Pornographers and their customers soon will have a virtual red-light district reserved just for them.
The nonprofit organization responsible for Internet addresses on Wednesday approved ".XXX" domains, a move that reverses the group's earlier position and heads off a potential political spat with conservative US politicians.
ICANN said it's working with the ICM Registry to finalise remaining details, meaning the porn-friendly set of .XXX domains should be available by the end of the year. Other top-level domains still awaiting a decision from ICANN are .asia, .mail, and .tel.
Stuart Lawley, chairman of the ICM Registry, could not be immediately reached for comment. In an interview last year, Lawley said that .XXX domain names would cost around $75 (£41) and come with no restrictions except that any sexually explicit content feature only adults. "Apart from child pornography, which is completely illegal, we're really not in the content-monitoring business," Lawley said.
ICM Registry plans to handle the technical aspects of running the master database of .XXX sites. A second, non-profit organization called the International Foundation For Online Responsibility will be in charge of setting the rules for .XXX. It's intended to have a seven-person board of directors, including a child advocacy advocate, a free-expression aficionado and someone from the adult entertainment industry.
ICANN's vote represents an abrupt turnabout from the group's earlier stance. In November 2000, the ICANN staff objected to domains such as .kids and .XXX and rejected ICM Registry's first application.
Politicians quickly lambasted the decision. At a hearing a few months later, Fred Upton, a Republican politician from Michigan, 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". Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, complained to 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".
Even though ICM Registry's approach is designed to be free-speech-friendly, the American Civil Liberties Union has expressed concerns about .XXX domains. One worry is that some nations may force sites dealing with sensitive topics like homosexuality or birth control into the .XXX zone, where they can be easily blocked.
Talkback
A very brilliant idea , I propose a Nobel prime for the briliant legislator.
Freedom over all is better than represion.
Now at least there is order, without represion, as law shall be. Then this tool of communication will bring fruit.
TAKING PORNOGRAPHY LIGHTLY
The obscenity or/and pornography is/are not desirable in any form in a civilised society. The same requires a stringent punishment and more so when the future of the young generation is at stake. It must be appreciated that it is not the “enactment” of a law but the desire, will and efforts to accept and enforce it in its true letter and spirit, which can confer the most strongest, secure and safest protection for any purpose. The enforcement of rights against obscenity/pornography requires a “qualitative effort” and not a “quantitative effort. The courts are sensitive to the issue but so must be the citizens. In the name of “liberalisation” and “freedom of speech and expression” criminal tendencies degrading the moral fabric of the nations cannot be allowed to operate. We are custodians of “morality” for the future generation and we cannot afford to give it a debased, immoral and perverse society as the heritage. Thus, the bright future requires both negative form of discipline in the form of punishment and positive form of discipline by voluntarily following and cherishing the morality and ideals preserved by various civilisations from numerous centuries.
For more views on this topic, kindly see http://perry4law.blogspot.com/.
what is evil is evil wheter it comes as .xxx or .com
all those gymnastics are nonsensical if not hypoticritical
stop bringing kinds into the conversation, if people want that they can get it just like drugs and all the rest of it. I think .xxx is a good idea but porn sites are still gonna use the .com etc... i think that all porn should be on xxx but then is art porn and and so i'd have to change my mind on that.
So what is xxx then? well i think its just like hotmail.co.uk - it allows me to get the address i always wanted because someone didnt register it first like sex.xxx or tits.xxx
While the article pointed out the opposition to this by conservative politicians and religious leaders, it failed to point out this domain was also vigorously opposed by the vaste majority of the online adult industry.
Stuart Lawley and ICM Registry tried for years to get anyone in the adult industry to support his bid. No one would. Everyone realized this was nothing but a naked grab for money. Look at his proposed price, $75US. When you can get almost any other domain for under $10. Where do you think the difference will go? Right into Lawley's pocket.
As for somehow helping keep kids from seeing adult material (which is afterall legal for adults to view), how about ICANN do something that will help, approve a dot Kids domain.
I find this whole discussion rather tedious. First of all, we are 'supposedly' living in a free and democratic society; because 9/11 we were willing allowed our politicians to erode some of our rights and freedom to improve security of the nation. But allowing politicions to give us moral guidance would be like asking the devil to be our priest and confessor.
If anyone finds porn offencive, they have a choice,with a click of a button to turn it of. Even an idiot can do that. Sometimes I think politicions forget why the people elected them in the first place.If I wanted moral guidance, I'll go to my priest, thank you very much