ICANN To Reconsider Adult Domains

[engine]

ICANN To Reconsider Adult Domains [news.bbc.co.uk]

A plan to create an internet domain specifically for adult websites will be resurrected three years after it was rejected by internet regulators.

The net's governing body Icann will reconsider the .x x x scheme on 12 March.

Icann had previously given the domain the go ahead in 2005, but reversed the decision two years later amidst protests from US conservative groups.

An independent review recently concluded that decision was unfair and that the plan should be reconsidered.

[JS_Harris]

ICANN overstepped their authority when they reversed their decision, they aren't the morality police. That being said I AM the morality police in my house so banning a complete extension to make sure the kids curiosity stays in decent territory would be great.

Forcing ALL adult sites to carry the new tld... even better imo but that would be overstepping too wouldn't it.

[jecasc]

I am surprised that conservative groups are against an adult websites internet domain.

Blocking adult websites, for example in schools or other public places would be the easiest thing of the world if you had a .x x x domain for all adult content.

[scraptoft]

Does this mean adult content couldn't be on .coms etc?

[UserFriendly]

Gotta love these people who think that if they oppose a three-letter domain, people will stop watching #*$!ography online. Hilarious.

I don't see why it's overstepping the mark to force adult sites to use a specific domain (or set of domains). So long as it's handled properly, no one could be accused of a land grab.

But then, I'm of the opinion that top-level country domains should only be registered by entities from that country.

[UserFriendly]

The word #*$! is auto-censored here? Seriously? Was not expecting that.

[StoutFiles]

I don't own any smut sites, but if the .x x x extension is opened up, will it start off as an auction for certain names? Some names would be EXTREMELY valuable.

Considering they aren't making the .com's disband, I'd assume a lot of sites will just buy the .x x x and 301 to their established .com, making this whole idea worthless except for ICANN who rakes in the money.

[VegasRook]

There's smut junk all over the place (blogger blogs, etc). How exactly do you "force" this off?

I think it's just wishful thinking. Would be nice though.

To me, the issue is NOT the domain or url, it's the search. If I search for teen girls soccer shirt we all know what stuff is going to come up regardless of the domain.

But, the more Google can revise their "safe" search, the more I like it.

Also, what happens if smut isn't on the .x-x-x extension? Does the owner lose the domain? If so, what would this do to public blog systems? Are they exempt? If so, that alone can make all of this worthless.

[HuskyPup]

If I search for teen girls soccer shirt we all know what stuff is going to come up regardless of the domain.

Have you tried this search...perfectly targetted from where I am in the UK and and nearly all US results:-) Oh yeah, I force Google.com US results here!

The word #*$! is auto-censored here?

Try pron or p o r n or p.o.r.n. or p_o_r_n, hehe, I agree, more than over the top:-)

[StoutFiles]

Also, what happens if smut isn't on the .x-x-x extension? Does the owner lose the domain? If so, what would this do to public blog systems? Are they exempt? If so, that alone can make all of this worthless.

You're allowed to keep your .com domain. This is just a ploy by ICANN to make more money with another worthless extension.

[wheel]

There's probably some gray area here, but I guess for all intents and purposes, adult means 'pictures of people's naughty bits'. (I suspect there's other stuff suitable for adult other than what everyone here is thinking).

You're allowed to keep your .com domain. This is just a ploy by ICANN to make more money with another worthless extension.

I dunno - I think there's likely a huge demand for this. It's not regulation, it's compartilizatino. And probably both the industry and consumer would prefer this be put into a compartment.

For the industry, #*$! leaves no doubt as to what the site's about. People can set up hosting companies that cater to this,and define it by domain. Hosting companies can say 'anything, but #*$!'. That's gotta make that industry happy. (aside: no intentions on working in this extension, but I'd be first one to bid on #*$!hosting.#*$! :) just for resale purposes!).

And consumer now have control. We can set up dns or other filters for the extension. We can firewall it. We can go with ISP's that firewall the extension. Or we can specifically go looking for it.

You want a new search engine? How about something that only indexes #*$! domains?

No, I'm onboard with this. By allowing everyone to better define their content in this area, without taking anything away actually gives us better control. I bet the industry would quickly move to this extension on it's own and everyone would be happier.

[commanderW]

Forcing anyone to use a certain domain based on content is a violation of the first amendment. Anything any jackbooted Puuritan does to enforce such a plan will immediately be subverted and turned on it's head by the freedom loving peoples of the U.S. and the world. Good luck on this one, Moral Authorities.

Let's make a domain for governments, regulation, politics and law, and block that.

[BillyS]

That being said I AM the morality police in my house so banning a complete extension to make sure the kids curiosity stays in decent territory would be great.

Completely agree.

[tangor]

Sorry, from my perspective this is only another money grab for ICANN. I am not impressed. And I sincerely doubt that any smut monger will be willing to take on this designation when they can "get clients" via com, org, net, or any of the other tlds they already infiltrate.

[mortenb]

I've always wondered how they figured they were going to enforce this on all the country tlds.

If all the country tlds still allow p orn, then this whole idea is even more useless.

[topr8]

Let's make a domain for governments, regulation, politics and law, and block that.

well there is already .gov
and in the uk we have .gov.uk

and i assume other countries have their own equivalents

[graeme_p]

No one forces governments to use .gov or .gov.uk: they can register a .com etc. if they wish, and they may also use a ccTLD (like parliament.uk).

For this to work, #*$! sites will have to be forced to use .#*$!. Are you suggesting that its a good idea for ICANN to start monitoring sites' content for suitability? Once you establish a precedent, why stop at #*$!? What tribunals and appeal procedures will you use? What about publications that mix #*$! with other material?

What about ccTLDs? How do you deal with different definitions of #*$! (say in the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia)?

There's probably some gray area here, but I guess for all intents and purposes, adult means 'pictures of people's naughty bits'

So an online medical textbook would have to be on an .#*$! domain? What about nudes in art galleries - #*$! in some countries, government subsidised in others?

[HuskyPup]

Forcing anyone to use a certain domain based on content is a violation of the first amendment.

Since when did US law become the world's de facto standard?

IMHO it's a minimum 15 years far too late now, the kids that we're trying to protect now will be adults by the time they decide to "organise" the Internet world's overall busiest sites.

[wheel]

Nobody needs to be forced to use a x x x tld. The industry will migrate to it of it's own accord, and consumers will be better off. It's additional choice, not removal of choice. No first amendment (whatever that is) violation necessary.

It's funny that medical/art is mentioned. I have some content that delved into a similiar arena. One of my staff pointed out that publishing it would mean long tail traffic from people looking for adult stuff, inadvertantly. So we didn't publish that content. Scooting everyone over to this new tld means I could publish this content - because it would be clear that it's not adult related.

[StoutFiles]

No, I'm onboard with this. By allowing everyone to better define their content in this area, without taking anything away actually gives us better control. I bet the industry would quickly move to this extension on it's own and everyone would be happier.

Of course they would move to this extension...but they would keep all their established .com's as well. There would just be twice as many pron sites. Maybe more since adding .x x x extensions would shout "Hey, it's perfectly OK to create pron sites! The extension says so!"

Forcing anyone to use a certain domain based on content is a violation of the first amendment

Scooting everyone over to this new tld means I could publish this content - because it would be clear that it's not adult related.

Did anyone read the article? THEY CAN KEEP THEIR OLD EXTENSIONS. It would only duplicate the amount of pron sites out there. If I owned a great one-word .com, would I just give it up? No! I'd buy the .x x x of the same name and 301 it over to the search-engine established .com.

The main reason for ICANN doing this can only be money. This is supported by that awful idea they had a while back of making everything an extension( ex: .games, .pepsi) and then watching the money roll in.

[HuskyPup]

I'd buy the .x x x of the same name and 301 it over to the search-engine established .com.

Or better still 301 the .com to the .x x x and then a few months later when the search engines have it all sorted sell the .com for a good price...assuming it's a regular word or words.

Could we then have a proper .x x x search engine?

[graeme_p]

Nobody needs to be forced to use a x x x tld. The industry will migrate to it of it's own accord

You mean like all businesses use .biz, all professionals use .pro, all government agencies use .gov.ccTLD, etc.?

Does anyone know if art galleries get long tail #*$! traffic?

[wheel]

You mean like all businesses use .biz, all professionals use .pro, all government agencies use .gov.ccTLD, etc.?

Different dynamics for those other TLD's. Companies have centered around .com's, of their own volition. .com means 'company' to many people. And you know that a .gov.cctld is in fact a gov't (yea, I know that they have to be). But a .gov clearly identifies a gov't entity. We can only speculate if the adult industry would move enmasse to such a tld, I believe they would - they'd find it advantageous.

For example, dozens of x x search engines spring up. You want in, you have to have that domain extension, because the search engines don't index .coms. Consumers start going to those engines when looking for that stuff. So now the companies are motivated to move domains. That kind of traffic on .com's dries up, everyone's happy.

This is not the first time that has happened. When I started, in my region, the advice was always a .com. Today however, if you don't have the country cctld, you're cooked. Consumers originally viewed the .com as the 'serious' business and looked at the .cctld as mickey mouse. Nowadays consumers very specifically go looking for the country tld. Because the tld immediately defines the fact the domain is from a region, and they want info specific to that region. Consumers changed their behavior from .com's to a cctld. I believe an adult tld would work the same way - after a few years consumer behavior would force the industry over (or maybe the industry sees it as a good thing and starts dragging consumers along).

I guess the other reason this would be cool is because I could maybe get my first name with the extension :). An email address of firstname at firstname dot x x would be a good conversation starter!

[StoutFiles]

Maybe I'm wrong here and the .x x x extension would take off, I guess we shall see. It's something I will follow though because if there's a land grab for the extensions instead of auctions then you can bet some of them will be very valuable.

[Petrogold]

<strong>"it's a minimum 15 years far too late now, the kids that we're trying to protect now will be adults by the time they decide to "organise" the Internet world's overall busiest sites."</strong>

I like it. If the planning took 15 years so, those kids became adults now.
Some countries like UAE or Saudi Arabia, the word "S" will ban the site whether its male "S" or female "S" no one could browse an url.

[webcreationuk]

If they allow .#*$! that doesn't mean adult websites will be only there, nobody will forbidden a person to create an adult website on a .com. :)

[tangor]

Looks like ICANN is putting the decision for until next summer:

[theregister.co.uk...]

[edited by: eelixduppy at 2:26 pm (utc) on Mar 14, 2010]
[edit reason] fixed link [/edit]

[wheel]

The article indicates that governments were opposing it.

I don't understand why a government would oppose this. I also don't know why governments have a say in this.

[StoutFiles]

Governments will always have a say in what the Internet does and that will only increase over time. There's just too much money going through the Internet as well as information.