Will the Department of Commerce OK a XXX Internet Domain?

Human Events Online ^ | June 15, 2005 | Jan LaRue

[hinterlander]

Unless the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) withholds its approval, the porn industry will have its own domain on the World Wide Web, .xxx. Proponents of the domain say that Web sites such as “Hardcore porn.xxx,” “Rape Porn.xxx,” or “XXXporn.xxx” will make it easier for parents and software filtering companies to protect kids from “adult” material. As if “Hardcore porn.com,” “Rape Porn.com,” or “XXX porn.com,” leave them clueless.

If approved, the porn industry and its allies will be free to self-regulate and operate the domain, which would be entirely voluntary. Internet porn site operators would be free to participate on the .xxx domain and be free to remain on any other Internet domain on which they are registered. Double their pleasure and double their fun while expanding their reach and making it easier for kids to find their porn.

The controversy over the .xxx domain comes in the midst of an announcement today by the Florida Family Association (FFA): “Two of the largest Internet porn companies in the world operate with alleged addresses in Miami and Orlando, Florida.” FFA’s programmed special software, dubbed “PornCrawler,” “searched the World Wide Web, identified porn sites and summarized which companies operate those sites. PornCrawler analyzed 297 million links and found that 20 companies in the United States account for over 70 percent of the pornography posted on the World Wide Web.”

[highball]

True, but it only works if all porn companies are required to use the ".xxx" domain. Which is not part of the plan. Which makes this useless for filtering sites.

[tfecw]

"Think of this as a zoning issue - or are you opposed to zoning?"

I'm opposed to gov-ment regulation of the Internet. Once they get their hands in it they aren't leaving it. Spare me the "Its for the children" BS that they use to ban guns and send illegals to public schools with.

Zoning and Internet domains are apples and oranges. They aren't even close to being in the same category.

That being said. Let em have the xxx domain. Some will use it some won't. As a software engineer it would be pretty easy to filter out all of the sites and I was informed last time this article came up that many in the porn industry want this to go through because they see it as a way to cut through all the existing red tape involved.

[PMCarey]

The real trick is in the enforcement. Governments can come up with definitions of pornography that satisfy most of the population in most cases (no definition is ever going to completely clear and consistent.) So we can distinguish between the strip club and Hooters for example. The basic questions are:

1. Who decides?
2. How is the Web monitored for compliance?

If this is a purely voluntary, then it's worthless. It would be like asking strip clubs to voluntarily not open near schools. Maybe they will and maybe they won't.

[Yo-Yo]

That's what I think. I'm sure some software company will soon produce software that blocks a browser from accessing the ".xxx" domain.

Internet Explorer could do this today. That's the beauty of requiring either a .xxx domain name, or including xxx somewhere in the title, it makes it easy to set up a simple filter to block all instances of .xxx.

Programs like NetNanny and Cybersitter rely on a constantly changing list of domains to avoid, much like virus software. Think how much easier it would be to avoid Viruses if they all had to have .vir in their file name!

[cloud8]

> It isn't as much a regulation problem as much as a definitional problem. How do you define "porn" or whatever material requires the xxx designation?

Maybe...it's pron if you have to pay for it?

[1L]

There's a lot of non-porn pay for content sites. The Wall Street Journal, for example.

[PMCarey]

Zoning and Internet domains are apples and oranges. They aren't even close to being in the same category.

I disagree. They're exactly the same. Zoning is a way of controlling where business and residential development occurs. A domain name if the cyber equivalent since it acts as the "location" on the World Wide Web in the mind of the user. Telling a Web site developer that he must use the xxx extention for his porn site is exactly like telling the strip club owner that he can't build his club next to a school or church.

[tfecw]

Good post :) The ISP's volunteer-ism would be based on the market (good thing) and keeps congress from playing around with stuff they have no clue about (good thing), leaving them time to run baseball, the military, and phone companies. ;)

[AntiGuv]

Maybe...it's pron if you have to pay for it?

That definitely wouldn't be an adequate definition. Umm, just guessing..

[longtermmemmory]

I think they would support the *.xxx domain BECAUSE it is filterable. It is just good PR.

Besides it seems that somehow a www.*.com and a www.*.xxx that uses the same website could be more filterable somehow because both were being used.

[tfecw]

"Telling a Web site developer that he must use the xxx extention for his porn site is exactly like telling the strip club owner that he can't build his club next to a school or church."

No. If you want to bring that example to how the web works it would be better to say "The strip club owner can build his club next to a school or church, he just can't put the strip club sign up"

[stompk]

I like the idea. I'd think it would be useless if it wasn't mandatory though.

my thing is there should be some way to protect kids from stumbling on this while trying to do regular research.
once popular example I remember was that for some time, www.whitehouse.com ( as opposed to www.whitehouse.gov ) was a porn site. I wonder how many kids stumbled into THAT. . .

[PMCarey]

No. If you want to bring that example to how the web works it would be better to say "The strip club owner can build his club next to a school or church, he just can't put the strip club sign up"

On the Web, the domain name IS the location in terms of how the user interacts with the Internet. So it's not just a labelling device. The domain name is how we identify, locate, and find resources. That's exactly equivalent to how we identify, locate, and find physical resources in our community. For the needs of the public we physically segregate certain resources from others. The cyber equivalent would be to segregrate resources based on their domain names.

[so_real]

Exactly! Government only has to interfere where people are unwilling to govern themselves. This one of those areas where it is elementary for people to have a voice and avoid government involvement.

[Littlejon]

Frankly, that is the ONLY way to make filtering effective. Of course, the smut peddlers will cry over the cost of changing everything, to which I say "SO??". We had the area codes in NC changed twice in the span of a few years and businesses all over the state (except for the Capital, of course) had to change letterhead, business cards, etc. We hear about how profitable the porn business is, so what is this minimal cost to them? Not much.

They also say they aren't trying to target kids, well, this would prove it. Let ANY website that has access to nude pictures of anyone be required to use the .xxx domain. This would also discourage linking to illicit pictures on message boards and prevent some kid from putting up a personal site and giving his "friends" access to his porn scans.

If someone does put up a site where people can access nude pictures or worse, they get hit with a fine for the first offense. If they don't change or take it down within a certain time period, a BIG fine. If they do it again, or fail to take it down after another designated time, they get time in Pound-Me-In-The-Rump Prison, where their "fans" can show their appreciation for the person's handiwork.

Sorry, I work in IT and have NO tolerance for some of these smut peddlers. Access for kids to all kinds of stuff is way too easy and something needs to be done to make it more difficult.

[tfecw]

I know how the web works. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

[PMCarey]

If someone does put up a site where people can access nude pictures or worse, they get hit with a fine for the first offense.

You don't have to fine them: just revoke their domain name.

[jpsb]

Good idea, go for it, and the zoning analogy is exactly correct. Slight worry about precedent but not enough to oppose the idea.

[PMCarey]

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

I can agree to that! :-)

[tfecw]

:) Sometimes i wonder how we got to the pseduo-socalist country we have today, and then I read threads like this.