A 10-year battle over whether to create .XXX online domain name ended last week with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announcing the formal creation of a “virtual red-light district.” The domain .XXX now takes its place alongside .com and .org and .net As of last summer there were 110,000 pornographers who had pre-reservations for their space on .XXX
Supporters say the domain will make it easier to filter out inappropriate content and better allow those in the pornography business to police themselves. Stuart Lawley of ICM insists it would be a “win win situation” for the adult entertainment providers, consumers of adult entertainment, and parents who wish to protect their children from adult content on the internet.
When the idea for the domain was first discussed it was thought that pornographers would be required to solely use .XXX, but ICANN announced early on that pornographers would be allowed to keep their .com or .net addresses. Pornographers have now just picked up another way to peddle their “products.”
“My concern about .xxx is that it could give parents a false sense of security. True, it would be very easy to configure browsers or filters to automatically block sites designated as .xxx, but since this is a voluntary program, there would be nothing to stop adult site operators from also using .com. It would be like setting up a red-light district in a community while also allowing adult entertainment establishments to operate in residential shopping centers.” – Larry Magid, Internet Safety Advocate
To read a detail explanation of the reasons why .XXX is dangerous and violates obscenity laws, go here.
The domain could be present on the web as early as this spring. There are an estimated 370 million porn websites on the internet which means that .XXX could become even larger than the internet domain .com
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