Two Porn Companies Take ICANN and .xxx Registrar To Court
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SharkLaser writes "Two of the largest porn companies on the internet, Manwin and Digital Playground, yesterday sued both ICANN and ICM Registry, which runs the .xxx TLD, over extorting defensive registrations with ICANN's blessing. 'The complaint focuses on ICM's recently concluded "sunrise" period, during which porn companies, for about $200, could apply to own a .xxx address matching their trademark or .com domain.' Schools also felt the same way, and had to reserve domains under their name so that no porn content could be put up on them. The .xxx TLD has also previously been subject to criticism by both religious groups and adult industry, but for different reasons. Religious groups believe the .xxx TLD legitimizes pornography, while the adult industry believes it could lead to censorship."
Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Although the only real solution is to replace the TLD system altogether.
just another form of censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Religious groups (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Religious groups (Score:5, Interesting)
Using a .xxx TLD makes it that much easier to identify and filter porn
You would have for that to force all porn to use an .xxx domain, which is impossible, be it only because nobody's able to define porn precisely.
Basically this "black-list" approach is ridiculous, unenforceable and ineffective, and was simply devised from the start as a rip-off. To achieve the goal that you're proposing, the simple solution was to standardize a white-list approach, where sites that don't contain porn would advertise this fact using a HTTP header for instance. Then any site breaking the rule could be quickly and effectively reported and prosecuted.
For Fear Of Godwinning... (Score:5, Interesting)
Porn will exist on the internet whether you want it to or not. Using a .xxx TLD makes it that much easier to identify and filter porn if you don't want to see it.
Jewish owned sites will exist on the internet whether you want them to or not. Using a .jew TLD makes it that much easier to identify and filter Jewish sites if you don't want to see them.
Jewish owned businesses will exist in Germany whether you want them to or not. Using a Star of David badge makes it that much easier to identify and filter Jewish businesses if you don't want to use them.
Jewish people will exist in Germany whether you want them to or not. Using a Star of David badge makes it that much easier to identify and filter Jewish people if you don't want to associate with them.
That chain of thought started out as seeming pretty damn reasonable in an era when, not just Germany but the US, the UK, France, Russia, you name it, all regarded Jewish people, particularly Jewish businesses, with suspicion. Why shouldn't people have the right to choose where to do business and avoid those they find morally offensive? It's just a badge, right? How badly could it get misused?
In any environment, singling out a group you regard as morally inferior, forcing them to wear badges is generally a slippery slope.
Mix in the US government's current belief that it has the right to censor websites not just within the US but globally is their registrar is US based. Now what happens when a good [religion of your choice] president gets voted in and, pandering to his voter base, promised to disable .xxx. Now you've not only handed users the ability to easily filter their own content, you've handed politicians from a single nation the ability to globally switch off porn because they feel it's "bad."
How would America's gun lobby react if we ghettoized all gun related websites to .gun or .violence? How would our moral minority respond if we pushed all religious sites over to .religion? Of course, this being the US these days, .muslim would probably be plenty. How would the politicians supporting .xxx respond if all of their campaigning was forced to .politics and a flick of a browser switch could hide their campaigns from people? A lot more people are killed in the name of guns or of religion or of politics, a lot more lives ruined, than porn achieves. Yet the same people who support .xxx would freak over their interests being treated the same way.
Re:Religious groups (Score:5, Interesting)
Using a .xxx TLD makes it that much easier to identify and filter porn if you don't want to see it.
RFC 3675 [ietf.org] disagrees with you.
Re:just another form of censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
I would ahve no problem if theior was an agancy that dictated those guidline and sites ahd to put them in a searchable area of the web page.
So you would have g/pg/pg13/nc17/ 18+/ No Rating
Seriously, Give me a tool to filter out unwanted site reliable.
That is the next step (Score:5, Interesting)
Has EVERYONE forgotten about .mobi and .travel? There ARE already industry specific TLD's and they failed dismally. In fact, I am in the industry and when I asked at fairly high level people why .xxx was expected to go any better then .travel and .mobi it was awfully silent.
INCLUDING about the claim "well if nobody wants it the price will just drop" with the question "But you invested a fortune in lobbying so you will then just give up instead of using your bought politicians to mandate porn sites to buy an XXX domain".
Baby steps. First you register the jews, then you make them identifiable, well you know the rest. Godwin? Yes absolutely, it is not about the eradiction of undesirables BUT the .xxx domain has some very odd supporters. Lots of politicians that would dearly love to see porn gone (and freedom of expression) supported the .xxx domain. Why? I think a phase 2 might happen maybe not by design but by the business behind it who spend a fortune getting this wanting to make sure it succeeds. Again with Godwin but do you think the census takers at IBM who recorded the faith of people in Germany knew the final solution?
Anyway, ICANN has long been thinking about launching endless TLD's. Think .gun or .apple is bad? How about .paris and .washington? Each town, their own TLD, every business their own TLD.
.xxx is an experiment. Not so much about whether their is a market but how a market can be forcible created.
A lot of people think they can get .xxx to work for them, it is sold to some porn companies as in that the .xxx domain will be more legit so they can get better deals with mainstream business for advertising... yes, they really are that stupid.
Playboy had no problem getting mainstream advertising but most porn sites are a squalid dirty mag that even the industry itself would be reluctant to advertise in.
But you can claim you read playboy.COM for the articles. Good luck doing that with playboy.xxx
For decades the industry has attempted to seem legit, that they are just a business, just like Playboy is. And now a lot of them think the best way to do that is cover their faces in the cum of the .xxx tld. Yeah, that will work. Why not wear a star and paint your face black (the only difference between Germany and the US is that you don't need to get blacks to wear anything to tell them apart. People can just tell it seems. Must be the big noses)