SCI/TECH: Dot XXX Domain Names Approved

Pornography websites addresses can now end .xxx with a decision announced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names. Adult sites which generate over $12 billion dollars a year can begin buying the sites this fall or winter. Designed to create a virtual red light districts several supporters contend it will help protect children.




I think it is a good idea. However, the notion that it protects children is crazy. The only true way to protect kids from things like this is openness and education. Most of our kids will have computer skills before long that only we can fathom. If they want to find it they can. But arming our children so they can make good choices is clearly the way to go.

This is probably a good idea, but somehow I doubt that porn is going to rush en masse to the .xxx domain. Very many porn sites exist only for the purpose of entrapping naive surfers so that their trojans and whatnot can be downloaded onto the unsuspecting surfers' computers.

Sure, all those pay sites that only a very small percentage of computer owners are stupid enough to fork out big bucks for every month will do so for image purposes (mainstream pornographers massage that responsible image, as much as possible), but all those others will still be out there in the .com domain, waiting like an angler fish for his prey.

I think that it should be made mandatory by law for pornography sites to change to the new suffix. That way filtering tech would be much simpler, more secure, and much more effective.

Software could be developed that blocks all sites with the .xxx suffix. Make that software password protected and it would be a fantastic deterrent. Sure, there will be the odd script-kiddie that would be able to get around it somehow, but it would definitely protect the majority of kids from easily accessing or inadvertently stumbling on such content

Very many porn sites exist only for the purpose of entrapping naive surfers so that their trojans and whatnot can be downloaded onto the unsuspecting surfers' computers.

Precisely! Which is why if it were up to me they'd all be required to have .xxx.

I know some will call that unfair, or censorship, but it's not. The content would still be available. My only request in that sense is that sites represent themselves based on their content, accurately. It's not that big a deal. Commercial sites are com, organiztions are org, porn should be xxx.

And while I'm at it, I would also ban porno companies from registering names that are similar to popular sites to capitalize on typos. You go to a "typo" site and find yourself installing adware without consent. That should be as illegal as someone keying my car, it's cyber vandalism.

Categorizing sites based on content, and requiring disclaimers would simultaneously give people the right to see/not see what they want, and allow the porn peddlers to still have their business and right to freedom of expression.

Give them all .xxx

I think quite a few sites will rish to that extension. It's like an automatic advertisement. Pr0n hounds will have a nice easy extension to sort thru.

Of course, bet that otehrs will jump in to register-political sites, churches (ever seen the pr0n links that actually redirect to churches) and other spam and product advertising.

Expect cybersquatters to go after cocacola.xxx, georgebush.xxx, etc. in a mad land-rush.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
This is probably a good idea, but somehow I doubt that porn is going to rush en masse to the .xxx domain. Very many porn sites exist only for the purpose of entrapping naive surfers so that their trojans and whatnot can be downloaded onto the unsuspecting surfers' computers.

Sure, all those pay sites that only a very small percentage of computer owners are stupid enough to fork out big bucks for every month will do so for image purposes (mainstream pornographers massage that responsible image, as much as possible), but all those others will still be out there in the .com domain, waiting like an angler fish for his prey.

I think it is a good idea. However, the notion that it protects children is crazy.

Not at all.

It's FAR easier for a filter program to exclude an entire domain like .net or .xxx!!! This is certainly better than other things a filter program has to check for. This would easily distinguish....

This is a GREAT idea, and a LONG time coming... Personally, I think it should be required that all porn sites switch to the new domain, (and that this should be at no cost for existing sites). Fair is fair.

Definatly requiring it by law would be great I personally think the webhosts should be legally responsible for the content of their sites. If that was the case it would be easy to enforec the law to require porn sites to use the new .xxx

I am amazed by the reaction here. Everyone calling for more Internet laws! Well perhaps I should remind you that MORE INTERNET LAWS is NOT WHAT WE NEED.

Great, let's jail offenders who post porn on web sites not ending in .xxx! Then we can start shifting around other subject matter, too, and before ya know it, everything on the Internet will be in its rightful, government-supervised place.

Don't be so quick to jump on every passing bandwagon, folks.

Zip

I am amazed by the reaction here. Everyone calling for more Internet laws! Well perhaps I should remind you that MORE INTERNET LAWS is NOT WHAT WE NEED.

Attempting to classify things in blacks and whites will always result in extremism. Over-regulating the Internet is a bad idea, but so is under-regulating it. The stance of regulating pornographic content is perfectly defensible. Should that regulation then be extrapolated to cover all Internet content? No. Common sense is the over-riding factor here. Let's not get carried away.

First of all, let's cut to the chase, here - we're talking about protecting children, right? Pornography may be a couple of clicks away, but any adult can avoid pornography altogether on the Internet if he wants to. Pornography banners and popups don't occur on websites that aren't geared towards audiences that are receptive to that kind of advertising.

I don't believe I'm getting carried away. Like the streets of a city, the Internet is open. It's a market. It's a forum.

We protect our children from harm in city streets by supervising them. By guiding them. We should do the same to protect them from harm that might come to them from travelling the streets of the Internet.

Legislation doesn't magically solve problems. I am against additional Internet regulation - I don't think that more regulation would protect anyone from anything, especially porn.

Rather than regulating the Internet, let's regulate parents. Hold parents responsible for their children's Internet usage. If a child is subjected to pornography on the Internet, then the parent should face liability for allowing that to occur. In this manner, parents will be compelled to monitor Internet usage and install software such as NetNanny or whatever.

EDIT: And thereby they would be taking an ACTIVE part in their child's Internet journeys, rather than passively hoping that laws will protect their children. We don't rely on laws against kidnapping to allow our children to roam unsupervised near shady-looking kidnapper types.

Zip

[edit on 6/3/2005 by Zipdot]

Originally posted by Zipdot
Legislation doesn't magically solve problems. I am against additional Internet regulation - I don't think that more regulation would protect anyone from anything, especially porn.

Wake up! It does already. It's great that a lot of illegal porn is removed from the web precisely because of the legislation (at least I hope so).

When racy magazines are put on the top rack in a store, where there is less chance for them to be seen by children, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. Same with the new domain name.

Don't be so quick to jump on every passing bandwagon, folks.

Not jumping on the bandwagon, this is a serious issue, and this is a simple and effective solution to the problem, without infringing on the rights of anyone....

If you've ever been concerned about your child's internet exposure, you'll see where I'm coming from....

Another idea to this would be that porn pop-ups and porn spam e-mails could only occur when visiting .xxx sites....

Additional legislation already protects us? How can that be, if it hasn't been legislated yet?



I am against MORE regulation, I'm not against REGULATION.

Internet porn is already on the bottom rack. Google.com's search is "safe" by default, for instance. msnbc.com doesn't have porn banners, right? Whether you'll admit it or not, finding porn on the Internet requires active motion, not passive browsing of business, education, recreation, etc. related web pages.

Zip

Please, Gazrok, don't give me that "you have to be a parent to understand" arguement that seems to pop up a lot on ATS. I am not a parent, but I am still concerned with YOUR kids Internet usage. I still say we need to hold the parents responsible and require them to have an active role in protecting their children. Use the software that is available to protect your children.

Hold the parents responsible, not the Internet. It is illegal to expose minors to pornography, so why are parents exposing their children to pornography by allowing them to surf the Internet without browser control in place? This "quick fix" legislation that you speak of is approaching the problem from the wrong angle.

Zip

Zip, what's your actual, specific gripe with this legislation? Is it that you fear that adding another regulation to the Internet will be a step on a slippery slope and soon everything will have to be classified, regulated, pidgeon-holed, controlled and freeze-dried, or what...?

You're saying that the legislation is unnecessary, but I'm not clear exactly on what negative effects you think enacting it will produce. Sure, parents should be responsible for supervising their kids' activities, but industry must be responsible for regulating their products as well. It's a two-way street. When you go and rent a DVD, you don't find the blue movies mixed in with the action and romance movies, and then expect the parents to take all the responsibility for keeping their kids from picking one up and looking on the back cover; those films are categorized and separated. That's all this legislation is seeking: classification and segregation of adult content.

Unless you're suggesting it's the start of Big Brother on the Internet, it would simply mean that responsible parents and filtering software companies will be able to more effectively supervise and protect children by having such content identified, classified and separated as it should be. Where's the harm in that?

I am against this for a number of reasons. Foremost among these is that this would be a step closer towards de-anonymizing the Internet. There are groups of people who want to implement a kind of "Internet ID" so that your identity is verified as you move from site to site and your age and country or whatever dictates what you may and may not view.

The more that people complain that they can't control what their children do on the Internet, the closer this (or something similar to it) comes to crossing legislators' desks.

Anonymous Internet access is mostly positive for adults to enjoy - we can have discussions on boards like this without fear. Ideas are born and shared. Whatever.

Anonymous Internet access is mostly harmful for children. Even if all the porn is moved to a .xxx site, there will still be sexual predators poised to spring on your children in chat rooms.

Solution?

Identification. The benefits outweigh any negatives.

You may say, "hey, Zip, you're getting ahead of yourself. We're just talking about moving porn around." Maybe so. Maybe not. You are using the strong arm of the law to force businessmen into a particular classification on the Internet. ASKING the law to STEP IN and TAKE CONTROL of things. For what? You'd still have to use NetNanny software to block the .xxx sites, otherwise, the children would simply have a BETTER idea of where to go to GET PORN.

So what does that solve?

I am familiar with NetNanny and other filtering software and it WORKS. WELL. I ask people to USE IT and quit unnecessarily inviting the government in to take things over.

Zip

Ok, no need to SHOUT. I can read your lower case just fine.

I know where you're coming from, and I'm probably one of the more paranoid people here - at least on ATSNN - as far as Big Brother goes. But I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Putting all the history books in the history section of the library does not equate to librarians controlling what you can and can't read, or keeping tabs on what you borrow for the spooks. Classifying companies according to their area of industry does not equate to the suppression of free trade.

Additionally, I think that ICM is a private corporation, or at least an NGO. So it's not even "legislation" as you put it, unless I missed something.

Calling In Artillery On One's Own Position

This business of demanding “Internet law” and regulatory zealotry is an extremely bad idea, in my opinion.

There are many people who visit this site, for example, who would not be able to if even half of the “good ideas” I see in this thread were actually implemented.

Freedom has value only if you value it.

Offer to give it away, and there will always be someone ready to take it from you.

Insist on taking it from others, and it will be taken from you as well.

We've already seen what happens when people are required to wear identity badges on their clothing.

Let's not do that to ourselves.

Separating the Artillery Shells From the Rations
(that's a li'l tribute to you, Majic )

I think you guys are speaking from your hearts and not from your heads. You read the word "regulation" and your heart cries for freedom lost. We're talking classification here, not control. That's all. Has your freedom to visit government sites been taken away because they're classified .gov? No. Has your right to visit anti-tyrrany websites like Amnesty International been quashed because they're classified .org? No. This regulation is simply calling a spade a spade.

[edit on 2005/6/3 by wecomeinpeace]

I am referring to all of the calls in this thread for actual United States Congress legislation to require pornography on the net to be on .xxx sites. I would quote them, but I'm lazy. I think there were three posts calling for legislation.

I say, it's not about moving the books in the library to a certain section. It's about WHO moves the books to that section and what moves they can justify afterwards when children are still reading those books.

I'm not looking at this from a kind of "Big Brother" or "Censorship" standpoint and I'm not a paranoid person. I'm looking at it as more of an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" issue. If you perceive it to be "broken" in your household, then install NetNanny or CyberSitter. You will be installing these softwares after all porn is moved to .xxx domains anyways.

Some have said that moving everything there will make it "easier" for this filtering software to do its job -- they must not be familiar with this software because it is freakin effective.

I'd also like to state for the record that it is absolutely impossible to "move" all porn to "xxx" domains. Most, if not "much," porn on the Internet is hosted in other countries. Barring that, I will say this - it is estimated that, what, 75-80% of the info on the Internet is porn? I couldn't find an exact number in a google search, but I found varying estimates.

Anyways, that would mean that well over 260 million web pages would have to be updated and moved, and many of these web pages haven't been touched in years. This kind of undertaking is simply impossible.

So what would make this kind of undertaking possbile? Stricter laws. More laws. The U.S. government's hand forcing changes.

The prudent choice is to police your own children, since you'll have to end up policing your own children anyways.

Zip