New .XXX Top Level Domain

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!

[DHalcyon]

More TLDs noone is going to use because ".com" just sounds cooler.

I can't wait.

[analog_line]

I look forward to the 20-year running gag that will be the legal battle over "sex.xxx".

Re:Yeah, like they're going to voluntarily do this

[Shaper_pmp]

Even better, from TFA:

"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 .xxx top-level domain only exists to help filter pr0n (blithely assuming parents all use filtering software)? And it costs ten times what a .com address does? And because it's new and non-standard people are less likely to recognise/remember/use it?

Wow, sounds like they're really stacking up those reasons to change to a .xxx address, eh?

Which is the top reason they *won't* move

[Kjella]

If we can start moving all the pornography on to .xxx sites then we could make it far easier for people who dislike pornography to block it out .

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 .com, and get all the people that have blocked .xxx but will, if you just tempt them properly, subscribe to your site. Result: Profit!

Kjella

Re:Would that be a problem?

[MrWim]

you mean .org.us ?

STUPID idea, and this is why

[typical]

but why can't there be legislation that FORCES pornographic websites to use such a suffix from now on?

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 .xxx.us domain, we can make it, but there is zero reason aside from registrars pushing for more short-term money and a few short-sighted people pushing to "solve" the "Internet porn problem".

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 /rating.txt file that works like the robots.txt that indicates level of content, and have web browsers and proxies respect it. For Christ's sake. But don't do something goddamn stupid like add a .xxx TLD.

Re:Making parental controls easier

[ylikone]

"What are the chances of voluntary compliance by the industry though?"

ZERO!

You will just end up with twice as many porn sites now.

Re:I figure...

[Intron]

and who decides what is porn and illegal on .com or .org now? If a bare nipple sets off a hellstorm [oops, heckstorm] then you better watch your ass [oops, behind] or your site will get banned. Fortunately, obscenity isn't allowed on /.

Why is this a bad idea?

[jkgamer]

I do not understand why the comments I've been reading suggest that this will be another avenue to censorship on the web. In reality, it is an opporunity to avoid censorship. I suppose it does provide an easy path for governments to ban access to the .xxx domains, however the purveyors of adult material would just continue to use the rest of the top-level domains to reach consumers. Instead this could be a great benefit to both the seller and consumer by providing a non-intrusive channel to such material. It would provide parents with a tool to prevent inappropriate material from reaching their children. And while most everyone has a general curiosity and interest, they don't especially welcome explicit images flashing across their computer screen simply because they mistyped a URL address. It is the extreme positions that state we either elimante or distribute to all that are madness. There is nothing bad about using a little common sense and responsability. (Unless, of course, you are a typical teenager with raging hormones. Then you can politely ignore this comment and continue your search for 'boobies')

Just a price hike

[nietsch]

Porn is one of the most profiting busineses on the internet. What if you just could bunch those profitable business together and force them to pay more? In TFA it suggest a price of 60$ which is about 10 times more then a normal domain. Why should it be this expensive? Are domains with the letter X that much harder to register than domains with the letter c?
This is nothing more than a gamble that legisation will force adult content to .xxx. The registar hopes to cash in on that move. Since the expense of 60$ is just small change with profitable porn, they may just get away with it too. Maybe /. should ask a licence to print money from congress too?

Re:i'm certain i'm not the first to think of this

[Scutter]

but why can't there be legislation that FORCES pornographic websites to use such a suffix from now on?

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 .xxx compulsory domain naming apply

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

[trezor]

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

[ylikone]

The only one to benefit from .xxx are the registrars! I mean, porn sites will never give up their .com sites, they'll just buy the .xxx version of their .com site to make sure cyber-squatters don't get it. Then they'll just redirect it to their .com site.

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

[trezor]

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

[jumpingfred]

Is porn really that profitable? Who pays for porn?

Re:Just a price hike

[a_nonamiss]

Decent idea

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 .xxx domain? On the opposite side, parents would have a legitimate complaint if they found their 8-year old looking at my panties-only site. But where is the line? Who decides what's "decent?" Sounds like more government oversight into our private lives.

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 .xxx domain could cripple their business, and they don't even have pictures of (real) naked people on their site.

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

[mormop]

"Is porn really that profitable? Who pays for porn?"

Teenagers whose parents leave their credit cards laying around.

Re:Wow, they did something right!

[Anonymous Coward]

CloakedMirror [slashdot.org] wrote in comment 12703961 [slashdot.org]:

Instead, they often use mis-direction to tempt the user into visiting their site.

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

[NetSettler]

What if you just could bunch those profitable business together and force them to pay more? ... Why should it be this expensive?

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Why didn't they create a .kids domain? And then regulate it as much as they please. It wouldn't require porn sites to go anywhere and those sites that were aimed at kids could then register with that suffix.

They are more likely to make that succeed than creating a .xxx.

Re:Just a price hike

[no-karma-no-worries]

Are domains with the letter X that much harder to register than domains with the letter c?

They must be using Scrabble for their administration...