It's For the Children, Again.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has a wonderful idea: offer smut sites the option to put an "xxx" at the end of their URL. Here's what the AP stories has to say about how this will lend towards the safety of our families:
"ICM contends the "xxx" Web addresses, which it plans to sell for $60 a year, will protect children from online smut if adult sites voluntarily adopt the suffix so filtering software used by families can more effectively block access to those sites. The $60 price is roughly ten times higher than prices other companies charge for dot-com names. "
"It will further help to protect kids," said John Morris, staff counsel at the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology. Morris predicted some adult sites will choose to buy "xxx" Web addresses but others will continue to use dot-com."
So help me here, ICAAN, families would be made safer because those smut sites who CHOOSE to use the "XXX" will be detected by the filters on family computers? These sordid vicious sites are going to voluntarily pay ten times the fee for "XXX" than for a dot.com because they want to be screened out by families' smut filters?
It think it's the money, since smut is a $12 billion dollar industry. What do you think?
posted by Underground Logician @ 8:23 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
hi underground,
actually, i think .xxx is a good thing. since we can't outlaw porn for free speech reasons, i think it's better to create a regulated framework for porn online, which is basically what we have in the print media.
In one sense it is a great idea, but it won't work in that the porn industry would have to pay more for the .xxx domain and suffer somewhat less customers. From a business mind, I don't think many would want to do this.
yes, they have to pay about 10 times more for a nifty .xxx domain, but how much is that? maybe $150, tops. you can get normal .com and .org domain names for as little as $7.
from a business point of view, it doesn't make sense to market their product to minors since those kids don't have credit cards and probably aren't going to use their parents' cards (if they don't want to be grounded for eternity).
i think .xxx is a good idea. now, making it mandatory for porn purveyors ... well that's a better idea, but unfortunately quite unworkable. a voluntary scheme is the best option.
It is a useless gesture with no teeth. About as effect against porn as a toothless Grandma gumming a burglar.
Your argument regarding enforcement is valid, however, there may be ways to do it. Create an "Agent Smith" gatekeeper that hunts the porn and destroys it, eh?
I don't get excited about symbolic gestures over substance.
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