Sex domain dies

The Australian ^ | 30 March 2006 | Simon Hayes

[Senator Bedfellow]

Some unaccredited schools in the .edu domain:

http://www.pacificlife.edu/
http://www.mdivs.edu/
http://www.hartland.edu/
http://www.heartlandbaptist.edu/

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

The proposal would also have involved censoring all remaining .com domains and lots of disagreement as to what constitutes porn. Think of how many message board have postings with some nudity.

It is very simple. Use the same definition for porn that is used for child porn. Everybody knows what that is, don't they? "Lascivious exhibition" "Focus on the genital area" etc. If the purpose is to keep kids from seeing porn, then you have to eliminate it from every website and message board that is not filterable, right? If the non-XXX site really wants it, it can be stored and hotlinked on an XXX picture server like images on eBay are stored elsewhere and it will show up on the page as an "X" (or "XXX") where it is filtered.

If it is not a big enough deal to do that, then we need to just bring the porn out of the closet, give it to the kids, tell them it is no big deal and forget about it because there isn't any other possible solution.

[Tall_Texan]

PlayBoy would just become PlayBoy.sex and NOBODY else could register PlayBoy.com... it would be retired and any intellectual property rights would transfer to PlayBoy.sex.

It would be easier that that! Allow PlayBoy.com to continue to exist ad infinitum but require those visiting the URL to either immediately redirect to a ".sex" page or have a home page with no pornographic material where every internal click link goes to a ".sex" page.

The browser set to deny pages with a ".sex" URL will deny the redirected page but those with no problem can still easily access it. Allow, say, a 90-day period for site owners to buy a duplicate ".sex" URL to their ".com" URL at no charge.

No property theft has occured (since the URL is still valid) and site owners who respond in a timely fashion incur minimal costs for setting up a shadow site for their actual content.

A business such as PlayBoy could even use the ".com" side for non-pornographic pursuits such as articles and shopping catalogue.

I think the "rearguard" opposition tells you who in the western world opposes such a thing.

[gondramB]

"
If it is not a big enough deal to do that"

Well, except for the it being unconstitutional, in violation of international treaties and that it would result in many billions in lawsuits.

[freepatriot32]

What would www.freerepublic.xxx look like?

The ann coulter pics would be a lot hotter :-)

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Thank goodness, this is an idiotic idea.

I'm not so sure.

1) How do you identify a porn site?

See post #42

2)Who will do the identification?

Anyone who reports it to the site owner, the ISP, and then some bureaucrat who tells them to put it on an XXX or else, for the chiiiiildren. If not a bureaucrat, then some quasi-governmental porn-industry funded organization. Heck, they could probably find volunteers to do the work 8*}

3)Will there be an appeal process?

Only if the site wants to pay court costs.

4)How much will this all cost?

Less than trying to filter it on an ad hoc basis.

5)Who will manage the .xxx tld (top level domain)? there's a LOT of money in that.

There is a lot of money in porn.

6)What if 2 companies own porn sites, say porn.org and porn.com. Which one gets porn.xxx? What does the other get? How about the owner of porn.net? porn.biz? porn.info?

7) Some have suggested a 5 yr embargo on the .com names. Others have pointed out that the .com names are worth a lot to their owners and that this would be a takings situation. Have you considered the further economic costs to the .COM domain registrars? This would by bureaucratic fiat steal millions of domain names which represent recurring revenue... for 5 years. Who will compensate the registrars?

Neither of these is a problem to anyone who understands the internet. The current registrants can keep their current domains. They just move all content to an XXX domain and leave an auto-redirect or text-only gateway page at the old domain. Anyone going there will be sent to the XXX page except those for whom XXX is filtered. Then the value of the old domain is not changed. Those with the COM domain get first dibs on the corresponding XXX at nominal cost. The others just pick something else. It doesn't matter what, since they are still accessible from their non-XXX page. People with XXX sites can even get new COM domains if they think it is easier to find.

I really don't see why ICANN didn't figure this out.

[Senator Bedfellow]

They just move all content to an XXX domain and leave an auto-redirect or text-only gateway page at the old domain.

How about a proxy server at porn.com, which brokers all the content that's nominally hosted on porn.xxx? How will you filter that? What happens when they bypass the DNS system altogether? "For a good time, go to 4.2.2.4". How do you propose to filter that, except on an ad-hoc basis?

[Cronos]

they have porn on de net?

[Cronos]

they have something else besides FR on de net?

[D-fendr]

So many flies in yer ointment..

anyone who reports it to the site owner, the ISP, and then some bureaucrat

And those honorable folks who run porn sites wouldn't use this to harass their competition would they?

3)Will there be an appeal process? - - Only if the site wants to pay court costs.

How many hours you think before someone at kos reports FR, for one example?

[dread78645]

Nobody got kicked out of .edu

I stand corrected.
I remember alot of bitching about it on the admin mailing list. (Full disclosure: My company wasn't even connected at the time, I was 'uunet!calcas!sysadmin' back then ...)

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Having the .XXX domain makes it possible to block or filter out all content

You answered your own question

If everyone had to put their guns in the same place (just to keep children away from them) would you think that was a reasonable idea?

The erosion of freedom begins at the margins. Porn is an extreme form of free speech that hovers close to the edge. But once you start banning things, it is hard to stop.

[dread78645]

They just move all content to an XXX domain and leave an auto-redirect or text-only gateway page at the old domain.

Nothing has to "move".
If the whole site is going from 'freshfish.com' to 'freshfish.xxx', then the registar makes a one line change of the A record and that's it.
If the site uses SSL, the admin will need to put down his coffee cup and change a couple of lines in the web server config file.

I really don't see why ICANN didn't figure this out.

ICANN has it figured out. It's the governments on the 'governmental advisory committee' that don't like it. Why they don't like it is the question.

[gakrak]

We already have filters on our browsers for porn contend. the family filters do work. Amen.

[Psycho_Bunny]

If everyone had to put their guns in the same place (just to keep children away from them) would you think that was a reasonable idea?

The erosion of freedom begins at the margins. Porn is an extreme form of free speech that hovers close to the edge. But once you start banning things, it is hard to stop.

That's not a valid argument in this context.  This isn't a proposal to ban porn sites, it's intended to make them easier to block.  There's a huge difference between the two.  Especially considering that most of the people who genuinely want porn regulated to a .xxx domain are already going to unnecessary lengths to block it.

Currently, I have to run 3 content management devices on my network.  My company had to buy the devices, has to license them...my staff has to expend man-hours maintaining them...they slow down the internet access for the entire network because every click has to be checked against a database instead of being checked against a simple *.xxx wildcard....all in all, the situation is pretty bad and all most of us want is the ability to block porn easily and cheaply in the workplace.

Other arguments on this thread, such as the loss of the value of the name, are over-stated:  very little value would actually be lost....and to the extent that there would be a burden placed on pornographers it would be a burden shifted - not placed - from all of us who are carrying the water trying to keep them out of the workplace.

 

 

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

And those honorable folks who run porn sites wouldn't use this to harass their competition would they?

The competition would be on XXX domains too.

How many hours you think before someone at kos reports FR, for one example?

So post some on Kos and then report it ]:->

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

How about a proxy server at porn.com, which brokers all the content that's nominally hosted on porn.xxx? How will you filter that?

Porn content anywhere outside XXX would be reported and shut down.

What happens when they bypass the DNS system altogether? "For a good time, go to 4.2.2.4". How do you propose to filter that, except on an ad-hoc basis?

The filter software would do a reverse lookup.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

So you wouldn't mind locking up your guns in a central place.

Seems like a valid comparison. Keeps the guns away from children and people who shouldn't have them. It saves money by lowering maitenence costs.

No one is taking your rights or your guns away. Just making sure they are easier to control.

That may not be the best argument on the thread. The best is really who gets to decide what costitutes pornography and who enforces the law. But rounding up the sites into a nice porn ghetto certainly makes them easier to eliminate if that is your goal.

If freedom were easy and cheap, it would be easy and cheap.

[bobwoodard]

It is very simple. Use the same definition for porn that is used for child porn. Everybody knows what that is, don't they? "Lascivious exhibition" "Focus on the genital area" etc.

That might be useful for some people, but there are parts of the world where I'm willing to bet just exhibition constitutes porn.

[bobwoodard]

The filter software would do a reverse lookup.

I don't get it? If you're pointing at the IP address and the IP address isn't registered, what's the point of a reverse lookup? Are you talking about all possible IP addresses being added to the DNS servers? What about the eventual move to IPV6? Would _all_ IP addresses be required to registered?