Cripes, this sure took forever! Now blocking random porn should be easier I’d hope.

Pornography will have its own top-level domain, dot-XXX, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers decided Friday.

The proposal was made under ICANN’s rules for “sponsored” TLDs, through which domains have been created by interest groups including the aeronautical industry (dot-aero) and the cooperative movement (dot-coop).

ICM Registry, the company that proposed the dot-XXX domain, welcomed the vote.

Myself and others have argued for this TLD for years. The opponents of the idea say it will make it easier to find porn. Apparently they have never used a search engine! Porn is too easy to find now. How can it get any easier?




  1. yankinwaoz says:

    Let me guess. The registrar(s) for this TLD will decide to charge much more, much more, for this TLD than for dot.com and dot.net on the assumption that the porn industry will pay more.

    And then they will wonder why no one is using it.

  2. homehive says:

    Every once in a while,John Dvorak makes a comment that shows he is an OLD (but nice)man who rarely visits the REAL WORLD. Only in his fantasy land will those under 30 state that “porn is too easy to find now.” The U.S. has shown that they have absolutely no desire to return to a non-hedonistic society. People regularly say they are against it while consuming it in vast amounts.

  3. Benjamin says:

    Oh good. Now all they have to do is force porn, especially of the porn storm variety, to register for a .xxx domain. Then I can blacklist the entire TLD at my router. I can always white list on a case by case basis.

    I liked my idea of an HTML porn tag better. Just put a porn tag around the naughty bits and I can decide if my browser renders it or not.

  4. gmknobl says:

    Now you need to make know porn sites move to .xxx and remove them from .com, .org, and other non-.xxx domains.

    Of course, you’ll also have some sites that will wrongly get tagged as .xxx and some judge with no knowledge will force them out of their proper domain. If you get some nutball Texas or Florida judge’s knickers in a ball they could throw this site into the .xxx category.

    .XXX is only a solution if those that are pornography ARE pushed into .XXX but it will still cause problems.

  5. Luc says:

    John, you’ve been naĂŻve about that topic. That .xxx business is a trap. Once that .xxx TLD is approved, there will be increasing pressure for pr0n sites to be thrown away into that bin. And once they’re all herded inside that pen, it will be a lot easier for puritan governments to block all pr0n sites globally in one fell swoop.

    Australia is going to love this stupid .xxx segregation idea. Porn won’t be segregated, it will be erased from view like political dissent in China.

  6. mikefarter says:

    JCD, did you really just begin a sentence with “Myself and others have”? Ugh…

  7. Father says:

    Why do TLDs exist in the first place?

    Why isn’t the web optionally organized hierachically, with a multidimentional word-selection network from which I can select catagories of tags?

    TLDs are so stupid.

    They are like addressing JCD as “John.man”.

    What stupidity.

  8. The0ne says:

    Give porn a break people! Lend a “hand” will ya! Let it “smooth” itself out if you must, don’t “agitate” anymore than it already is! As any woman would say, be patient, take it slowly 🙂

  9. spsffan says:

    I still think porn sites should use .cum

  10. yankinwaoz says:

    The problem with forcing porn sites into .XXX is that you have to be able to define what a porn site it. It is a subjective judgment.

    For example, Saudi Arabia considers the Sears catalog to be porn.

    Some people consider extreme violence to be porn.

    Some people consider material that offends their religious beliefs to be porn.

    The solution is to allow the site owners to self define. Obviously, some have no problem identifying themselves as a sexual gratification site. That is their business and they aren’t pretending to be anything different.

    But they would object if a customer of theirs was denied access because some other party (like the Australian gov’t) decided that block them. And if .XXX is going to be use for this purpose, then it will die on the vine.

  11. KMFIX says:

    Free speech will keep porn in .com land.

  12. GetReal says:

    This is pure BS.

    ICANN will make more money – politicians will score cheap points with the religious control freaks – adult sites will still find ways to use other TLDs and NOBODY will be able to stop them.

    When it inevitably fails to satisfy the talibans (of all religions), they will demand even more restrictions on our freedoms. In an effort to get more votes, the political whores will be glad to oblige, as usual.

    What many people seem to want is to live like sheep – no freedom but having a degree of protection from whatever some arbitrary shepherd decides is dangerous.

    My sincere apologies to the sheep of the world. It’s not your fault that you were born sheep. Humans, on the other hand, wish they were born sheep.

    Whenever you hear – “It’s all about the children” – you know it is bulls..t. NOWHERE are the responsibilities of parents mentioned.

  13. Buzz says:

    “Friday’s vote was not unanimously in favor of creating the dot-XXX domain: ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom and fellow board member Jean-Jacques Subrenat both abstained.”

    Well, the Catholic Church sure showed us how well abstinence works.

  14. bobbo, is all politics necessarily corrupt, or always a choice says:

    While back I read an article about what some of the benefits might be of registering yourself as xxx. Similarly, I wonder what the “enforcement”/standardization mechanism is? Seems .com and .org get used without distinction==or when the real one is already taken?

    Off to the webitubes!

  15. Cursor_ says:

    Just point me to the registrar.

    I want to get dvorak.xxx today!

    Cursor_

  16. UncDon says:

    What we now need is a few more designations:

    .BES – bestiality

    .LOL – lolita

    .BYL – boylove

    .SAM – S&M

    .TPY – teaparty

    and require – by law – everyone with the appropriate sites to use those designations for easy censorship.

    What’s wrong with some kinds of censorship?

  17. bobbo, where is the tech we can really use says:

    Well, not much there:

    http://encirca.com/html/xxx-registration.shtml

    Makes it look like no one actually supports the xxx domain name as they are only generically described rather than listed, at least by footnote? Flat charge regardless of extension.

    Spam/porn–you’d think after two years of not wanting to become a court reporter or not wanting a free dell laptop that my name would drop off their list==but no. Almost makes me want to go to the store and “almost” buy a Dell but then at the last moment decline purchase because they spammed me so much==or is Dell totally innocent and its those third party providers?

    Third Parties should be outlawed.

  18. bobbo, where is the tech we can really use says:

    #17–UncDon==you raise a key issue: is the internet for those who post and upload, or for those who search and download? Seems to me “as a consumer” I should be able to “control” what gets thru to me. When I choose to have or have not .religion, .porn, or .retail that is my choice and after all I am paying for my internet connection.

    Censorship is another issue. Should fear/disapproval of the latter override the freedom of the former? Will governments more likely censor if it is “easy” when they can censor covertly if they have a real interest? Is the easy/observable censorship better or worse than the dishonest covert kind?

    Pro’s and Con’s to every choice we make.

  19. Dallas says:

    It’s about time and had made total sense from the beginning.

    The problem is that the .COM porn sites will not give up their existing TLD’s and switch over. However, they should redirect to an .XXX destination.

  20. HeeHee says:

    #20 – Makes sense but they won’t give up their .com domain names and switch to xxx but they should redirect. . . .

    What? What? What the hell was that? Do you even have a clue about what you said? Whatever you are on, I want some. But I promise not to waste innocent readers time with blather like that. At least it wasn’t on paper – that would have killed trees.

  21. Dallas says:

    #21 Not that I like answering to some schmuck who likes to call himself “HeeHee”, but what the hell are YOU moaning about?

  22. Hmeyers says:

    In other news, ICANN just approved the .malware TLD.

    This should make it easier to stop malware.

  23. Luc says:

    Haha! #23 wins!

  24. Buzz says:

    What if a non-porn person or business just wants the lurid and presumably more memorable .xxx for its URL? I sure want buzz.xxx.

  25. human clone says:

    how is this going to work? seems just a formality to me. what is going to prevent regular .coms from putting video or pictures of sexual acts?

  26. Thomas says:

    Dumbest idea ever. First, if the goal is to have porn sites “identify” themselves by their TLD, it won’t work. The only domains that actually enforce any restriction are .edu, .mil, .gov and country TLDs. That’s it. How many .org domains are for commercial sites? How many non-profit sites have a .com TLD? Are all mobile sites .mobi? How many job sites are using .jobs? Trying to shoehorn certain sites into certain TLDs based on content is just naive and dumb. It won’t work. Second, does anyone really believe that the porn industry does not know that people will try to block .xxx? Does anyone not think they won’t *also* register under that domain in addition .com, .org and so on? This TLD will do absolutely nothing to limit porn. However, since this has been approved, let’s force the RNC and DNC to change their registration to .xxx. It would be indicative of its members and what they are doing to its citizens.

  27. Thomas says:

    One more item. The big difference between the other specific TLDs and .xxx is that the others restrict who can get that TLD, not who must use them. I.e., a university entity can use .com but wants to .edu. There has to be a desire by the people registering a domain to get a particular TLD which is restricted. However, there is absolutely no desire for porn companies to get a .xxx unless they *also* have something that is not .xxx. Further, I highly doubt that there will be any restriction on anyone else getting .xxx should they be crazy enough to want it. That is why this TLD will make no difference. There will be nothing that lures people to want to have that TLD. You might as well create a TLD called “.blockme”.

  28. Katie says:

    I think you all might find this video from Newsy.com interesting and relevant to the .XXX domain discussion. It shows the background of ICANN reviewing and then approving this top-level domain for porn sites.
    Some are hopeful that this will make it easier to block all porn sites from one’s computer, while others worry that it could make it an easier way to find porn–especially for young kids. As far as the sites themselves, most seem supportive and see it as legitimizing the industry and keeping spam out. Others worry that it could deter business.

    The video’s worth watching/commenting on if you have a few minutes:
    http://ow.ly/24hty

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