Adult Site Operators Fear Bush Administration

[grnidone]

The inauguration of President George W. Bush and the likely confirmation of John Ashcroft as Attorney General have antipornography forces rejoicing and adult-site operators nervous.

[url=http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2676270,00.html]http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2676270,00.html[/url

[littleman]

Just a rant...

Do you guys think we will ever have a Libertarian President. Both the Dems and Reps always want to push an ideological structure on to people 'for their own good'. Fortunately, they are always too busy arguing with each other to get anything done.

[rcjordan]

just a reply to a rant...

Not a chance (we will ever have a Libertarian President)

[seth_wilde]

"Libertarian President"

Come on littleman......you gotta get this going! I'm kinda partial to Bill Maher (the host of politically incorrect).... Give your connections a call :)

[Brett_Tabke]

The business to be in right now is off shore. Our ticket to lifetime fortune could be moving to the Caymens and setting up shop hosting on the beach. Those adult operators are moving stuff offshore fast. I've had many questions about it since the election.

[miles]

To be honest I think that the porn spammers should be scared. If Ashcroft is elected then there will be a stir with porn issues.

I was talking with someone and they had a good idea, the porn sites should have a .xxx instead of com, net, org.

[DrCool]

The spammers would find too many ways around that. The line between what is considered porn and what isn't is not defined enough to implement something like that. I would like to see something like that also but it won't happen any time soon.

[littleman]

The government has no business deciding what is spam or not. That is up to the search engines to decide - that is what a free market is all about. At question is not hat is considered spam but what is considered 'obscene'. I doubt that there is
any one of us who would agree where that line is. Is Playboy obscene? Penthouse? Victoria Secret? Maplethorp? Michelangelo?

Here is a good link on the subject:
http //www.adultweblaw.com/laws/obscene.htm

And the Supreme Court Obscenity Definition
1) A thing must be prurient in nature
2) A thing must be completely devoid of scientific, political, educational, or social value
3) A thing must violate the local community standards
If it meets all three of these things, it is obscenity.

How is that for vague?

Edited by: grnidone

[Brett_Tabke]

A real rats nest. The problem is they are going to push the issue and just "mess with people" (aka: spread fud about the issue).

[miles]

DrCool I agree that the porn spammers would find ways around that.

Littleman the vagueness of the definition sounds like someone who was tring to be a politian. The Search engines should decide what porn spam is, but the reality of that is slim fat and none. Porn is probably one of the most searched for keywords so the more sites that are on there engine the more traffic and the more visited the engines are. So its just good business to keep the Porn on the engines.

[grnidone]

Although, back on the .XXX issue for all adult sites, one would think that adult web people would *want* to do that.

They make money hand over fist, and while it is a competitive market, they wouldn't have to deal with the legal hassles of people who weren't supposed to go to their sites anyway. They could then put the blame back onto parents of minors, etc. "We are an XXX domain, and they should screen that out."

It is not like they are hurting for consumers.

-G

[msgraph]

>They could then put the blame back onto
parents of minors, etc

Which could keep the charge back percentages down.

[miles]

I think the .xxx would be a great idea. But then you have to worry about bait-and-switch, redirects and tricks I dont even know about. Although the .xxx would be eaiser for the companies to shift the blame back on the parents. I dont know weither or not this would work or not, but there are some definite advantages to the .xxx.