Domain Wars: The U.S. Versus .xxx (.xxx stopped after Rove/Dobson meeting)

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1965901,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Domain Wars: The U.S. Versus .xxx

May 22, 2006

Newly released e-mails allege U.S. government officials pressured a leading Internet authority into voting against creating a kind of red-light district for adult Web sites.

(snip)

Since the ICANN vote, ICM Registry has made public e-mails, here in PDF form http://www.internetgovernance.org/pdf/xxx-foiapage.pdf , between members of the Department of Commerce, various other branches of the federal government and ICANN. The company had asked for the communications earlier under a Freedom of Information Act request.

After discovering many of the emails had been redacted, ICM on May 19 asked a judge in Washington, D.C., to force the Department of Commerce to fill in the blanks.

ICM says the e-mails show how the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce, were subjected to intense pressure to intervene in some way on behalf of the The Family Research Council, and Focus On The Family, two religious conservative lobbyists.

(snip)

As the e-mail blitz was going on, Bush's main political operative, Karl Rove, met with James Dobson, the leader of Focus On The Family, to air his opposition to the .xxx proposal, ICM learned through other sources.

A secret "Stop .XXX" order went in effect shortly after the meeting, according to the documents.

(snip)

"The documents released so far reveal that the United States government exerted undue political influence on ICANN's consideration of the .xxx domain application, and treated an independent corporation as a client agency of the United States government despite a lack of any legitimate authority to do so," wrote Stuart Lawley, ICM Registry president, in an e-mail to eWEEK.

(snip)

link: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1965901,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594

Instead of putting sex in a ghetto, there should be a .kids domain where it's safe for children to surf. And we adults can have our adulthood back without worrying about what some kid's gonna see.

what I do not like about this story is that Dobson and his holy rollers are able to pressure BushCo on how the internet should be set up. Then BushCo steps in and stops any deliberation of the issue by the internet authorities.

One man's views controlled what millions are allowed to do.

My post was tangential to the main issue here.

anerika

access; but your filter would prevent them from obtaining. XXX would be the best option for filtering effectiveness and letting kids otherwise enjoy the broad use of the net. And pornographers would welcome it because they would have a clear method by which they could operate. The real reason that Dobson et al opposes this is that they are less interested in preventing children from having access to porn than in creating problems for the adult porn industry and preserving the issue so they can fundraise on it.

the proposal I suggested. They (and I) don't want sex to be stuck in a ghetto. I would rather have my child only be able to access .kids domains (which safe sites could easily co-purchase with their regular domain names ) than to have to split the Internet with an .xxx domain.

But again, this is tangential to the main issue, which is the inappropriate amount of power Dobson has.

Not all sites which kids *shouldn't* access would move to .XXX. What about violent sites? Those aren't porn. Or even just ordinary forums like this one where there might be discussions of issues too serious for kids, stuff like war and death? That isn't porn, but it's not kid-safe either. If you want an internet that's entirely kid-friendly and can be used without parental supervision, you have to have the equivalent of a .Kids walled garden.

We can have .Kids be like rated G for the internet. If you have really small kids, then you can restrict everythign they wacth to just that domain.

And .XXX can be like rated R.

That way the tweens can stil access stuff.

A site dedicated to teen sex ed? -- off to the .xxx gettto.
A site for gay sexual health info? -- off to the .xxx getto.

And what about operators in other countries? How exactly do you enforce .xxx?

Of course we could go China's route, and just not let people in the US access any sites outside the country...

... and why I agree with the decision not to create a special "internet red light district."

ICM is NOT a content management organization. Maintaining "xxx" as a special place for porn on the net, as good an idea as it may seem, would require it to begin policing the internet, something it is not set up to do.

This was actually opposed by the adult industry as well. Do you know how much money has been dumped into promoting adult .com sites?

The Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act of 2002 mandated creation of the kids.us domain in which qualified providers can register domain names of the form <name>.kids.us.

There are something like 15 sites there.

In fact, the original ICM proposal in 2000 had BOTH a .kids and a .xxx, but ICANN voted that down too!

15 sites is kinda puny, though. But I'll be looking into that later on, definitely.

Those creeps will just pretend to be a child under 12 to gain access to kids.

That hypocritic hatefilled gasbag useless dangerous fuck.

Tell us how you REALLY feel.

:rofl:

Seriously, LTwife and I are raising our
granddaughters(ages 3 and 1). A .kids as
well as a .xxx would make our job much easier,
considering we're not exactly spring chickens
anymore. Quite frankly, I won't let them access
DU until they're at least 13, because of the language.

No, I'm not tossing stones. I've dropped more than my
share of F-bombs in my posts.

i really don`t understand that at all. one problem is that the xxx was not mandatory and another is that the fundies would lose one of their fund raising issues. the real issue is raising one`s kids so they find pornography, shall i say,distasteful. the right wants their idea of a nanny state,sorry guys it`s not up to you.

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I remember one of my earlier internet experiences in Googling "Ontario" (that's the province I live in) and "jobs"

I'll leave the results to your imaginations

but the top hits were not about employment . . .

Besides, Google usually has a great intelligent filtering so that you don't usually see anything that could be considered objectionable unless you input a search that it considers to be deliberately requesting it.

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8 years ago

BUT

I'll have to say - I was really quick to close the window that I had found

Because I was in a government resource centre!

and they sorta frown on "non-employment" "JOB" searching

AND

I cannot even say if it was even Google I used back then - probly not

I was pretty much a "virgin" on this computer/internet thing back then

BUT

now I build them, format, change HD's from one to another and program them

just for myself

As a poor guy it was a necessity to LEARN!

The one I'm using right now is one I found in our local DUMP!

I was using a 233 Mhz in a puter only designed for 200 - but found this one with a 350Mhz processor in it, then switched hard-drives around an so on - and here I am

I think xxx would reduce spam and redirecting, and that is why the right doesn't want it. I believe the Right is controlled by gun dealers, prostitution rings, slave dealers, drug dealers and pedophiles. Having a xxx site would make it too easy to create spam filters, and any site not conforming to the xxx would get slammed hard by the true "conservatives" interested in truly protecting children and sensitive adults. No profit for the crooks in xxx. That's what I believe. Damn crooks, anyway!

:wtf:

Must get awful uncomfortable talking out your ass all the time...

I think the .xxx would be a great addition and would help. So I don't get 3000 e-mails a week saying come to my site for young hot whores who need you now.

I feel it would make filtering the stuff a lot easier imo I don't ask for it and don't want it. I feel my privacy is being violated with the spam

This measure does not ban porn sites just puts them in a group like .org or .gov does nothing to the access part. Would this really hurt anyone if this happened.

which I will agree is a problem.

But sending all adult content (and content that is educational, but sexually explicit too), will do nothing to stop the spam in your mailbox.

mommy government to stick their noses in everything. Get a filter like I have. I had to close it because when I went to read this message the filter prevented me from reading it. I had to close it by using a password to read this message. What offending thing did this message have? XXX, that's what. Guess what, I found a sex tracker cookie on my pc with the filter, how? Because not all adult sites have adult names and are very sneaky. If they required adult sites to have a .xxx it would be easier for my filter to catch the adult sexual content and BLOCK it. You would figure that these rightwing wackos would welcome the .xxx so it would be easier to track porn that has been viewed on the pc. There are freeware and trialware adult content filters.

I use this
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/pfilter.html

for parents, libraries, schools and the like

He got the Christianists to lobby against an anti-internet-gambling law, and now someone has gotten the same Christianists to lobby against an anti-internet-pornography law.

:kick: