New .XXX Top Level Domain 543
Jigabug writes "There's a story over at Yahoo! News mentioning yesterday's approval by ICANN on a new .xxx TLD. Domains are currently planned to be offered at 60.00 each for registration. The .xxx joins the recently approved .jobs and .travel." From the article: "Adult-oriented sites, a $12 billion industry, probably could begin buying xxx addresses as early as fall or winter depending on ICM's plans,
ICANN spokesman Kieran Baker said. The new pornography suffix was among 10 under consideration by the regulatory group..." CNN and the BBC have commentary as well.
Well great! (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't wait. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, like they're going to voluntarily do this (Score:5, Insightful)
"ICM contends the "xxx" Web addresses, which it plans to sell for $60 a year, will protect children from online smut if adult sites voluntarily adopt the suffix so filtering software used by families can more effectively block access to those sites. The $60 price is roughly ten times higher than prices other companies charge for dot-com names."
So... what? The
Wow, sounds like they're really stacking up those reasons to change to a
Which is the top reason they *won't* move (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is the top reason they *won't* move. Porn sites are fully aware that many people are infact paying for porn while pretending not to like it. People have subpoenaed adult channel subscription to disprove "community standards" and found that lots of people that supposedly don't like porn are subscribing to porn.
It is the same reason telemarketers would love to call people that have reserved themselves against telemarketing, and the reason the show pop-ups to people with pop-up blockers. Many people are weak and have installed those in "self-defense". So you stay on
Kjella
Re:Would that be a problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
STUPID idea, and this is why (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the entire world uses DNS, and the entire world doesn't have a consistent standard for what is socially acceptable when it comes to sexuality.
Some Islamic countries consider it socially unacceptable to show anything other than the eyes and hands of a woman.
In the US, we'd consider the French and British tendancies to stick topless women on TV unacceptable.
Japan has a real problem with showing genital hair, but no problem at all with representing underage characters.
The problem is that it suddenly tries to stick a single moral standard on the entire world to make a few short-sighted people who are agitating for an "xxx" domain (because they're scared Junior *might* discover what a woman looks like before getting married, God forbid!)
This promises to create an almost unlimited number of social problems. Why, why, *why* is ICANN letting this through? Okay, if we want to have a
It's possible to build a worldwide content-rating system, but tying it into DNS (at least using the current approach) is just plain stupid. You want websites to be rated, add a
Re:Making parental controls easier (Score:2, Insightful)
ZERO!
You will just end up with twice as many porn sites now.
Re:I figure... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is this a bad idea? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just a price hike (Score:5, Insightful)
This is nothing more than a gamble that legisation will force adult content to
Re:i'm certain i'm not the first to think of this (Score:5, Insightful)
Who decides what constitutes "pornography"? You? Congress? What if Iran got to decide? They have internet access, too, remember.
A simple litmus test could be that the obscenity rules that apply to broadcasters being the yardstick against which
Yeah, the FCC has done such a great job of applying random, inconsistent rules to broadcasters. Skin is immoral and dangerous to our children, but extreme violence is perfectly fine? Also note that radio broadcasters have *much* more stringent rules than over-the-air television broadcasters do.
it's a win-win situation according to me... what am i not getting?
Government-mandated morality is not a good thing because it relies on one subset of the population's interpretation of "morals". This is not to say that the TLD is a bad idea, but it needs to be voluntary, not compulsory.
IAWTP (Score:4, Insightful)
they should be looking at the needs of other net users. .blog would be a good start.
It would make it so much easier to filter. Google: "usefulstuff -site:.blog". I like it allready.
Just a money grab (Score:2, Insightful)
And to those of you that say to legislate or have some kind of ICANN check to see if your site is allowed to be a .com or not, I say it can't be enforced. What's to stop a porn site from setting up an innocent .com non-porn site, then after getting approved, switching content to porn. Who's going to police this?
Yeah, right. THAT would work (Score:5, Insightful)
It's going to be about a year before Congress tries to find someway to outlaw all porn that isn't on a .xxx domain.
Because the entire internet is in the US. (Not saying the morons won't try it)
Re:Just a price hike (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just a price hike (Score:3, Insightful)
But what is porn? Who decides what qualifies as porn? How about I open a lingerie shop that only sells panties. Then I put up a bunch of pictures of topless women. I am operating a legitimate business. So what if I get a bit of extra traffic. That's not my business. Should I have to move to a
Another very real-world example: What about realdoll.com (intentionally not linked. Cut and paste, you pervert...) They sell a legitimate product, but you could still wank off to their website. Putting them on a
I'm just playing devil's advocate here to spur some discussion, but you have to be careful when you ask for government for oversight. It's like making a wish to the Devil. He's crafty enough to take your wish and end up distoring it to screw you over...
Re:Just a price hike (Score:3, Insightful)
Teenagers whose parents leave their credit cards laying around.
Re:Wow, they did something right! (Score:1, Insightful)
Mis-direction? I think I've only been `surprised` two or three times my entire lifetime on the Internet by porn sites. Usually I have a pretty good inclination whether the URL I'm about to follow goes to a porn site or not.
Strongly suspecting that, deciding whether I will give into that temptation to visit the porn site is a whole separate matter.
Governments should not be introducing legislation to `help` me decide my moral choices.
Re:Just a price hike (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. It almost makes sense if you were thinking "well, it costs the community a great deal to cope with the problem of porn 'overflow'. But once you realize that the extra money will not go to any of the people who feel the pain, it looks like outright extortion.
Also, it's not enough to keep any real porn company from doing business. What it's enough to do is to be a barrier to new entrants to the market--people who don't yet have a cash flow.
But, of course, we don't really care about treating this industry fairly, right? I think it's a bit of judgmentalism about the industry that says "no one will dare complain", and if they do, we can probably just ignore them and expect no one to care if they get outraged. The business is either illegal or it's not. And if it's not illegal, then I don't see that it's fair to charge it a different amount. Is there no requirement of fairness in ICANN's charter? Does it not even occur to ICANN that this price might be unfair? Or does it just not matter to them?
A Better Idea (Score:1, Insightful)
They are more likely to make that succeed than creating a
Re:Just a price hike (Score:2, Insightful)
They must be using Scrabble for their administration...