59PM (#13334190)
            I simply prefer that web sites, movies, video games be up-front and honest with what they contain and let us make the decisions for ourselves.

            Most "reputable" pr0n sites will have a "Only click here to enter if you are over 18" splash page. Of course, it doesn't stop little kids... but it *does* make the kids aware that they're about to do something "wrong". A lot more sites require a credit card, which effectively stops kids dead in their tracks... though enough "free samples" are given out that there's plenty to see without paying for any of it. Don't think that anyone who buys a .xxx domain is going to suddenly abandon their existing .com domain, though, and don't think any kind of meaningful censorship can ever be imposed on .com by any government at this point: China can't do it, and they're supposed to be a 1984-style authoritarian nightmare state, so how are governments of "free" countries going to be able to do it?

            Doing stuff like "hiding" porn in places like whitehouse.com instead of allowing it to be in whitehouse.xxx just seems wrong to me.

            AFAIK, whitehouse.com was originally a print magazine called "White House". If that's the case (and I'm sure someone who knows will correct me if I'm wrong, as I can't remember the details), it made perfect sense to have a site called whitehouse.com: They were called White House, and they were commercial. The site went up many years ago, when everyone on the 'net knew the difference between .com and .gov (or at least, everyone was expected to know).

            My take on the .xxx thing is that it's just a money-grab by Verisign (or whoever's pushing it): a way to sell existing businesses the same domain names they've already bought. If you own www.somepornsite.com, you do NOT want to let your competitor(s) buy up www.somepornsite.xxx; it'd be dilution of your brand.... so you're forced to pay yet again, when .xxx becomes available. 5 years later, you'll have to buy www.somepornsite.sex or whatever the "new, improved" top-level domain is by then. Verisign & co. can write their own ticket, since what they're selling costs nothing to produce, and they have a monopoly (nobody else can "invent" new TLDs). It's like printing money, except somehow it's not against the law...

      • Although I see your point, you're arguement is based on a slippery slope (likelihood of one event given another).
        • Yes, but it's a very short and not too steep slope from "Have .xxx for porn to use" to "Require porn to use .xxx" to "Require anything that offends me to use .xxx"

      • Re:Or not... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:05PM (#13333679) Homepage
        Not trying to flame, though I'm not sure why this would be considered censoring free speech. As a society, we place markers on adult shops so that minors don't enter them. We place black bars on risque magazines so that minors can't see them. Movies are labeled 'R' or 'NC17' identifying them as adult-only. We have ESRB ratings on games, V-Chip ratings on TV shows, and explicit lyric labels on CDs. Has any of this censored the adult industry or put them out of business? No, what it has done is to inform people about questionable content, so stupid parents don't accidentally plan their seven-year old son's birthday party at a strip bar. It's still illegal in the United States to sell pornography to a minor, and if I walked up to your kid on the street and showed them porn, I'd be arrested. I don't see why the same rules shouldn't apply on the Internet, especially in this age of popup teasers, porn spam, and misleading domain names. So what if the porn industry is forced to use .xxx? It's a slimeball business, and it needs to be marked just like we mark it in the real world.

        • Re:Or not... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by 10101001 10101001 ( 732688 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @05:31PM (#13334448) Journal
          As a society, we place markers on adult shops so that minors don't enter them.

          Actually, that's local zoning law, which is rather questionable on its face.

          We place black bars on risque magazines so that minors can't see them.

          Actually, risque magazines are usually kept behind the counter. So, the we is store owners who fear losing customers after a vocal threat of boycott.

          Movies are labeled 'R' or 'NC17' identifying them as adult-only.

          Most porn movies aren't labeled. Rating is a voluntary process. It's mainly the fact that most theaters choose to not carry NC17 rated films nor unrated films (again, threat of boycott) that force such films primarily to be sold as VHS/DVD.

          We have ESRB ratings on games,

          Again, voluntary. Of course with games, getting AO games is relatively hard (smaller market than movies) and M games are on the shelf by other games.

          V-Chip ratings on TV shows,

          Okay, this was forced by the government. For at least the broadcast stations there's at least a legitimate basis by which the government can support this, but I can't see how pushing it on cable/satellite is legal.

          and explicit lyric labels on CDs.

          That's a combination of (proactive) stores and record labels caving to threats of boycotts.

          The reason I mention all of these separately is to point out that in all but two cases it was voluntary, economic interests that were the root behavior modifier. If anything, to me that indicates that we don't need the government to step in and block people.

          Has any of this censored the adult industry or put them out of business? No,

          Yes. At least some adult shops have been forced to close as a result of zoning laws. Also, indirectly the unified rating system combined with the forced v-chip rating system has certainly caused some films to be censored so they are an "acceptable" rating. For the rest, the government wasn't involved, so censorship hasn't occurred. No, the industry as a whole has not been "put out of business".

          what it has done is to inform people about questionable content, so stupid parents don't accidentally plan their seven-year old son's birthday party at a strip bar.

          Nothing can overcome the stupidity of people. Besides that, I question just how many seven-year old boys really have had that happen. I certainly wouldn't stake forcing behavior on a group to try to overcome such an issue.

          It's still illegal in the United States to sell pornography to a minor, and if I walked up to your kid on the street and showed them porn, I'd be arrested.

          Yes, it's illegal to knowingly show porn to a minor in most locals. To me that's pretty crazy, given that a minor is defined as anyone under 18.

          I don't see why the same rules shouldn't apply on the Internet, especially in this age of popup teasers, porn spam, and misleading domain names.

          Actually, the same rules do apply already. There's already law that requires that US commercial pornography sites are required to have the user sign an electronic waver stating their date of birth under penalty of perjury.

          So what if the porn industry is forced to use .xxx? It's a slimeball business, and it needs to be marked just like we mark it in the real world.

          There's many problems with this. Not all places are under US law, so they do not apply. As you might have noticed above, current law about porn doesn't apply to non-commercial content. This is because commercial speech is granted less privilege than non-commercial speech. As a result, a blanket push to require all porn to be on .xxx domains in the US would be very clearly unconstitutional. Also, the internet is more than the web. What sort of chaos would occur if all p2p users who every uploaded/downloaded porn were required to get an .xxx domain? There's no way, short of 4th amendment violations, to adequately go
          • Actually, the same rules do apply already. There's already law that requires that US commercial pornography sites are required to have the user sign an electronic waver stating their date of birth under penalty of perjury.

            If they are underage, committing a crime like perjury is a lot less serious.

            And there is a question of whether lying to a website is perjury at all.

            Do I commit perjury if I tell Firefox to tell a website it is IE? Slippery slope.

      • Which is not unconstitutional at all. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@keir[ ]ad.org ['ste' in gap]> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:15PM (#13333788)

        So this would open the doorway for regulation to go after merely indecent material on non-xxx domains. They could argue in court briefs that it's not preventing them from existing. This would make it far easier for the merely indecent material to be isolated out of the mainstream Internet. Then the filters get put in place and suddenly people get a controversey free Internet.

        The constitution gives you a right to freedom of speech. It does not give your a right to have people want to hear what you have to say, nor does it give you a right to force people to listen to you.

        Forcing porn site operators to operate on a .XXX TLD would be no different from forcing them to be rated X and thus not accessable to minors. it is not unconstitutional at all so long as it is available to those looking for it ( if the government forced Google to not index .XXX for example, *that* would be crossing the line ).

    • Correct me if I'm wrong, but judging by their history over the past 20 years or so I don't see Republicans really caring about the First Amendment. They pay lip service to opposing "judicial activism", but that seems to be a euphemism for "supports church/state separation." There is a large swath of people who believe their interpretation of the Bible trumps the law, and I think this is just another effort by that group.
      • There is a large swath of people who believe their interpretation of the Bible trumps the law

        We have a name for these folks: traitors.

        The Constitution is the bible of American citizen; those whose value a religious text as law over the Constitution that affords them their freedoms always retain the right to move their sorry, pathetic, theocracy-loving asses to some other country more suited to their temperament. They DO NOT have the right to ignore the Constitution in favor of their bloody bible.

        Max
    • I'm not justifying pornography, in fact... I find much of it is deplorable. BUT, doesn't the Constitution afford us freedom of speech/ press? It seems to me the government trying to thwart the .xxx campaign, is flirting dangerously close to being unconstitutional.

      Not only that, but wouldn't it be much easier to filter pornography if the majority of it existed as .xxx sites? Most broadband routers have content filtering and it would be super easy for parents just to block access to .xxx hosted sites rather t
    • "flirting dangerously close to being unconstitutional"

      After Bush is done replacing Supreme Court Justices it won't be close at all.
    • What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with what you can say, or which pictures you can post. This is about whether or not to create a special .xxx domain. Obviously anyone can see, there is plenty of pr0n on the internet. No one thinks this will change. But does it make sense to try and force all content of a certain type into a certain domain extension? Why don't you stick to the issue?

  • I never understood the .xxx domain (Score:5, Insightful)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:48PM (#13333445) Homepage Journal
    Do they realy think that the folks that own barelylegal.com (for example) are going to relinquish their .com domains and move to .xxx? All this does is create a money making opportunity for those who register .xxx and nothing more.
    • While I don't personally support government censorship, I believe a comprimise could be made on this issue. Allow porn sites to have their .com but encourage them to have their actual content on .xxx sites making the .com simply forward to the .xxx. Thus the filters could easily filter on .xxx and the site could keep their .com
      • Thus the filters could easily filter on .xxx

        and who does the filtering? the government? your isp?

    • I think that I'll register www.MoonShine.xxx and sell stills, big glass jugs, copper tubing and straw hats. Maybe even coveralls!
    • There is measurable value in seeing a ".xxx" address and knowing instantly that it's probably porn-related. I'm sure the other sites won't be giving up their current domains, but I still view this as a positive step to bringing some meaning to domains.
    • Well, there are benefits to the .xxx domain. Forcing the sites to use .xxx domain if they contain pornography would likely fall within legal obscenity bounds. This way, those that CHOOSE to not view the content, or do not wish their kids to view it, have the ability to block a large percent of it in one fell swoop. Those that don't want to block it don't have to, but it makes it easier to decide and filter. (Of course, excluding all the euro sites that likely won't be forced to use it) *shrugs*
      • You really don't seem to understand why laws are hard to enforce on the internet. Even American sites would move their servers to Europe if need be (or have a European server to redirect from the .com domain).
    • For those that are still wondering what triple-X means, let's be specific... They are talking about pornography.
      That's all there is to understand about it. All it means is that if I randomly type in nice-tits.xxx I can be sure that the site I get will have pictures of exposed breasts and not something like nice-tits.org [nice-tits.org] a bird watching site.

    • .xxx is a flawed concept (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kherr ( 602366 ) <kevin@puppethe[ ]com ['ad.' in gap]> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:29PM (#13333910) Homepage
      The .xxx domain will never achieve the goal of segregating "pornography" from the rest of the internet. It's a level of bureaucracy that may generate more money for registrars and filtering companies, but will not stop sex-related content from "poisoning minds".

      As is pointed out elsewhere, why will .com domains be given up by porn sites for .xxx? How about hustler.com, or playboy.com? At what point is nudity considered art and not pornography? Or maybe it's both. Would a Mapplethorpe exhibit have to be under .xxx? He made a lot of art that doesn't involve penises or bondage. Does Karen Finley's work go under the .xxx domain? How about Vanessa Beecroft or Spencer Tunick?

      The failed .kids domain should show that segregating content isn't likely to succeed. Whatever guidelines or rules or enforcement is put into place will be circumvented. It's how the internet works. The bottom line is the entire DNS system can be ignored and some other name service put into place.
      • I think the .xxx goal is not to segregate porn from the Internet, but rather to make life easy for the operators of these porn sites and their customers.

        Porn site owners don't want minors looking at their content - for the reason that it costs them bandwidth and the minor probably won't sign up anyway, if nothing else. Parents don't want minors looking at porn. So, it's a benefit to everyone involved for porn operators to have eaily filterable sites.

        It also lends itself to self-regulation rather then segreg

      • Re:.xxx is a flawed concept (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gregmac ( 629064 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @05:06PM (#13334263) Homepage
        As is pointed out elsewhere, why will .com domains be given up by porn sites for .xxx? How about hustler.com, or playboy.com?

        I'm surprised no one has touched on it, but what about the .com (or anything else) sites that have nothing to do with pornography? How long do you think it will take for people to register microsoft.xxx, sco.xxx, yourcompany.xxx...

        This raises issues for the owners of non-.xxx non-pornographic sites. Do you register a .xxx, just so someone else can't? (money grab for the registrars...) What do you do when someone cybersquats on your name, in .xxx, with nasty goatse-like material? "But your honour, we used .xxx to make sure we distingushed ourselves as a pornography site." (now we're talking about company reputation, money wasted in court, time wasted by people tracking this down...)

        As far as blocking, what is more likely to happen is the people who do have .xxx blocked will complain to the site owner that it's blocked, and eventually the sites will move back over to .com and other non-blocked domains. The only way this couldn't happen would be if the government mandated that pornographic material was in .xxx, and at that point, you have the problems of trying to define pornography vs art, as you brought up.

        It's a win for the registrars, basically a tie for the porn site operators, and a lose for everyone else.

      • Re:.xxx is a flawed concept (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Maestro4k ( 707634 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @05:59PM (#13334669) Journal
        I'll agree that a .xxx domain isn't going to magically segregate adult content but the issue, as I see it, is why the US and other governments are fighting the creation of the .xxx domain. Just look at some of the logic used by groups opposing it:
        The Family Research Council, for instance, warned that "pornographers will be given even more opportunities to flood our homes, libraries and society with pornography through the .xxx domain."

        Last time I checked the Internet doesn't "flood [my] home" with ANY content. I get the content I seek out. I do occasionally get hit with a fake entry on Google that's a porn site instead of what it claimed to be when Google indexed it but a .xxx domain won't make that more common. In fact it'd make it _less_ common since you could see the URL in question was at a .xxx domain and therefore unlikely to have the info you were seeking (unless it was porn but then it'd be a valid search response anyway). Another Gem:

        "The Department of Commerce has received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails from individuals expressing concern about the impact of pornography on families and children," Gallagher said in a letter that was made public on Monday.

        ...

        "The volume of correspondence opposed to creation of a .xxx (domain) is unprecedented," according to the Commerce Department's Gallagher.

        According to the US Census Bureau's Population Clock [census.gov] there are currently 296,908,022 people in the US. Out of those 6000 wrote the Commerce Department to complain about the .xxx domain. That's around .003% of the population. If that's unprecedented then American's apathy about political issues is far worse than any of us thought! Brazil has a bit stronger argument:

        At a recent United Nations summit on the Internet, Brazil's representative charged that ICANN was not responsive enough to the needs of developing countries: "For those that are still wondering what triple-X means, let's be specific, Mr. Chairman. They are talking about pornography. These are things that go very deep in our values in many of our countries. In my country, Brazil, we are very worried about this kind of decision-making process where they simply decide upon creating such new top-level generic domain names."

        While I'm sure different countries view pornography from different value standpoints, I fail to see why creating a top level domain for adult sites is a major problem. It's not like having a .xxx domain will suddenly open the floodgates of hell and every man, woman and child will be deluged with vast amounts of pornography. All it means is there's a different top level domain that adult sites can use (and I believe are encouraged to use, but I haven't checked). The porn sites will exist whether the .xxx TLD is created or not! And the final lunacy:

        ICANN's vote this year represents an abrupt turnabout from the group's earlier stance. In November 2000, the ICANN staff objected to the .xxx domain and rejected ICM Registry's first application.

        At the time, politicians lambasted ICANN's move. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., demanded to know why ICANN didn't approve .xxx "as a means of protecting our kids from the awful, awful filth, which is sometimes widespread on the Internet." Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., told a federal commission that .xxx was necessary to force adult Webmasters to "abide by the same standard as the proprietor of an X-rated movie theater."

        So 5 years ago the fact that ICANN didn't approve a .xxx TLD was a catastrophy but now that they HAVE approved it, it's also a catastrophy. Even for politics that's one hell of a flip-flop.

  • ICANN, do something correct for once! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:48PM (#13333448)
    "The Department of Commerce has received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails from individuals expressing concern about the impact of pornography on families and children," Gallagher said in a letter that was made public on Monday.

    People who are petitioning the government: Learn to use your computer and block out connections to .xxx (as well as the numerous other porn sites and link listing services such as sublimedirectory, elephantlist, and thehun). If you don't want to do that yourself, pay a third party to do it, but *do not* and I mean *do not* ask the government to do it for you because you are too lazy to keep an eye on your children's Internet viewing. The rest of us do not give a shit about your desire to not pay attention to those in your family but we do care when you step into *our* personal space.

    I realize that the current administration (and quite a few other politicians outside of the White House walls) want to have everyone come crying to them to "think of the children" but we need to remember *real* freedom first - not the created/imagined freedom the Bush Administration and fellow politicians have decided exists in 2005. This type of behavior in response to a few letters? No thanks.

    We are talking about 6000 letters. There are what, ~270 million people in the USA? Sorry but ~6000 letters doesn't give equal footing for their voice, regardless of whether or not it "looks good" politically or it fits the Administration's religious agenda. I realize that "morality" is a huge buzzword in America these days but I should be able to do, see, and view whatever the fuck I want regardless of whether or not children could view the material. The Government should be representing more than just a tiny portion of the population. Just because the pro-porno people aren't stepping up to the bat (for obvious reasons) doesn't mean that their silent voice should be ignored. I'll be more likely to understand when you get something like 80 million letters.

    If anything, I would think that the current administration would be thrilled with the prospect of having all the porno in one location. It's easier to track the "undesirables" and ban freedom and artistic expression. At least, much easier than the current setup allows.

    ICANN, you fuck up enough, ignore these pointless requests from the Nation of the "Free" and go about your business properly.

    • Re:ICANN, do something correct for once! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:01PM (#13333621) Journal
      Sadly, this sort of brain damage is no longer limited to the Republicans, with the likes of Hillary Clinton demanding censorship of video games (for example). There used to be a choice between "stay out of my bedroom" and "stay out of my wallet". Now we have *two* big-spending, pro-censorship parties!

      I'm also surprised the administration can't see the benefit of corraling all the porn into one TLD (shhhhh, really, it will work, shhhhhh).

  • Who's surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Verteiron ( 224042 ) * on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:48PM (#13333453) Homepage
    The USA has maintained a "take our ball and go home" attitude on other international issues, and there's no reason to expect anything different here. After all, the US Commerce Department maintains that it reserves final policy control over the authoritative root server. ICANN simply cannot do its job as long as the USA controls (or claims to control) the DNS.
    • ICANN simply cannot do its job as long as the USA controls (or claims to control) the DNS.

      s/ as.*$/./

      Don't get me started on the UN.
    • If the US went far enough, the root DNS servers could be moved elsewhere (there are some outside the US right now anyway, and there have been alt roots [wikipedia.org] in the past). It would require a lot of rewiring to say the least, but the US wouldn't be able to (permanently) shut off the internet, so to speak, even if they wanted to. The unfortunate thing is that the people (and controlling companies) decide how far the US government can go, and are giving them more and more control as time goes on.

  • I got a TLD for them... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pin_gween ( 870994 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:48PM (#13333455)
    Think they'd object to ".cum" for all porn sites?

    • Re:I got a TLD for them... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:28PM (#13333901) Homepage
      Nah, that'll never work. You'd just have a quick .cum boom and a bust.

      Personally, I'd think they'd have far more success with this idea of tying up all of the porn into one gTLD if they had proposed a ".bush" gTLD and then perverted it... That way we'd really have the problem licked; all of the pron and endless Pro/Anti NeoCon rhetoric caged into one easily filterable place should anyone choose to do so.

      Not that I think the idea is ever really going to work even if it does get approved though.

  • Frustration (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DevanJedi ( 892762 )
    The frustrating part of this move is not that the feds object to this- that's fine, they can make recommendations all they want. The key issue is the timing- after a 5+ year process, they chose to raise their concerns in the final weeks?
  • they legally forced anyone w/ a porn site to move to an xxx domain, and thus freeing up the rest of the domains for non-porn stuff. Legally force sites to do this. This way parents can block their kids from visiting anything with a .xxx extension. And companies can block their employees from watching porn while at work :D.
    • I'm running a p0rn shop in North Elbonia. My government and my approved domain registrar which coincidently is run by the North Elbonian Dictator's great-nephew don't care if I use .com.

      What's the USA going to do, cut off all domains registered by my registrar, or worse, start a war?
    • I like the idea of an xxx domain.

      I appreciate the simplicity of blocking .xxx in one fell swoop. I know it will be pointless and easily circumvented, but most of the sheeple will be blocked and they'll be too stupid or too lazy to bother getting around it.

      But freeing up domains?

      What the hell ELSE are they going to use www.bigjuicyknockers.com for? Why do we need domains like that freed up?

      I'm not seeing a justification there.
    • That would require a governing body to officially distinguish between porn and art. Internationally. A U.S. law forcing porn .coms to move to .xxx would obviously only affect a small portion of porn sites.
  • The US government should stay the hell out of the way; the whole POINT of a .xxx domain is that it would (in theory) differentiate pornographic content from the rest of the web so it would be easy to identify AND block! The idea that it would create an "online red-light district" is absurd: people wouldn't be able to just type in ".xxx" and get access to all the pornography they wanted (though if they wanted that, all they need to do is turn off SafeSearch in Google [google.ca] or use a file sharing application [slsknet.org]).

    Don't they have better things to focus on? (/me avoids the obvious flamebait by not mentioning liberation ;^)

  • Ironic... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:49PM (#13333461)
    How can a group called the "Bush administration" object to .XXX domains?

  • Oh please... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 )
    On one hand, Bush is spending millions of dollars (and thousands of soldier lives) in Iraq just to get the oil. On the other hand, he plays the holy man trying to ban internet pornography.

    Oh boy, I'm already wishing to for 2008 to arrive...
    • Actually, he's spending BILLIONS of dollars, not millions.

      As for the concerns of the politicans, they're completely absurd.

      Porn has always been the only consistently profitiable enterprise on the internet. Those concerned that the .xxx domain is going to create a varitable red light district miss the fact the whole internet is a practically a red light district...

  • What's the Problem? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by th1ckasabr1ck ( 752151 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:50PM (#13333477)
    Even after reading the article I have absolutely no idea why they are objecting to this - It makes no sense at all to me. What's the problem here?
    • I suspect they are objecting because they don't think that porn should have ANY visibility or distribution. Period. Creating a .xxx domain is just hiding it. They'd prefer it wasn't even there to begin with, so they figure that this domain acts as some kind of silent endorsement. They think this because they are extremists who try very hard to legislate morality as opposed to dealing with reality.
  • You know when you're getting too close to a presidential election when...

    17+ rated games and .xxx domains are bleeding-edge, it shows you're hip and knowledgable to be involved, right?

    Learn to swim, or stay out of the water. Thrashing around on TV just makes you look silly.

  • Yeah, no .xxx = no pornography (Score:4, Insightful)

    by revscat ( 35618 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:51PM (#13333485) Journal

    More insightful policymaking from the Bush administration. I know I'm going to get modded down for this, but what exactly is the point of social conservatives objecting to this? It seems if anything this would be in the social conservative's best interest, because by delegating porn to a particular TLD you can more easily shut it down.

    Yes, it's unlikely to ever occur. The prominence of .com porn sites will probably never go away. But if your goal is to rid the world of pornography, or at the very least reduce it, wouldn't you want to at least move in the direction of having it all in a centralized, easily controllable place?

    • Re:Yeah, no .xxx = no pornography (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GlassHeart ( 579618 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:20PM (#13333830) Journal
      what exactly is the point of social conservatives objecting to this?

      Think of it as analogous to legal prostitution. Nearly everybody knows that prostitution cannot be entirely eradicated (especially when they exist in the form of marrying for money). Some people respond to that by allowing prostitution, and regulating it to various degrees. Others would rather prostitution exist in the shadows for fear of legitimizing it.

      Their objective, if I may venture a guess, is to eradicate pornography, not merely to control it. That's why a .xxx TLD does nothing for them and might even make it look like they approve of it implicitly. Look, we're talking about people who consider abstinence the only way to control third world overpopulation, teenage sex, and sexually-transmitted diseases.

      • Re:Yeah, no .xxx = no pornography (Score:5, Insightful)

        by maxpublic ( 450413 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @05:11PM (#13334303) Homepage
        Their objective, if I may venture a guess, is to eradicate pornography, not merely to control it.

        I think this is actually a side-effect, not the goal. There goal is to impose themselves on their neighbors, either by preventing said neighbor from doing something the neighbor wants to do, or by forcing the neighbor to do something they don't want to do. For most people the only true measure of power is using it to inconvenience others in large or small ways.

        Internet porn is the hot topic for some. If they score here they manage to prove to themselves and others that they really are more important than the average prole, and that they're capable of making at least some small segment of the population miserable. That's real power, however watered down it might be. Petty and vicious to be sure, but still power.

        But power is like any other drug, and eventually the high wears off. These same folks will then have to find a new 'cause' to champion, something that'll allow them to shit on yet another segment of the population. And if they win there they'll soon move on to cause #3, and #4, and so on.

        Porn isn't the issue. The thrill of screwing with other people at the point of a government gun is the real motivation. These people do not go away, and are never more than temporarily satisfied.

        Max
  • The Bush administration is objecting to the creation of a .xxx domain, saying it has concerns about a virtual red-light district reserved exclusively for Internet pornography.

    Easy solution: make half the sites for children, no more exclusivity for porn. Hello, that is the fucking (no pun intended) point of .xxx.

  • Don't mention that TLD (Score:3, Informative)

    by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:53PM (#13333507)
    The Register [theregister.co.uk] is reporting that the letter to the ICANN board of directors couldn't include the phrase "xxx" for fear of it not getting past e-mail spam filters.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • .XXX would be EASY to block! (Score:3, Funny)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:53PM (#13333517) Homepage
    My god! Don't you see the irony here? Internet porn will always be there. But if we were able to have all porn sites go under *.xxx then they'd be easier to block. I see this thing as a major convenience for everyone. I say let .XXX happen and then we can start blocking when we want to not see it... or is it just better to have this stuff in our faces "accidentally" all the time?
  • Undoubtedly this whole letter-writing scheme was orchestrated by one of those fund-raising, bible-thumping, "defend the family" organizations who really don't care about the sense of what folks were trying to achieve: segregate porn.

    *mumbles*

    But I bet they raised a lot of money in the Red States...
  • ...that the Internet was already largely a virtual red light district.

    I'm not sure what the big deal is yet, I don't think .xxx would necessarily make the 'net seedier, nor do I think it would help "clean" it up for those that don't want to see it.
  • The whole idea is retarded anyway. The fewer TLDs the better for everyone.
  • There is porn on the Internet. Why try to hide it?
    This just helps better differenciate it from everything else, so hopefully one day you don't type in something like whitehouse.COM and get some porn site, because to get a porn site you'd have to put in the .XXX!

    All sites won't switch right away and some will lose their name before they can switch, but hopefully EVENTUALLY all the porn sites will switch over and everyone will be happy.
    People who like porn can throw in the .xxx and know they are getting

  • Well, duh. They can't morally support a .xxx TLD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) * on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @03:59PM (#13333592)
    I won't bother discussing how stupid yet another batch of useless TLDs is - much less one specifically for "adult" content (whatever THAT is).

    However, it's damned obvious that the reason they don't support the .XXX TLD is because it would be condoning something that the moral majority (the guys who would like Bush to have a third term) finds reprehensible.

    If you oppose pornography and adult content, you can't very well go and support having a special area for it. These people don't care about the constitution or freedom of expression or speech or allowing adults to do what they wish. They don't want this material, PERIOD. It's the same reason they oppose medical marijuana. Not because it may not have medical benefits. Not because it can't be used responsibly. Not because it's seriously harmful or will destroy the fabric of marriage between a man and a woman yadda yadda yadda. Simply because it's "not right" and you can't support such things AT ALL or your constituency will eat you alive.

    It would be a lot like the Bush administration saying "prostitution is horrid and evil and wrong and .... we're going to support setting up districts in every city where it can be done legally by adults".

    So I have to say, I'm stuck on this one. Yet another stupid TLD is retarded. Squeezing all adult content into one place is retarded (by the way, because one or two pages of my site might have adult content, does that mean my friends and family can't access my site AT ALL from work or a hotel or a library?). On the other hand, the reason Bush opposes it is retarded, too. In this case, both "enemies" are enemies of my enemy. Heh.

  • With or without .xxx (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kickabear ( 173514 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:01PM (#13333624) Homepage
    Internet porn is here to stay. Every technological advance ever made by mankind has been used to facilitate the spread of sexual thought. The telephone, mobile phone, ascii art, copy machine, Bluetooth, two-way pager, fax machine, pen and paper, stone tablet, gun, knife, club, airplane, automobile, cart, domestication of the horse, television, VCR, home video camera, IM, DVD player, the computer, and finally the Internet have all been used to disseminate (pardon the pun) sexual thoughts, facilitate the personal connections necessary for sexual intercourse, or make one potential mate more attractive than the others.

    It doesn't matter what the rules are, or what the government says. Everything people do, in one way or another relates back to reproduction. It's in our genes at the most basic level. We're going to have sex no matter what. We are programmed to seek sexual pleasure in whatever form is available. We'd all prefer to have that pleasure be shared with a warm-bodied partner, but we will also seek the pleasure alone, or through the stimulation of one or more of our senses.

    How many activities do we engage in which use all five of our senses? There are two of them. Eating and fucking. But if we have a head-cold and can't taste or smell food, we will still eat based on sight, sounds, and texture. If we can't touch the object of our sexual interest, we still become stimulated by the sight or sound of that person. Porn is just a variation on a theme. And it's going to remain popular until something better (like the Holo-deck) comes along and steals porn's thunder the way VHS porn did to printed porn.

    Now get that banana out of your ear, and get back to work.

  • I Hate To Admit It (Score:5, Funny)

    by Paul Slocum ( 598127 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:04PM (#13333659) Homepage Journal
    But I already found some porn on the internet, even though they haven't added the xxx domain yet. weird.

  • Morons (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Viking Coder ( 102287 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:44PM (#13334049)
    So, we have to have "Parental Advisory - Explicit Lyrics" on CDs, and an MPAA which assigns ratings to movies, and basically the same thing for games - and TV shows! But having a label which everyone can recognize (and gravitate towards or away from as they chose!) is a bad thing?

    I don't know if Constitutionally it makes sense, and I guess I don't know for sure if using .xxx would be a way of labeling yourself as "please, Congress make a law forbidding my business," but from a provider-consumer/avoider basis, this sounds almost ideal to me. It's when government interferes that things go sour, I guess. (For the record: I vote liberal/Democrat.)

    I mean, the internet is already chock full of graphic porn - wouldn't putting it together in one place (from a TLD point of view) be better than having it all over? For everyone?

    I mean, this is kind of like clear labeling on foods of the amount of Sodium, Calories, etc... Isn't it?

  • Stupid, but probably for the best (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tgibbs ( 83782 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:52PM (#13334128)
    Obviously, whether or not there is an .xxx domain will have no impact on the availability of porn on the internet. The Bush administration is evidently worried that by allowing this, they will look like they are somehow countenancing porn.

    If it had worked, the .xxx domain would have made it easier to protect kids from accidentally stumbling over porn (of course, nothing is going to stop kids from intentionally searching out porn).

    But it wouldn't have worked.

    If porn venders moved into .xxx, then there would be an immediate demand for libraries and the like to block all .xxx sites, followed by pressure on ISP's to do the same. Porn vendors would move back to .com to avoid the filters. Then there would be pressure to create laws to force them to use .xxx, which would of course fail because porn vendors would simply use international ISPs. Ultimately, we'd have a lot of bother, a lot of unnecessary regulations, and we'd be back to exactly where we are today.

  • Let Him Object (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thelizman ( 304517 ) <hammerattack@ya h o o . c om> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @04:53PM (#13334137) Homepage
    He can object all he wants. Who cares? He can't stop it. Some conservatives have made the assertion that a .XXX domain would just expand the number of x-rated websites out there. True. But, with people registering .xxx, all I have to do to protect my kid from casual browsing is to replace *.xxx with the ip address for something more wholesome, like the pleasant and uplifting sites of the Mainstream Media. That's alot easier than creatively filtering any domain with words that might be sexual in them.

  • US control of the DNS servers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by merdark ( 550117 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @05:06PM (#13334260)
    I seem to remember an article about the US not relenquishing control of the root DNS servers to an international body of some sort.

    I seem to remember a large number of US citizens saying things like, "the US has never abused it's power (over domain names)", "the US would not impose its views on other countries by interferring with the domain names", and so on.

    Some of us who posted that we didn't want the US to have controll over the domain names because we didn't trust the US administration got flamed to a crisp.

    Well. This is exactly the kind of tampering that we didn't want. Top level domains should be controlled by an international group that does not let one country impose its views on the rest. I hope people now see why some of us want this.

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