WWW.NC17

August 17, 2005 3:10 AM

Bush administration opposing .xxx TLD. Back in June, ICANN approved an application for a .xxx TLD extension. The application was a result of research conducted by the ICM Registry and the International Foundation for Online Responsibility to develop a strategy for identifying a TLD string for the responsible online adult-entertainment community that would transcend geographic regions and languages while having high recognition and lasting value for both registrants and Internet users. Based on this research, ICM and IFFOR selected .xxx as the sole string for this application based upon its high ranking in the aforementioned criteria. In testimony to COPA Commission, Sen. Joe Lieberman endorsed the idea of an Internet "redlight district" (pdf) holding Internet sites to the same standard as X-rated movie theatres. Bowing to pressure from the Family Research Council and other "conservative" groups, Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary at the Commerce Department, has asked for a hold to be placed on the contract to run the new top-level domain until the .xxx suffix can receive further scrutiny. The Bush administration has hinted it may unilaterally to block .xxx from being added to the Internet's master database of domains.
posted by three blind mice (51 comments total)

Thank God. The worst thing that could ever happen to the Internet would be the creation of what would eventually become a mandatory 'free speech zone.' The Bush administration's stupidity seems to work for its enemies, and for those of us who don't want pornography, offensive and NSFW content all huddled into one corner it's great to finally be one of those enemies.
posted by Ryvar at 3:18 AM on August 17, 2005

FFF.
posted by bardic at 3:21 AM on August 17, 2005

I think the fundies are putting themselves in a no-win situation. The stuff's out there to be had, domain or no domain, and thinking that they'll stem the tide by opposing an "official" designator for it is laughable. All a .xxx domain would help with is marketing.

I guess I need to read the links, but I didn't realize the US government could unilaterally control the operation of the Internet...couldn't some non-US company step in and administer the domain?
posted by alumshubby at 3:52 AM on August 17, 2005

I didn't realize the US government could unilaterally control the operation of the Internet...couldn't some non-US company step in and administer the domain?

Policy for ICANN's root ("top level domain") servers is decided almost entirely, if indirectly, by the US Department of Commerce, which is run by a cabinet position within the executive branch, and therefore under the rule of the Bush administration.

International accountability is one of the sore points with the managment of ICANN, especially as the Bush administration has time and again delayed the transition of ICANN to a non-government organization, despite promises to do otherwise.
posted by Rothko at 4:10 AM on August 17, 2005

Policy for ICANN's root ("top level domain") servers is decided almost entirely, if indirectly, by the US Department of Commerce.

And why is that? And why has nobody challenged that (I presume somebody has, but not got very far)
posted by slater at 4:13 AM on August 17, 2005

alumshubby, according to this report (45 page pdf) from the General Accounting Office (provided in the first link), the Commerce Department has "reserved final policy control over the authoritative root server."

There has been a lot of discussion that the UN should take over ICANN responsibilities, but the Bush administration hasn't been too receptive to the idea.
posted by three blind mice at 4:15 AM on August 17, 2005

Don't forget that the internet we know today grew out of joint American government and academic research. There have indeed been some plans to migrate such powers from the US Dept of Commerce to the United Nations, but it hasn't happened so far.

Blocking the xxx domain would however be an unprecedented move by our govt
posted by poppo at 4:16 AM on August 17, 2005

Rothko, those promises were made during the Clinton administration.
posted by three blind mice at 4:20 AM on August 17, 2005

Don't forget that the internet we know today grew out of joint American government and academic research.

Not entirely poppo. These guys made a few significant contributions too.
posted by three blind mice at 4:21 AM on August 17, 2005

Technically speaking, there is nothing stopping you (or any organization) from running your own DNS server and therefore managing your own root domains.

However, as things work now with ISPs and telcoms, a DNS lookup is eventually sent upwards to ICANN servers and back again.

So the only way around this hierarchical control is for end users to manually add your DNS server to their network settings, or for ISPs and telcoms to agree to cache and connect to your DNS service. Neither of which are very good solutions.

There is a P2P-like decentralized DNS model that aims to work around this control issue, but is a very young technology.
posted by Rothko at 4:22 AM on August 17, 2005

Rothko, those promises were made during the Clinton administration.

Promises made at the end of the Clinton administration, and broken by the two-term GOP administration that has followed since.
posted by Rothko at 4:23 AM on August 17, 2005

Promises made at the end of the Clinton administration, and broken by the two-term GOP administration that has followed since.

Broken indeed. Along with everything else.
posted by three blind mice at 4:26 AM on August 17, 2005

Clinton administration, or the freaking truman administration it doesn't really matter does it?
posted by damnitkage at 4:27 AM on August 17, 2005

Blocking this TLD seems like a damned foolish idea, but it's equally balanced by the foolishness of creating the TLD in the first place.

There are considerably more sex domains out there than can be slotted into one domain. There are many names where the .com, .org, .net, .co.uk, .org.uk and a fistful of others all share the same domain name. They can't all claim the same .xxx domain, so any attempt to make them all use it will mean thousands of sites needing to change their name and similar numbers looking for compensation. It's not going to be pretty at all.

Of course, I can't check, but it could all be a voluntary thing, with people moving over through choice, but none of them will relinquish their old domain because everyone knows and loves it. None of them will want to see a foreign competitor steal their name.

Personally I can only see it's worth as a way for the porn sites to effectively advertise themselves though their shared location.

On preview/spell check, this post has enough double meanings in it without spellcheck trying to change '.org' to 'orgy'...
posted by twine42 at 4:31 AM on August 17, 2005

To try and pull this thread back onto the rails, what struck me was the statement by the Family Research Council that "The .XXX domain will increase not decrease porn on the Internet."

Yeah, just like a piss in the ocean. It would seem to me that the same people who are worried about labeling CDs (and everything else) with warning labels would jump on the .xxx TLD bandwagon. I guess they just don't understand this internets thing.
posted by three blind mice at 4:32 AM on August 17, 2005

And why is that? And why has nobody challenged that (I presume somebody has, but not got very far)

Because the US government isn't going to simply let it go (as three blind mice pointed out), and it works as is. I hold the UN in fairly high regard as far as things like inspecting for weapons in a fairly neutral manner goes, but for actual solid implementation of a core, critical piece of technology like the root servers what we have works and I'm more than a bit shaky on transitioning from that.

Now, if other countries - or the UN as a body (outside of the US) elected to, they could simply create their own root servers for their own seperate domain name system (anybody can). Assuming it was implemented competently, there'd still be three major problems: a) they'd have to convince everybody to use it starting with either Microsoft and Apple (or merely every major ISP on the planet), b) contradictions between the two systems would immediately emerge making it impossible to support both systems simultaneously, c) how would you decide who owned what preexisting domains (from the current system) in the new system? Squatting would start all over again, and cloning the existing database is a no go because people wouldn't appreciate having to suddenly pay twice as much for the same domains, etc.

In short, even if the UN did manage to create a working DNS system, there would still be massive hurdles for them to overcome, and even if Microsoft and Apple signed on with them the transition would be chaotic to say the least. Put simply: either the US is going to hand over control or it isn't, and it's really their call. This may not be 'democratic' from a respecting the soverign rights of other governments perspective, but at least what we have now seems reasonably fair for most of the world's actual individual people and it works. The only gains to be made by changing the current situation are, frankly, superficial in nature.
posted by Ryvar at 4:37 AM on August 17, 2005

To try and pull this thread back onto the rails, what struck me was the statement by the Family Research Council that "The .XXX domain will increase not decrease porn on the Internet."

Yeah, just like a piss in the ocean. It would seem to me that the same people who are worried about labeling CDs (and everything else) with warning labels would jump on the .xxx TLD bandwagon. I guess they just don't understand this internets thing.

Ars Technica had a great quote along those lines on this:
"Their logic, if you want to call it that, is derived from the notion that voluntary nature of the .xxx TLD means sex.com will "expand" to sex.xxx instead of changing TLDs. That the Internet is in no way analogous to geography has apparently escaped them."
posted by Ryvar at 4:39 AM on August 17, 2005

three blind mice - thanks for the informative wording in the FPP. Seriously, it lays it out well without editorial bullshit.
posted by peacay at 4:43 AM on August 17, 2005

The point in mentioning who controls ICANN is that, if the decision was managed by an organization working within the framework of a genuinely free market — instead of by the Bush administration furthering a political agenda to garner votes from the fundamentalist Christian crowd — a .xxx domain could live or die on its utility in the marketplace.

Likely such a domain for be heavily used by the adult entertainment industry. So instead of (ab)using ICANN to push a religious agenda on the rest of the world, "concerned parents" could filter .xxx sites on their home computer. The rest of the world can browse porn to its hearts content. Freedom of choice would be preserved.

Instead, we have a situation where moneyed interests (porn industry) are jockeying against religious interests (Falwell, et al.) with the Bush admininstration. Whichever side wins, we all lose because ICANN is just another tool being used for influence peddling of one flavor or another.
posted by Rothko at 4:44 AM on August 17, 2005

Assuming it was implemented competently, there'd still be three major problems: a) they'd have to convince everybody to use it starting with either Microsoft and Apple

Why would they have to be involved? They buy their network uplink from a large telcom, just like any other company, and wouldn't have much impact on which DNS root servers the telcom uses.
posted by Rothko at 4:58 AM on August 17, 2005

You would think that a conservative would endorse this domain so that the next step might be to require all pornographic content to fall under that domain and thus make it easily blockable by libraries and parents.

Think of The Family™!
posted by Lectrick at 4:58 AM on August 17, 2005

So to summarize the government's overall position...

* Uniquely identifying age-sensitive games: Good
* Uniquely identifying age-sensitive movies: Good
* Uniquely identifying age-sensitive retail establishments: Good
* Uniquely identifying age groups between which sexual contact is inappropriate: Good
* Uniquely identifying age-sensitive websites: Will lead to the rampant spread of age-sensitive websites.
posted by VulcanMike at 5:06 AM on August 17, 2005

VulcanMike, you want consistency in the decisions the US government makes? Isn't that asking a bit too much. I think the administration likes to keep everyone on their toes.
posted by chunking express at 6:01 AM on August 17, 2005

They plan to make a killing selling sites at .war domains though.
posted by nervousfritz at 6:03 AM on August 17, 2005

three blind mice: Not entirely poppo. These guys made a few significant contributions too.

Really? I'm not aware of any contributions made by CERN to help create the Internet. (I said internet, not www)
posted by null terminated at 6:15 AM on August 17, 2005

i'll trade you a .god for a .xxx ...
posted by stratastar at 6:23 AM on August 17, 2005

Amazingly, I'm going to have to agree with the stance that adding a .xxx domain isn't going to help people uniquely identify adult-only sites. There is no way that current sites could be required to move from .com, .net, or .org to .xxx that wouldn't place an unfair burden on their business and cause much more trouble than it's worth. Imagine two companies that respectively own the .net and .com versions of a domain battling for the new .xxx version -- with the requirement that they must change their TLD to .xxx.

Really, all that would happen is we'd have the first TLD that proxies would universally block and commerce would have a field day as people rushed to register yet another version of their domain. I'm not against adding another TLD, but it's not going to solve any current problems.
posted by mikeh at 6:25 AM on August 17, 2005

Does James Dobson own Dubya or what?!

And speaking of porn, when Bush is fellating Dobson does he get his sparse hair pulled or the bald part gently rubbed? I know Dubya is a bald head rubbing type (thus Gannon/Guckert) and there's lots of evidence to prove it but Dobson is still a mystery to the world. Hell, Dobson may be impotent for all we know (flaccidity would explain much of his bitterness).
posted by nofundy at 6:38 AM on August 17, 2005

The queston remains, why .xxx ? What's the rationale behind a "need" for a domain .xxx , if there is any ?

I could advance the need for a .religiousnuts domain and so on infinetly segregating each kind of "content" into yet-another subdomain...who's supposed to insure me that the content will remain the same and will not fit another domain description or more then one at a time ? How many years will I waste writing a bible long url of subdomains ?

As a matter of fact the crusade of those who oppose the mere existence of the depiction of a neverending human activity is , necessarily, an endless one. As they usually lack compelling arguments against such depictions some of them choose the censoring option, this time under the guise of a less severe, more acceptable segregation.

The same is happening, apparently, also over radio frequencies in which FCC is looking after repressing certain expression that are (and I quote from memory, sorry if it's not correct) "sexual or excretory in nature".

I wonder what is needed to cease this expensive pointless neverending loop of imposing one opinion over another, as if the two opposite opinions were necessarily always mutually exclusive.

Also, assuming they are mutually exclusive, why should we segregate the two so that the conflict becomes not only necessarily neverending, but also impossible to solve as one person is not supposed to see the incriminating pictures ? It seems to be the religious nuts are the biggest promoters of pornography and this is not good news to me, I wonder what their real target is.
posted by elpapacito at 6:45 AM on August 17, 2005

No "fear of technology" tag?

Or is this another "fear of our own bodies"?
posted by dreamsign at 7:32 AM on August 17, 2005

Lieberman is such a twat. He exemplifies the lack of charisma, dull centrism, and political limp-wristedness that everyone hates about Democrats.
posted by scarabic at 7:41 AM on August 17, 2005

I'm not aware of any contributions made by CERN to help create the Internet. (I said internet, not www)

Well null terminated I suppose if by internet you mean TCP/IP then you are correct (the TLD would fall within this.) My (obviously poorly made) point is that to most people, the Internet is a generic term encompassing TCP/IP, the world wide web, and HTTP. As the Wikipedia entry for Internet observes "By 1996 the word "Internet" was common public currency, but it referred almost entirely to the World Wide Web."

I guess I just reacted to the "we invented it" attitude as though nothing of substance ever happens outside the US. Significant contributions made by (and in) other countries suggest to me that the "we invented it, we contol it" view of the U.S. Commerce Department is quite incorrect and quite unjustified.
posted by three blind mice at 7:42 AM on August 17, 2005

Seriously, it lays it out well without editorial bullshit.

Thanks pecay. I live and learn, or at least try to.
posted by three blind mice at 7:45 AM on August 17, 2005

The queston remains, why .xxx ? What's the rationale behind a "need" for a domain .xxx , if there is any?

Actually, elpapacito, that's what makes the Bush administration's opposition so confusing. The whole reason the .xxx TLD domain was suggested (as I laid out in the FPP - or tried to) was to create a red-light district for responsible adult site operators to operate in order to protect children (and others) from stumbing across adult content. As the IFFOR link explained:

The online adult-entertainment community is primarily defined as those individuals, businesses, and entities that provide sexually-oriented information, services, or products intended for consenting adults. The terms "adult entertainment" and "sexually-oriented" are intended to be understood broadly for a global medium, and are not to be construed as legal or regulatory categories. Rather, the referenced Community consists generally of websites that convey sexually-oriented information and for which a system of self-identification would be beneficial.

Rather than increasing access to adult content, the .xxx TLD provides a way for user to avoid it. By opposing the .xxx TLD the Bush administration is in effect removing a practical means of placing a rating from content.

Wait until Tipper Gore and the Patents Music Resource Center find out!

Them Bush people jus' don't have a clue about the internets.
posted by three blind mice at 7:57 AM on August 17, 2005

We're anti-abortion, but here's a bus pass to Canada where you can get an abortion.
posted by tomplus2 at 8:14 AM on August 17, 2005

I'm with Ryvar. It's good to be the beneficiary of incompetency for once.

I wonder what is needed to cease this expensive pointless neverending loop of imposing one opinion over another, as if the two opposite opinions were necessarily always mutually exclusive.

You could start here.

Don't trample my fine fresh herb.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:15 AM on August 17, 2005

after posting: By opposing the .xxx TLD the Bush administration is in effect removing a practical means of placing a rating from content.

Exactly. Several others have pointed out the logical inconsistency of the new position against rating content, but you forget that they don't care about rating content. They (or it) care(s) about looking tough on pornography.

"Bush Stops Plan to Add New Web Sex Domain"

Eh. As someone also said, they're in a no-win situation. Nice to see.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:19 AM on August 17, 2005

Lieberman is such a twat. He exemplifies the lack of charisma, dull centrism, and political limp-wristedness that everyone hates about Democrats.

Scarabic, I'm no fan of Lieberman, but I'd far prefer "dull centrism" over moronic, abusive, frothing-at-the-mouth extremism any day.
posted by caporal at 8:44 AM on August 17, 2005

caporal, I think scarabic's point was that Lieberman's "lack of charisma, dull centrism, and political limp-wristedness" makes the Democrats look worse, thereby leading to more "moronic, abusive, frothing-at-the-mouth extremism" being elected by the other guys.
posted by callmejay at 9:00 AM on August 17, 2005

...responsible adult site operators...

Has anyone ever had issues with responsible people? It's just like how people, generally speaking, don't have a problem with "responsible gun ownership". It's the irresponsible people, in any situation, that cause the problems (assuming you believe that a problem even exists in this case). It's the irresponsible adult site operators that remove any practicality from a .xxx TLD. So there's no point. As someone already pointed out, it's not as if pornlords are going to forced in some way to use .xxx instead of .com .net and so forth. All those sites will still exist... responsibly or not.
posted by Witty at 9:02 AM on August 17, 2005

The administration recognizes that this is a form of acceptance of pornography on the internet. The "Christian Right" doesn't deal in terms of 'grey' on an issue, admitting that perhaps pornography on the internet will always be there and categorizing it into an easy to determine domain extension may actually be a good thing.

No, all out war is what needs to be declared upon any and all pornographic material. Its either pornography wins, or the Christian Right wins. With us, or against us. It will cost him and anyone associated with the administration votes.

Pehaps I'm wrong. But I've seen this tactic before.
posted by thanatogenous at 9:13 AM on August 17, 2005

If you outlaw pornography, only people with sexual urges will own pornography.
posted by wakko at 9:25 AM on August 17, 2005

"What's the rationale behind a "need" for a domain .xxx...

Why do we need any TLDs? The use of .com, .org, .gov, etc., as well as the www. prefix, is archaic, much like putting parentheses around the area code of a phone number.
posted by mischief at 9:59 AM on August 17, 2005

Letrick - my thoughts exactly. Not only would a mandatory .porn domain be great for blocking, but it would help me find stuff faster!
posted by hoborg at 10:07 AM on August 17, 2005

The queston remains, why .xxx ? What's the rationale behind a "need" for a domain .xxx , if there is any?

Kind of an odd way to approach the question. Why not have a .xxx domain? What's the rationale behind a "need" for .mil, .nato, .biz, .aero, .net, etc?
posted by Western Infidels at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2005

Lectrick >>> "You would think that a conservative would endorse this domain so that the next step might be to require all pornographic content to fall under that domain and thus make it easily blockable by libraries and parents.

"Think of The Family™!"

Actually, barring all the other concerns cited in various comments above, I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. And frankly, I see nothing wrong with requiring porn sites (not educational sites, tyvm, Dubya) to use that domain exclusively or have their domain removed from ICANN's servers. We forbid children from entering XXX bookstores and movie theatres, and don't allow them to purchase any porn, in realspace. Why should cyberspace, in this specific instance, be any different? I understand there's still a very Wild West cowboy mentality where anything goes, but we've had our new toy for a dozen or so years now. Time to start promoting, and enforcing, responsibility.

However, the comments above regarding an alternate DNS system make the solution quite clear. Forget about a .xxx domain; instead, create a porn-only DNS system. Publicise it properly, and it would be just as easy to use/block as a .xxx domain. There could be conflicts, I'm sure, w/r/t duplicated names. These are easily solved by simply migrating all existing porn sites over to the alternate system (which should also be run by ICANN). Thus, no worries about clashing, fighting because I have www.hotgaycollegeslutboys.net and you have the .com version, etc.

I'm not a (computer) geek, so I'm sure there are some problems in there that I haven't seen, but I think it should work. Prohibit name duplication from the, er, G-net to the X-net, and you avoid any DNS confusion. Make it an opt-in system, of course; perhaps control access at the ISP level, in order to (fairly) easily verify that the person in question is over 18. After all, you have to flash your ID to get into the XXX store or buy a magazine off the top rack. I see this as fundamentally no different.

My whole point is this: yes, kids can get access to porn, and have always been able to. Part of the fun of being a teenager is having to jump through hoops to do so. But there's a huge difference between stealing a parent's copy of Playbo/girl, Hustler, or Big Titty Jailhouse Broads, and wandering across bestiality porn. The former is pretty easy to handle; the latter could be quite traumatising to a thirteen-year-old.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:47 AM on August 17, 2005

We forbid children from entering XXX bookstores and movie theatres, and don't allow them to purchase any porn, in realspace. Why should cyberspace, in this specific instance, be any different?

All those laws restricting content are local or state laws, I believe, at least in the U.S. Wherever it was "invented," the Internet is a global community now. Regulation will be difficult.

But there's a huge difference between stealing a parent's copy of Playbo/girl, Hustler, or Big Titty Jailhouse Broads, and wandering across bestiality porn.

When I was 13, I saw a little plastic man stashed into a woman's cooch in a spread in Hustler that I found in the park.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:53 AM on August 17, 2005

dirtynumbangelboy writes "And frankly, I see nothing wrong with requiring porn sites (not educational sites, tyvm, Dubya) to use that domain exclusively or have their domain removed from ICANN's servers."

Who the heck is going to police this? Multiple blocking software companies who are actually making money from their policing efforts are unable to.

And who gets to set the bar? Saudi Clerics? The Pope? Wiccans? A committee of the Commerce Department of the USA? The Mafia? Internet users run the gaumet from nations who allow full fontal nudity on day time TV thru those that freak out about an exposed nipple during a celbration of violence to those who think it's obscene for anyone but a woman's husband to see any part of her body but her eyes.
posted by Mitheral at 10:58 AM on August 17, 2005

anything that stops .xxx is a good thing, IMO. ICANN is just as retarded as the US government, IMO.
posted by delmoi at 8:04 AM on August 18, 2005

xxx is a poor choice for a TLD.
It should be at LEAST four xs. (spinal tap homage)
Failing that, how about several TLDs?
.f*ck
.suck
.s&m .
b&d
.anal
.t&a
.sex
.pimp&hos
.voyuer
.iliketowatch
.selflove
.nambla
.gaysex

Where's the creativeness?
posted by nofundy at 1:11 PM on August 18, 2005

Hey, I never said I have all the answers. I don't know where the line would be drawn.

Sure, regulation will be difficult. But there's all sorts of things for which regulation is fantastically difficult, and yet regulation exists anyway.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:44 PM on August 19, 2005