News: Porn's Dominion
Internet=Porn. We all know the score, have heard the jokes, and probably run into (either deliberately or accidentally) our own fair share of pornographic websites. And ever since the internet has been in existence, there has been much debate over how obscenity can be appropriately regulated.
Last June, our good friends at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) agreed to go forward with a new top-level domain (TLD), .xxx. The agreement involved setting the price of the .xxx sites at $60 a pop, roughly ten times higher than comparable .com sites, with many hoping adult companies to voluntarily take on the .xxx suffix.
In response to this, the conservative Family Research Council issued a statement opposing the .xxx domain on the grounds that it would create more, not less, pornography. The assumption being that adult companies would have little incentive to lose the .com name. Instead, for example, Playboy would own both www.playboy.com and www.playboy.xxx. They Family Research Council also goes on to argue that the .xxx domain idea gives legitimacy to porn companies and may dissuade law enforcement from pursuing cases by making it seem like the problem of pornography on the internet is fixed.
Then in August, another swipe at the .xxx domain name took place as governments banded together, lead by the U.S. Department of Commerce, to delay the implementation of the .xxx domain while concerns were being mulled over. In his blog www.freedom-to-tinker.com, Prof. Ed Felton provided more academic concerns, writing about how the .xxx domain will not only be trivial, unnecessary, create more sites, and cause confusion, but also threatens the delicate relationship that ICANN has with the internet.
Today, reports note that ICANN is once again delaying the decision due to pressure from the U.S. government, reversing previous assumptions that the issue would be dealt with at the upcoming ICANN conference in Vancouver.
Personally, I think a new top-level domain name is a pretty good idea. First, to deal with the concerns of the Family Research Council- the question of whether more pornography or less pornography exists isn't really relevant, it's the question of how accessible and regulated this pornography is. As far as the community is concerned, a wide assortment of pornographic magazines held behind a store counter with only the titles showing is far less a concern than a store with only a few pornographic magazines that does not regulate who is able to look through them. That's the point of red-light districts and adult only sections of movie stores: it makes regulation of such material easier.
Their second argument, the idea that .xxx will give pornography companies legitimacy seems to have zero basis in law. Pornography is constitutionally protected free speech, it is legitimate, end of story. It can and should be regulated, but the same goes for commercial and other forms of free speech. Giving porn a separate domain name does give material an easy to find label, but that label clearly states ADULT ONLY.
Finally, with respect to law enforcement, I'm not sure whether or not an .xxx domain will dissuade persecution of porn companies. What I DO know is that we're not exactly pressing a whole lot of charges in the current political atmosphere, and a .xxx domain makes legislating regulations easier.
As for Felton's arguments... the first that it may become confusing having .xxx and .com, for example imagine all of the companies scooping up sites like www.yahoo.xxx and www.google.xxx. This confusion isn't new, and in fact the .xxx might mitigate a lot of the confusion that already goes on. I think the easiest example of a porn site that attracts huge amounts of traffic by strategy of confusion is www.whitehouse.com (but there's a ton out there, the last one I ran into was www.foreignaffairs.com, because I didn't realize that the Foreign Affairs periodical online was under a .org not .com name- other famous examples include ). The idea that I'm going to 'accidentally' type in a .xxx domain name takes a leap of faith that I'm unwilling to believe in.
The .xxx WILL create more sites. But perhaps the .com sites can now be better used as blocker sites. Most 'legitimate' pornography companies have introduction sites that ask users if they are above or below 18 (not that i'd know or anything). This, at the very least, provides a disclaimer for the material within the site-just as an ADULTS ONLY sign in a video store back section does (although since your community members probably aren't hanging around your computer, virtual disclaimers are less effective than physical ones). Perhaps the .com site can become the disclaimer, and when you acknowledge your legally eligible and click the 'I'm above 18' button, it takes you to the .xxx site. Another possibility would be the .com becoming the introductory pages to the site, using sexually suggestive but not hardcore images in the .com site. If either of these occurred and more pornography companies moved to the .xxx domain, filtering would become a lot easier for parents... another point I disagree with, Felton's unsupported assertion that current filtering technologies works effectively.
The last issue is internet governance. Despite the objections from some like Felton that feel that ICANN is moving into regulating content, and others that feel ICANN is bowing under U.S. pressure by NOT going forward with the .xxx site at the whim of a conservative administration, the right thing for ICANN to do is ignore both positions. As Joi Ito, an individual board member of ICANN points out, the proposed .xxx domain name is being done in a fair, democratic manner in which the nature of content will be decided by external organizations (including org's dedicated to freedom of speech, privacy, fairness in online content, credit card companies, and the adult entertainment industry). Take a look at the ICANN .xxx application, you might be surprised. In a statement by the Center for Democracy and Technology, John Morris concurs, arguing that in essence ICANN is only providing an appropriate structure for the internet given the role and scope of pornography on the internet, without making regulatory recommendations (in fact the choice of .xxx and not .porn or .sex represents this, being taken for its straightforward, unambiguous nature). While there might be valid concerns, they should not stop ICANN from going forward... it is a disappointment that such objections are once again bogging down the process of building a better internet.
Last June, our good friends at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) agreed to go forward with a new top-level domain (TLD), .xxx. The agreement involved setting the price of the .xxx sites at $60 a pop, roughly ten times higher than comparable .com sites, with many hoping adult companies to voluntarily take on the .xxx suffix.
In response to this, the conservative Family Research Council issued a statement opposing the .xxx domain on the grounds that it would create more, not less, pornography. The assumption being that adult companies would have little incentive to lose the .com name. Instead, for example, Playboy would own both www.playboy.com and www.playboy.xxx. They Family Research Council also goes on to argue that the .xxx domain idea gives legitimacy to porn companies and may dissuade law enforcement from pursuing cases by making it seem like the problem of pornography on the internet is fixed.
Then in August, another swipe at the .xxx domain name took place as governments banded together, lead by the U.S. Department of Commerce, to delay the implementation of the .xxx domain while concerns were being mulled over. In his blog www.freedom-to-tinker.com, Prof. Ed Felton provided more academic concerns, writing about how the .xxx domain will not only be trivial, unnecessary, create more sites, and cause confusion, but also threatens the delicate relationship that ICANN has with the internet.
Today, reports note that ICANN is once again delaying the decision due to pressure from the U.S. government, reversing previous assumptions that the issue would be dealt with at the upcoming ICANN conference in Vancouver.
Personally, I think a new top-level domain name is a pretty good idea. First, to deal with the concerns of the Family Research Council- the question of whether more pornography or less pornography exists isn't really relevant, it's the question of how accessible and regulated this pornography is. As far as the community is concerned, a wide assortment of pornographic magazines held behind a store counter with only the titles showing is far less a concern than a store with only a few pornographic magazines that does not regulate who is able to look through them. That's the point of red-light districts and adult only sections of movie stores: it makes regulation of such material easier.
Their second argument, the idea that .xxx will give pornography companies legitimacy seems to have zero basis in law. Pornography is constitutionally protected free speech, it is legitimate, end of story. It can and should be regulated, but the same goes for commercial and other forms of free speech. Giving porn a separate domain name does give material an easy to find label, but that label clearly states ADULT ONLY.
Finally, with respect to law enforcement, I'm not sure whether or not an .xxx domain will dissuade persecution of porn companies. What I DO know is that we're not exactly pressing a whole lot of charges in the current political atmosphere, and a .xxx domain makes legislating regulations easier.
As for Felton's arguments... the first that it may become confusing having .xxx and .com, for example imagine all of the companies scooping up sites like www.yahoo.xxx and www.google.xxx. This confusion isn't new, and in fact the .xxx might mitigate a lot of the confusion that already goes on. I think the easiest example of a porn site that attracts huge amounts of traffic by strategy of confusion is www.whitehouse.com (but there's a ton out there, the last one I ran into was www.foreignaffairs.com, because I didn't realize that the Foreign Affairs periodical online was under a .org not .com name- other famous examples include ). The idea that I'm going to 'accidentally' type in a .xxx domain name takes a leap of faith that I'm unwilling to believe in.
The .xxx WILL create more sites. But perhaps the .com sites can now be better used as blocker sites. Most 'legitimate' pornography companies have introduction sites that ask users if they are above or below 18 (not that i'd know or anything). This, at the very least, provides a disclaimer for the material within the site-just as an ADULTS ONLY sign in a video store back section does (although since your community members probably aren't hanging around your computer, virtual disclaimers are less effective than physical ones). Perhaps the .com site can become the disclaimer, and when you acknowledge your legally eligible and click the 'I'm above 18' button, it takes you to the .xxx site. Another possibility would be the .com becoming the introductory pages to the site, using sexually suggestive but not hardcore images in the .com site. If either of these occurred and more pornography companies moved to the .xxx domain, filtering would become a lot easier for parents... another point I disagree with, Felton's unsupported assertion that current filtering technologies works effectively.
The last issue is internet governance. Despite the objections from some like Felton that feel that ICANN is moving into regulating content, and others that feel ICANN is bowing under U.S. pressure by NOT going forward with the .xxx site at the whim of a conservative administration, the right thing for ICANN to do is ignore both positions. As Joi Ito, an individual board member of ICANN points out, the proposed .xxx domain name is being done in a fair, democratic manner in which the nature of content will be decided by external organizations (including org's dedicated to freedom of speech, privacy, fairness in online content, credit card companies, and the adult entertainment industry). Take a look at the ICANN .xxx application, you might be surprised. In a statement by the Center for Democracy and Technology, John Morris concurs, arguing that in essence ICANN is only providing an appropriate structure for the internet given the role and scope of pornography on the internet, without making regulatory recommendations (in fact the choice of .xxx and not .porn or .sex represents this, being taken for its straightforward, unambiguous nature). While there might be valid concerns, they should not stop ICANN from going forward... it is a disappointment that such objections are once again bogging down the process of building a better internet.
posted by chector1020 @ 2:59 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:37 AM,
Anonymous said…
This is another good commentary, I find it much more down to earth and easier to understand than the technical court cases. Keep 'em coming.
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