Internet pornography and .xxx domain


The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has recently given up on supplying an .xxx domain for pornography. Apparently, the decision came about as a result of 6,000 letters sent to the Commerce Department, allegedly from a "cell" of evangelical Christians—in particular, from a group calling itself "Concerned Women for America" (CWA). No doubt, these well-intentioned women were seeking to combat the ubiquity of pornography on the net. They were worried that the .xxx domain would give pornographers a "new platform." What they accomplished, instead, by agitating against the .xxx is to make it harder to control internet pornography.

The CWA, in a press release, expressed their satisfaction that the plan to implement .xxx has been canceled. “Creating a .xxx domain exclusively for pornographers would just be giving them a new platform to spread their smut,” said the chief counsel of CWA, Jan LaRue. “Not only would smut-peddlers retain their current pornographic Web sites on all other domains, they would have been granted their own exclusive one.

“Porn site operators are the only ones who stand to gain from having a .xxx domain," insisted LaRue. "Families across America realize that this outrageous scheme would only provide children with more opportunities to view hard-core porn images, and help legitimize an illegitimate industry."

In what way does have an .xxx domain name legitimize porn? Doesn't the .com domain names legitimize it more—i.e., make it more of a mainstream? Wouldn't the .xxx domain help segregate porn from those of us who don't what anything to do with it? I fear that here we find ourselves confronted once again with a good cause being defended ineptly. Granting .xxx domains does not in any way provide pornographers with another platform. Domains are not platforms! The women of the CWA are clueless about computer technology. The fact of the matter is that pornography has a very large presence on the web and there is little anyone can do about it. Try to make it illegal, and they'd just go off shore. Try to block it would with filters and they'd just use encryption. You're not going to stop it or put an end to its spread. But what you can do is parcel it out to its own specific domain space, separate from legitimate enterprises.

Instead of agitating against .xxx domains, the CWA, and all other Christian organizations, should seek to make it mandatory that pornography remains within an .xxx domain. Instead of writing letters to ICANN trying to persuade them to give up the .xxx domain idea, they should be persuading ICANN to deny domain names to any pornographic site that refuses to use the .xxx extension. How much easier would it be to segregate, filter, and separate from the filth of pornographic if all such sites had no choice but to use an .xxx domain! Please, let's stop being so stupid about how we go about defending morality.

Posted: Tue - December 13, 2005 at 04:27 PM          

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