New .xxx domain for porn debuts to mixed feelings
— -- For some, today's official grand opening of the .xxx domain is the best thing to happen to Internet pornography since it was injected with life in the 1990s, as depicted in the movie Middle Men. For others, it's a dangerous move that comes with too many negative consequences, some subtle and some severe.
The idea of setting aside an Internet domain for adult material has been around for over a decade. In 2000 and 2004, proposals were submitted to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), but garnered widespread opposition from conservative groups.
After ICANN initially approved the domain in 2005, .xxx faced six years of legal and procedural hurdles before getting the final go-ahead in March 2011. Since then the ICM Registry (which polices the domain) hosted an initial closed sale for some .xxx domains, and today they're available to anyone who wants one, at $60 a pop.
The general sale is far from the last word on such a controversial topic. Those opposed to adult entertainment, those who produce it, and consumers have all staked out their territory on the debate, sometimes on both sides of the debate, over whether .xxx domains are a good idea.
Cases for and against
Many conservative groups suggest that creating a top-level domain (TLD) for porn is tantamount to an endorsement of it. The same logic is what keeps most cities from creating an official red-light district, like in Amsterdam, where adult activities are permitted, if regulated. By setting aside part of the Web for porn, those groups would have to accept that it'll be around in some form no matter what.
"We are not in favor of the establishment of that domain," Patrick Vaughn, general counsel for the American Family Association, told Mashable. "It just creates more real estate for the pornography industry, and it doesn't exclude the sites that already exist. It might have been helpful if they set up .xxx, and that was the only place to find pornography. As this is, it just gives [pornographers] more to work with."
The ICM Registry says creating a .xxx domain is better for those who don't like porn, since it provides an easy way to filter out adult-entertainment sites. After all, if a site has the .xxx suffix, it's clear before you even go there what kind of content will be there, and telling software to simply filter those sites out is an easy thing to do.
At the same time, .xxx domains provide better protections than other porn sites, and that benefits people who do want access to adult material. Since anyone who runs a .xxx site agrees to certain conditions — among them a daily scan for malware, dedicated servers for search, and access to a new micropayment system — the sites will theoretically be safer and easier to use than other adult sites, which are sometimes breeding grounds for malware.
Despite those benefits, some think the idea of putting all the Web's porn eggs in one basket makes it that much easier for a government or third party to simply push a button and make it all go away. Besides the censorship concerns, some vendors of adult material object to the whole idea of a .xxx domain, arguing that it relegates to an Internet "ghetto" aspects of human sexuality that society shouldn't be ashamed of in the first place.
Is money the real issue?
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