A red light district for the net
If regulators have their way, the Internet could soon have its own red light district. At a conference being held in Kenya this week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is discussing whether to introduce a .xxx top level domain for the web.
What this means is that sites with an .xxx domain extension, such as hotties.xxx (that's not a real site, by
Image via Wikipedia
the way), would be obvious providers of adult material. Theoretically, companies would be able to put their porn on a separate, clearly identifiable part of the Internet, making it easy to find for those that want it.
But could it make it easier to avoid, for those that don't want to see it, or for those that want to protect their children from it? Well, it might make it easier for companies that sell online protection software to monitor and block access to pornographic material. Software that blocks your children from visiting adult sites will easily be able to block anything with an xxx domain.
The obvious question is whether many online porn companies would take any notice. Consider, for example, the case of Whitehouse.com, which was a domain used for porn for years (it has now been sold, and at the time of writing is simply parked online).
The obvious advantage to the operator of this domain was that many people would visit thinking that they were going to the presidential Whitehouse site in the US (which uses a .gov suffix). Once they hit the site, they are registered as traffic, which makes that site's visitor numbers look fantastic, and pleases advertisers. There are many companies offering porn online who would be very happy to get traffic, even if visitors did not make to go there, thanks to click-per-impression models that earn them money without you ever having to click on an advertising banner.
A xxx domain wouldn't solve that problem. There will still be online porn companies using any domain that they feel is appropriate to get visitors - especially the very popular .com domain, which many browsers use automatically if you don't specify a suffix. Many of these sites will also deliver malicious softwarevia the web site, or will offer illegal pornography, such as child porn. Many of them will take their customers' credit card numbers and charge them twice for the privilege of looking at the site, or simply sell on the credit card details to other criminals.
This is where a xxx domain could help those people that do want to see titillating images online. The ICM Registry, which is a domain registrar that would sell the xxx Web addresses to online porn companies, would impose a best practice standard. Any site with a xxx domain would have to conform to certain best practices. They would not be able to target children, for example. They would have to prove that they defended customer privacy. They would have to be clear and accurate about the security of their transactions, and they would have to actively combat the use of unlawful techniques online.
So, while we can't stop the spread of scurrilous adult content sites using conventional domains such as .net and .com, we can at least give the legitimate ones a place of their own on the web - and that might make a certain segment of the Internet a lot safer.
Danny Bradbury, MSN Tech & Gadgets
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Posted by: amsterdam red light district | Mar 16, 2010 2:11:09 AM
This top-level domain is absolutely unnecessary. Once again there are groups trying to sequester material they morally object to. Let's leave the internet free as it was intended.