.xxx domain

[minotaur]

XXX domain is back in the news. ICANN is still considering it. The three views, as I read it, are:

1. ICANN is trying to be accommodating, saying that porn lovers can have one area of the internet, and Puritans can have another.
2. Porn lovers are opposed, because it’s generally a bad idea.
3. Puritans are VEHIMENTLY opposed. They want to stamp out all porn, in every form, wherever it exists, no matter what, period. If there is a XXX domain, then there is a place for porn where Puritans can’t dig it out and get rid of it.

My view -- Consider that the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

[Abby]

2. Porn lovers are opposed, because it’s generally a bad idea.

Uh. Why is it a bad idea?

[depictmeuk]

Uh. Why is it a bad idea?

Well, I have a web site about Naturism, its not porn, but we do have pictures of naked folk.
Maybe the puritanical will force me to have an XXX domain, which I don't think is appropriate for my content.
Google has refused to allow me to carry their adverts.
Ebay removed some of the books I had for sale.
XXX may be the thin end of the wedge?

[Abby]

so why not just have an xxx domain? What do you loose?

[Frans]

so why not just have an xxx domain? What do you loose?

your .com name

www.abbywinters.xxx .. nah..

The entire xxx domain really doesn't add much. Consider a rule that says all spammers must mark their mails as 'spam'... guess what... some of them don't There are two ways to go about an .xxx domain:

1. Voluntary, assumes sites will WANT to be in the (easily filterable) .xxx domain, why would they?
2. Mandatory, to protect the world from all evil. Enforcing will be difficult.

I would have thought puritans would have supported the creation of such a domain, but appearantly they don't do 2-step planning It's easy enough; first you label it, then you can target it much easier.

What would be the advantage for any website to have a .xxx name?

[Abby]

What would be the advantage for any website to have a .xxx name?

None really, but I don't see many realistic disadvantages - so long as the playing field is level (ie, everyone does it). I imagine there'd be a change-over period of a few years.

There will always be tricky cases (depictmeuk's naturism site would clearly be in xxx in my book) legitimate art, education stuff will not be THAT hard to define.

And really, we're trying to reduce access by minors to explicit stuff. That's pretty easy to define.

[brvictoria]

And really, we're trying to reduce access by minors to explicit stuff. That's pretty easy to define.

Setting aside the interesting question about why people should need protecting from explicit images/ video for the first 18 years of their life, it's hard to see how labelling something as xxx is going to reduce access by minors. Abbeywinters.com could be site about anything, abbywinters.xxx is going to be a site about only one thing. So if anything any site with a xxx domain is going to draw people under 18 like a magnet; not much protection there then.

[Abby]

Agree, I did not follow that thought through. At the moment there is a complex web of ways to stop minors from visiting adult sites - credit card as ID, keyword lists, domain lists, page and domain tagging and so on. On their own, none are 100% effective, and taken all together they are complex and messy.

By relegating all adult stuff to the .xxx domain, it can easily be filtered at an ISP level (parents, schools, libraries, etc tell the ISP to deny access to all .xxx sites).

Very few adult sites WANT to sell stuff to minors, but no one wants to be at a disadvantage to their peers by switching first and risking loosing sales.

I am not saying it's an easy problem to solve, but I don't like how many peopl are saying .xxx is totally unworkable, without proposing solutions of their own.

[Frans]

Depends on what you want to solve, minors watching porn sites? Don't give them access to the internet until you (parent) consider them old and well-educated enough. Checking against a creditcard should work on site's side of things. If a minor somehow gets a creditcard that's the problem of the official holder of said card, simple enough.

Filters can prevent somewhat accidental browsing upon very yucki pics, but a determined user will eventually get around those. Keeping minors out of harms way (however you define that) is primairly the task of the parents, no software is going to replace that anytime soon.

Btw. we do have a specific school-network which is a severely filtered internet for younger-kids-schools (6-12 year olds). That seems to work ok. It's after that age kids get into internet-related trouble, usually with their own internet connection on their own pc (in their room) with a webcam.. yep, really smart idea. Don't let your kids cross the street if they don't know to look left and right first, that goes for internet-highways too

[sterling2]

I agree that the parents need to monitor the childrens surfing ,put the computer in the main area ,where every one can see what's being surfed ,and learn how to check for history and cookies ,it needs to start at home

[alleyes1]

I hope Abby considers this thread an extension of the porn politics thread because I wanted to mention some U.S. politics in this thread.

First, the far right here in the U.S. can never agree to anything that legitimizes porn. That's why they are against the .xxx domain because even though "theoretically" it might help keep children from viewing adult content, even THEN they can't be for it because it would legitimize porn. So basically they have set themselves up in a position that they are going to fight to do away with ALL porn. That is the clear message from them.

The second point I would like to make is similar to that of depictmeuk but not precisely. What is the criteria for a site to go to the proposed .xxx domain? This is an important point. Does viewing of ANY nudity constitute being put there? Where do you draw the line? An example might be deviantARt.com. You do have to register but you can join for free. It's clearly an art site but they do have a small amount of nudity (for registered members only). Does it belong in the .xxx domain because of the nudity even though clearly it's not "porn"?

The third point is, I have a bad feeling about all the porn sites being bunched up together and "tagged" as porn. To me, there is actually a certain amount of anonymity to porn sites being with all the other .com's. I just have a bad feeling about it.

my .02 cents,
Alleyes

[Bondii]

It's quite simple: Most people (including me) equate anything tagged "xxx" with cheap, tacky, exploitative porn.

Certainly not what you want to have associated with AW.

[Abby]

I agree that the parents need to monitor the childrens surfing ,put the computer in the main area ,where every one can see what's being surfed ,and learn how to check for history and cookies ,it needs to start at home

I used to agree with you, and in fact have actively peddled that line for the last few years.

However, I listened to a discussion recently on this very topic by some big name porn producers (Vivid, Wicked, Hustler VP, etc), and they had a damn good point. That argument would fly in the year 2000, but now the net is too ubiqitous. Phones, libraries, schools, home, TV, net cafes, etc. Limint net access to kids like limiting alcohol or tobacco is a dumb idea, cos it has so damn many USEFUL attributes.

[minotaur]

Uh. Why is it a bad idea?

That’s not my view. I just note that I’d be in a minority for voting in favor of .xxx.

There are some valid objections to .xxx. It’s a black-and-white solution to a problem with a lot of grey. But it seems to me that the main objection is that it represents some sort of compromise. We are going to resist any compromise at all, at least initially. We will ask why we can’t just ride over the whole internet like we have done before, instead of moving into some corner of it?

But while we raise vague objections to .xxx, the religious far right is so vehement in its opposition that it prioritizes the issue on the same list as gay marriage. A year ago, the RFR organized a letter writing campaign, and sent six thousand letters and email messages to Congress opposing .xxx. At the time, I wondered what prompted such a strong response, and why the RFR literature was conspicuously devoid of truthful reasons for the response.

The RFR has think tanks, and we don’t. So what are they thinking that we have overlooked? I think that the RFR has looked into the future a bit, and realized that .xxx could end in a major victory for the porn industry, and an irreversible loss in the RFR’s effort to throttle the industry back.

Politicians are in a predicament. They are under pressure to clear porn off the web, but can’t afford to lose the votes of constituents who want porn to stay. The politicians fume about porn, and make vague threats to impose some kind of solution on the porn industry. But they don’t know what the solution would be. For now, the path of least resistance for them is to do nothing.

Politicians like easy solutions to complex problems. For example, faced with a 10% drop in revenues, they implement a 10% budget cut across all categories. It would be much better to review spending priorities, and make selective cuts, but that is not what they do. Politicians and bureaucrats universally take the easy way out. Not that I’d be better.

If the .xxx domain exists, it doesn’t matter whether the porn industry moves into it, or ignores it altogether. What matters is that politicians are apt to see it there, and to recognize it as the easy answer they have been looking for. They will legislate that porn sites have to move into .xxx, and that ISPs have to filter out .xxx sites by default. Consumers who want adult content will go to their ISP business center in person, show proof of age, and arrange with the ISP to override the defaults. Consumers who don’t want adult content, or who shouldn’t have it, will see it vanish from their web experience. The solution won’t work out exactly as planned, (and politicians know that,) but this sort of quick-and-easy solution is the very thing that politicians like to grab onto.

What’s scary to the RFR is that politicians really like quick and easy solutions like this, making them unstoppable once they have become fired up about it, and that the RFR can’t counter it with truthful arguments. They can’t come right out and say truthfully that they want to control what consenting adults can look at in the privacy of their own homes, because that argument doesn’t sell. The best counter argument that the RFR can come up with is that .xxx “legitimizes” porn, as if porn was not legitimate before.

What politicians will establish with their quick fix, is that censorship on the web can be split into tiers. That’s the breakthrough for the porn industry, and the thing that the RFR is afraid of: Tiers.

Creation of censorship tiers, even if only two tiers, represents a major loss in the RFR’s attempt to get rid of porn. Someone complaining about other people’s porn viewing habits will be told to stick to his own browser. The breakthrough can’t be reversed, because how are you going to go from two tiers back to one, after 40% of the voting population has grown accustomed to the porn tier. About all the RFR can still do to control viewing habits of other adults, is to police whether consenting viewers are looking at under-aged models.

The politician’s easy solution will turn out to have lots of problems. Most easy solutions do. But obtaining two-tiered censorship is not the end of the story. We will take it from there, and then modify things to make a more workable solution.

The easy (and marginally workable) solution has to come first. If we attempt to get a complicated solution directly, then (1) politicians will have to overcome major inertia to even think about it, and (2) the RFR will fight us at every step. The quick, two-tiered solution is easy to think about, and once enacted, convinces the RFR to drop most of its resistance to subsequent improvements.

A really good solution could involve site meta-tags, several censorship tiers, regional settings, language and violence ratings, and segregation of content within sites. It could even involve a better method of getting cash from porn consumers to porn sites. – If you are going to an ISP business center to show ID and to set porn overrides, why not also set up an ISP cash account for porn site fees? Solve both the age verification and cash transaction problems at the same time.

But first things first. I think we should organize a small letter writing campaign of our own. Suggest to politicians the very quick fix that the RFR is so afraid of.

[willow]

My take on this is that in the end it is only domain name registrars that will benefit from a .xxx TLD. Ethical adult site operators already do whatever they can to play nice with meta-tag-based filters. Unethical operators will continue using regular TLDs and will continue doing whatever else they can to bypass content filters.

So having a .xxx TLD isn't going to clean up the web - not now, not ever. What will happen is that every ethical adult site operator will buy up .xxx domains, which will naturally come with a premium price tag.

[Frans]

Phones, libraries, schools, home, TV, net cafes, etc. Limint net access to kids like limiting alcohol or tobacco is a dumb idea, cos it has so damn many USEFUL attributes.

That's mixing two arguments.

Yes it is easier to get access to the net, which results in the fact that kids who truly are determined to see stuff they know their parents don't want them to see, get to see that anyway. Truly keeping minors out of adult-areas on the internet (assuming the parents don't want/can supervise them properly) can be done by asking for username/password which is payed for by creditcard. Now if the minor somehow gets access to said card or username, that is still a problem caused by the holder of that card. I don't like the shifting responsibility away from parents and to some extend the minors themselves (I don't consider a 16 year old looking at regular porn a problem btw.)

It's very hard to implement a technical solution to solve a social problem. Usually those fail and/or are bypassed (even citizens in China get to 'illegal' places on the internet)

As for the internet being so USEFUL, so is driving a car. That doesn't mean anyone can or should be allowed to do it without proper instruction. It is a frequently heard excuse though, for the internet... but not for driving a card.

I agree Willow that meta-tags and age-rating (ASCAP and such) are already a workable solution. The nice sites will properly label themselves, the bad ones wont. That will not change when the nice ones move to the .xxx domain. It's a bit like spam, no interest in being selective.. just blast them all and some will generate income for you.

-Frans

[rachel_t]

i'd like a .xxx domain for my site. i think it looks neat. my site is by no means 'XXX', it could only barely even be called 'porn' or 'softcore' (and even that's stretching it), but regardless of that it's still a site meant for adults and not suitable for those under 18.

even though the change process would have to be gradually filtered in (eg, for a while a site would be accessible from both domain.com and domain.xxx for a period long enough for people to adjust to the change, then eventually could be moved out to just being domain.xxx).

although as willow mentioned above, i can see them sticking a pretty effing huge price tag on a .xxx domain...

[willow]

Actually the price tag is not huge, $60 US per year, which is more than .com domains, but comparable to (say) .com.au domains. An extra $60 a year per domain would not seem like such a big problem (I say "extra", because operators would in most cases retain their existing domains), but it's $60 a year for no discernible benefit to anyone except the registrar, and in the case of the .xxx proposal, it would really be THE registrar. One thing that most of the news reports have failed to mention that all .xxx registrations would go through ONE registrar - ICM Registry. They will hold a monopoly on .xxx domains and will be collecting not only from adult sites, but from regular businesses who want to protect their trademarks and squeaky clean public profiles, and from squatters who will start buying up .xxx domains the very nanosecond ICM Registry opens its doors.

[Diablo]

I thought I might post a reference to RFC 3675, which outlines many of the arguments against having a .xxx (or equivalent top-level domain).

Generally, I'd prefer not to see an .xxx top-level domain. My main concern is that it's going to be way too tempting for conservative legislators in the US (or elsewhere) to push for laws that gives them power to compel any site they wish into the .xxx domain; we could eventually start seeing sites that better serve community interests (such as sexual health advice, contraception, etc) be forced into .xxx, hindering their accessibility further.

Plus, giving a site an .xxx domain adds no technical value to the site (as there are already existing voluntary filtering mechanisms in place, such as PICS, which most web filtering software already includes support for).

[Frans]

I thought I might post a reference to RFC 3675, which outlines many of the arguments against having a .xxx (or equivalent top-level domain).

Nice link Diablo, thanks!

[alleyes1]

I honestly can't decide where I stand on this issue. Change is definitely coming. Bill Gates predicts that the internet is going to revolutionize t.v. in 5 years. The bigger question in my mind, is what is t.v. going to do to the internet?

I just bought a new computer. It has 2 t.v. tuners in it. (Your supposed to be able to watch one channel while recording another-that sort of thing). The question that comes to my mind is, what does the t.v. tuner in my computer offer me? I've already got a t.v. that I can turn on anytime I want to. Actually, it doesn't offer me anything. What it DOES offer is Microsoft and businesses like google, access to t.v. audiences.

Bare with me on this I'm getting to the point.

But what happens when the "wild, wild west" that is the internet, hits the family hour of television? All hell's going to break loose politically. in the States, you rarely see a woman's breast on mainstream cable, and heaven forbid a penis be shown!!!!

I see .xxx as an olive branch that the porn industry is trying to offer for their own benefit. Frankly, on the merit of protection of youngsters, the arguments are pretty weak. But, I think this may all be a footnote in history as the REAL battle for adult content takes place over the next few years. The far right will not except olive branches. They have NO intentions to. From their standpoint, the survival of their culture is at stake.


Don't get me wrong, there will always be porn. The far right can't do anything about that. But similar to what's considered now, the golden age of television, this may be considered the golden age of the internet in the future.

Everyone is trying to change the internet for their own ends. AT&T by trying to control the pipeline. The government by limiting free speech. My view is that while, change is inevitable, any change to the internet is for the worse, not the better. (NON-technically speaking here).

(god, that was depressing!).

Alleyes

[Frans]

I honestly can't decide where I stand on this issue. Change is definitely coming. Bill Gates predicts that the internet is going to revolutionize t.v. in 5 years.

Bill has said lotsa things over the years, doesn't mean they come true (think businessman vs. visionary), famous example:

"640 K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981

The question that comes to my mind is, what does the t.v. tuner in my computer offer me? I've already got a t.v. that I can turn on anytime I want to. Actually, it doesn't offer me anything.

It offers you the ability to record and/or watch TV via your pc using all sort of nifty software. Specifically you can program your pc to always record CSI but if Law&Order is on that takes priority. That kinda thing. I hope/trust you're not using the CableCard thingie Microsoft is pushing with Vista?

The internet was specifically designed to be autonomous to a large extend. As such I'm not to afraid of the far right or any very specific group. Russia for example has a workable ISP infrastructure, sites could move over there fairly easily. That is both the good and the bad thing about the internet. The fact it's hard to truly control or police scares lotsa people Enforcing a .xxx.us domain or a xxx.uk domain would indeed benefit control options, but not much else. Sites will just move elsewhere, maybe to Australia.. could make bandwidth affordable when they come in large numbers

The only good thing the .xxx debate did was show (in)dependant ICANN is, which is interesting to know.

Hope that cheers you up a bit

[alleyes1]

hehe fransAW, trust me, it doesn't keep me awake at night!!!

btw, I'm steering WELL clear of Vista.

[lemark]

what a powerful board ,all you people with so much ;
i am in or (all i can do is stu fruit
whats BTW??

[lemark]

where did that little smile come from??

[Vid Dude]

BTW is "By The Way". And the smile came from a semi-colon next to a close-bracket. ; + ) =

[lemark]

well you could knocked me over with a feather,
the reasion i dont log off is because i dont sea what you see;
the password is totaly different to what you see ,to what i see ;
dose that solve a problem for you;
what you people think think of me on these boards , is not important;
it is what my little human thinks of me as a dad;*+=\=-]p[ that is about as close to the smile i can get;
i will work it out iam letting you in to my heart , i have droped my guard this time;
gavin

[alexbee]

well you could knocked me over with a feather,
the reasion i dont log off is because i dont sea what you see;
the password is totaly different to what you see ,to what i see ;
dose that solve a problem for you;
what you people think think of me on these boards , is not important;
it is what my little human thinks of me as a dad;*+=\=-]p[ that is about as close to the smile i can get;
i will work it out iam letting you in to my heart , i have droped my guard this time;
gavin

Did I miss something recently? You've become a FATHER??? Big Congrats from the US Gavin!!!

[lemark]

dear alexbee ;
no my little human is 12 years old ,
they do not live with me any more;
my depression was to much ,for them to bare;
:anyway thank you alaxbee:
and if you want to talk about it . i will talk about the depression;
do not talk to me, because you feel sorry for me;
any way thank you;

[SexyHard]

Is Porn the issue or censorship?

Although I like porn, I don't think Porn is really the issue here. If society wants to, tools can be developed to regulate what material is available over the internet. The specifics of how how these tools work are umimportant.

The social will to develop these tools is being created screaming about "Porn" and "protecting our children." But once developed, the tools that limit the availability of porn over the internet could also limit access to films of Building Seven. (This is part of the basis of the alliance between the Social Right and the Political Right.) Porn is the thin wedge that might someday bring the internet under greater corporate and state control.