RSSICANN Rejects '.xxx' Domain Again
By Ed Oswald | Published March 30, 2007, 12:00 PM
ICANN rejected a proposal to create a domain for adult websites for the third time Friday, after the plan received criticism from world governments, religious groups, and members of the adult entertainment industry.
Porn sites felt that the creation of .xxx would eventually cause anti-porn advocates to press governments to make it mandatory to use the domain. Religious groups felt that a domain would legitimize pornography.
The motion to create the domain failed by a 9-5 margin. "This decision was the result of very careful scrutiny and consideration of all the arguments," ICANN chair Vint Cerf said. "That consideration has led a majority of the Board to believe that the proposal should be rejected."
Done in an open board meeting, the vote also gave a chance for board members to voice their opinions. ICANN CEO Paul Tworney abstained from the vote, although did not give a reason.
Those who voted against .xxx cited concerns over ICANN moving to the business of regulating content, while those who voted in its favor argued that the organization should not be using the laws of a country in deciding what is pornographic.
The decision is a blow to ICM Registry LLC, the Florida-based company that had first proposed the domain about seven years ago. In a statement, its president Stuart Lawley expressed disappointment, and said it would continue to pursue the domain's creation.
"It is not supportable for any of the reasons articulated by the Board, ignores the rules ICANN itself adopted for the RFP, and makes a mockery of ICANN's bylaws prohibition of unjustifiable discriminatory treatment," he said.
ICM claims it already has about 76,000 domains pre-registered to take advantage of the domain when it becomes active.
WHY? I think all adult content should be forced to have a XXX domain and then we could just put ALL xxx domains on our blacklist at the company.
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|I think I agree with you on that. :)
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|Cant force anything.... Those .com names are bought and sold. I guess free speech only means free speech when its your speech.
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|Cant force anything
Tell that to every business in the U.S. There are tons of regulations on just about anything you can do in a business.
I guess free speech only means free speech when its your speech.
Free speech still exists. Many people confuse this with the non-existent right to "freedom from consequences." You can't yell "Fire!" at a theater, you can't yell "Bomb!" at the airport, etc.
There are consequences for how free speech is used.
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|.com is where its at.. if you own a porn site and its not .com name - your DOA. Even if you owned sex.xxx - it would get 1/10000th of the hits sex.com gets from type ins.
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|>Porn sites felt that the creation of .xxx would eventually cause anti-porn advocates to press governments to make it mandatory to use the domain.
Yup =)
>Religious groups felt that a domain would legitimize pornography.
No no no -- the fact that human beings are born with innate sexual desire and curiosity and a need to put a roof over their heads legitimizes pornography. Those who are talented at their craft find that you can use video camers and other media to distribute a record of these erotic events and turn a profit. The .xxx domain doesn't legitimize this - it just creates a proper red light district.
What the religious groups who have taken offense to this should do is swap arguments - they should argue BECAUSE it will cause anti-porn advocates to press governments to make the domain mandatory, thus making it easier to moderate.
And then the porn industry should be thrilled because it legitimizes what they do and separates out the Internet scams that give them a bad reputation with proper hard core pornography!
People are so stupid.
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|Ooh, I just saw this middle east .xxx site, the women show their faces. So how would geographically limited governments legislate a global domain?
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|Nope, but you are!
.xxx "legitimizes" porn sites.
at least you identified their primary concern!
They just want to be "legitimate".
I am sure they are thrilled! And that legitimacy will get them ALL banned with one simple filter rule. Why not just wait for them to take themselves off the net. Hold your breath.
And as if the online porn industry needs your help for them to be successful! They are the most successful online market already!
I hope they read Betanews so that they can benefit from your insightful strategic marketing advice. At least they would enjoy a laugh as well.
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|Just goes to show, ICANN is under the control of the religious right. When TLDs like .mobi and .tel which have limited use and scope are approved, and an actually useful .xxx TLD is rejected, you've got to laugh.
Let's move control of DNS to an impartial body not controlled by any one government (ah, and let the idiotic "screw the UN, the US pwns the net" comments commence...)
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|I hole hartedly agree it would make it so much easier for pairents to BLOCK such content and to regulate the indurstury
I can see where regilious people might not like the Idea
I also feel that their shoudl be more scope for such domanin endings such as X12 for soft porn sutabale for under 16's and x16 for medium and XXX
for full on hardcore no dought i will get flamed for this comment ...
at the end of the day you won't so it
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|But wouldnt it be easier to block children from viewing porn if they ALL were mandated to change to the .XXX urls?
I guess that I just don't understand this, it seems that as a society, we'd rather our kids look at violence and sex through video games than actually teach them about it.
IMO, if *all* porn was to have a .XXX url, then it would make it easier on parents to block from their firewalls, etc...instead, it makes it look like our governing body is 'condoning' porn instead of 'corralling' it. - How stupid is THAT?
Just for your info, I'm not against porn, I'm against children viewing it.
Psychlone
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|It seems anymore that parents would rather have society cater to them and require that only child safe material be easily accessible. If all child safe stuff was on its own domain, parents could block everything and just allow that domain. Maybe we should make a new domain for the children infantile adults that are not mature enough to be exposed to such content.
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|I know...Here's a novel idea!
If someone would ONLY propose that X rated web sites be given the extension .xxx!
Its such a great idea! As if all of the x rated sites are lining up so that they can all be blocked with one simple setting!
And then we can expand.
We can have all of the criminals put a big "I am a Criminal" in large block letters on their T-s***s!
Then MS won't even have to ask who the criminals are in their genuine advantage program.
After all, the old program where you asked people if they were a terrorist at the airline ticket counter worked wonderfully too...didn't it?
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|Make it mandatory. Make them free to transfer to. Give then a year to do it.
Done.
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|That doesn't really make sense. Criminals don't wear t-s***s that say "I'm a dubious person" wherein they need a t-s*** to further clarify what type of dubious person they are.
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|Huh?
Nevermind...this is the wacko who played the "Hitler card" and thinks that you can force everyone who has content that HE objects too, to use an extension that he and others would impose.
Yeah right. Why not just ask them to restrict their own sites as well.
The point is that bad people are bad BECAUSE they refuse to play by the same rules that respectable people do!
The same reason that gun laws are followed by law abiding folks but not by criminals!
But...but...but...we should just pass a law stating that all criminals must follow the law!
And they let these idiots near a keyboard as well...there should be a law...
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|Since the reason the people proposing this seems likely linked to the cost (60$ instead of the roughly 10$ depending on who owns it, noted in an earlier article on this) I'm sure that if this actually happened, even the company that's proposing this would give it up... The simple truth is that this domain, as proposed, would be a moneymaking bonanza for the company that owns the domain, and be mostly filled with legitimate, non-porn sites trying to protect themselves from copycat sites. The actual porn sites would still be on the .com and such sites, because it's cheaper and harder to regulate...
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|Good, this is stupid a stupid idea. How many times does it need to be rejected before they shut up about it, and who keeps pushing for this anyway? The industry is against it obviously but so is the religious side. Who is the idiot that keeps proposing this?
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|ICM - a company who stands to evidently profit from the idea.
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|Why is it a stupid idea? Hate to pull the 'Hitler Card' on you as far as porn goes - but do you have children? I do. I have no problem with porn being on the net, but I don't want it in the hands of my kids.
Furthurmore, I sympathize with Google and other search engines. Illegitimate porn sites create a huge amount of wasteful data processing, just like spam does to a corporation's e-mail boxes.
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|Would you care to define porn in a manner the global community can agree on?
What the hell does Hitler have to do with any of this?
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|So take some ****ing responsibility and 'parent' your kids, for Christ's sake. Stop making it everyone else's problem that you're too incompetent to control what your kids see on the Internet.
Sheesh. The audacity. :P
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