A Red-Light District in the Comfort of My Own Home
Wolfram Donat
February 08, 2006
When I was growing up in Southern Arizona, my friends and I had a ritual that has probably been around since humans formed tribes: If somebody new came to town, we avoided them. Once they had been around a while, had proved their worth and had lost their novelty, then they could be gradually integrated into our group. The Internet is similar in some ways to this childhood formula. It consists of certain domains, and new domains don?t find it easy to join the ?in? crowd. Think about it: How many .biz domains have you visited in the past week?
As a matter of fact, the Internet currently has 15 different valid top-level-domains, or TLDs, not counting individual country codes. These generic TLDs are: .com, .org, .net, .gov, .mil, .biz, .aero, .arpa, .coop, .edu, .info, .int, .museum, .name and .pro. You?d think that was more than enough. As a matter of fact, many ISPs and even some browsers don?t even recognize all of the above as valid extensions for web sites. However, there is a new fight brewing over one more to add this list. Some interests would like to introduce .xxx as a valid top-level-domain to this list. Its purpose? To delineate and separate websites dealing with the adult industry ? in effect, giving the World Wide Web a red light district.
The addition is still up in the air. The internet?s domain name governing system, ICANN (which stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has been hemming and hawing about the issue of the new suffix since it gave preliminary approval in June. Since that time, it has bowed to pressure from the Bush administration, the Department of Commerce, and other world governments and has postponed final approval.
Apparently it?s more than just adding another extension to the set your browser will currently recognize. (As a matter of fact, you can purchase software allowing you to visit sites using the new .xxx extension. The software updates your browser and allows it to recognize sites already in existence which use the .xxx domain. All of these sites are owned and/or operated by the company that ?invented? the .xxx extension and is lobbying for its acceptance. ) The controversy over the addition is also bringing up other arguments over such things as who actually owns the Internet and who has legal say over what TLDs get approved.
I believe the .xxx extension is a good thing. I like the red-light district metaphor used earlier. If you make all adult-oriented sites use one domain, it?s easier to regulate, control and police those sites for things such as missing and exploited children and other illegal activities. Consider the red-light district in Amsterdam, where prostitution is legal. Workers there need to remain licensed by the government, and that licensing includes required health exams and cleanliness screenings of their places of business. Since prostitution was legalized there in 2000, the violent sex crimes in the Netherlands average 10.39 per 100,000 people, vs. the rate in the U.S. of 32.05 per 100,000.
I?m not espousing the advantages of legalized prostitution here (that?s for another column.) Rather, I?m showing the advantages of regulating an industry that by its very nature tends to hang out in the shadows and dark alleys of cyberspace.
I can already hear the critics? arguments, of course. They?ve been brought up already. The first argument: Making all adult-oriented sites have the same extension makes finding them that much easier. The same thing that sets them apart from all other sites could also make them easier to find; if you want to find some pornography, just go looking for www.sex.xxx, for example. My response to that is that it would not be much of a problem to release browser updates and patches that can turn recognition of the .xxx extension on or off, making them kid-friendly. (And for that matter, how difficult is it to find pornography now? When your kids aren?t around, do an image search on Google on the word ?fist? with ?safe-search? off. You?d be surprised.)
This new naming convention would actually be more kid-friendly than some aspects of the current system. Nowadays it is very common to ?stumble across? a pornographic site without meaning to. Remember the school child doing a report on the U.S. government and typing in www.whitehouse.com instead of www.whitehouse.gov? The first was a sex site (no longer,) the second deals with the White House where Mr. Bush lives. The .xxx extension could help eliminate at least some of those problems. If it doesn?t end in .xxx, it most likely isn?t an adult site.
Another problem: Some nations that control Internet access for their citizens may attempt to force sites dealing with ?forbidden? information, such as homosexuality or birth control, to use the .xxx extension and thus make themselves invisible to that country?s citizens. In other words, the new domains may assist with information control by oppressive governments.
The other controversies that have arisen concerning the new naming conventions may deal with the fact that the U.S. maintains control over the internet naming protocols, in fact if not in name. ICANN is an international organization, but it has bowed in the past to pressure from American administrations and the Commerce Department, much as it is doing now. So it becomes a burning question ? who actually owns the Internet? ? that cannot be easily answered.
I have no doubt that the .xxx extension will come into being. It may take a few more months, but I believe it will happen, and I believe that the benefits will far outweigh the detriments. I will set my browser to protect my 5-year old and roll with the continuing flow that is the World Wide Web.
As a matter of fact, the Internet currently has 15 different valid top-level-domains, or TLDs, not counting individual country codes. These generic TLDs are: .com, .org, .net, .gov, .mil, .biz, .aero, .arpa, .coop, .edu, .info, .int, .museum, .name and .pro. You?d think that was more than enough. As a matter of fact, many ISPs and even some browsers don?t even recognize all of the above as valid extensions for web sites. However, there is a new fight brewing over one more to add this list. Some interests would like to introduce .xxx as a valid top-level-domain to this list. Its purpose? To delineate and separate websites dealing with the adult industry ? in effect, giving the World Wide Web a red light district.
The addition is still up in the air. The internet?s domain name governing system, ICANN (which stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has been hemming and hawing about the issue of the new suffix since it gave preliminary approval in June. Since that time, it has bowed to pressure from the Bush administration, the Department of Commerce, and other world governments and has postponed final approval.
Apparently it?s more than just adding another extension to the set your browser will currently recognize. (As a matter of fact, you can purchase software allowing you to visit sites using the new .xxx extension. The software updates your browser and allows it to recognize sites already in existence which use the .xxx domain. All of these sites are owned and/or operated by the company that ?invented? the .xxx extension and is lobbying for its acceptance. ) The controversy over the addition is also bringing up other arguments over such things as who actually owns the Internet and who has legal say over what TLDs get approved.
I believe the .xxx extension is a good thing. I like the red-light district metaphor used earlier. If you make all adult-oriented sites use one domain, it?s easier to regulate, control and police those sites for things such as missing and exploited children and other illegal activities. Consider the red-light district in Amsterdam, where prostitution is legal. Workers there need to remain licensed by the government, and that licensing includes required health exams and cleanliness screenings of their places of business. Since prostitution was legalized there in 2000, the violent sex crimes in the Netherlands average 10.39 per 100,000 people, vs. the rate in the U.S. of 32.05 per 100,000.
I?m not espousing the advantages of legalized prostitution here (that?s for another column.) Rather, I?m showing the advantages of regulating an industry that by its very nature tends to hang out in the shadows and dark alleys of cyberspace.
I can already hear the critics? arguments, of course. They?ve been brought up already. The first argument: Making all adult-oriented sites have the same extension makes finding them that much easier. The same thing that sets them apart from all other sites could also make them easier to find; if you want to find some pornography, just go looking for www.sex.xxx, for example. My response to that is that it would not be much of a problem to release browser updates and patches that can turn recognition of the .xxx extension on or off, making them kid-friendly. (And for that matter, how difficult is it to find pornography now? When your kids aren?t around, do an image search on Google on the word ?fist? with ?safe-search? off. You?d be surprised.)
This new naming convention would actually be more kid-friendly than some aspects of the current system. Nowadays it is very common to ?stumble across? a pornographic site without meaning to. Remember the school child doing a report on the U.S. government and typing in www.whitehouse.com instead of www.whitehouse.gov? The first was a sex site (no longer,) the second deals with the White House where Mr. Bush lives. The .xxx extension could help eliminate at least some of those problems. If it doesn?t end in .xxx, it most likely isn?t an adult site.
Another problem: Some nations that control Internet access for their citizens may attempt to force sites dealing with ?forbidden? information, such as homosexuality or birth control, to use the .xxx extension and thus make themselves invisible to that country?s citizens. In other words, the new domains may assist with information control by oppressive governments.
The other controversies that have arisen concerning the new naming conventions may deal with the fact that the U.S. maintains control over the internet naming protocols, in fact if not in name. ICANN is an international organization, but it has bowed in the past to pressure from American administrations and the Commerce Department, much as it is doing now. So it becomes a burning question ? who actually owns the Internet? ? that cannot be easily answered.
I have no doubt that the .xxx extension will come into being. It may take a few more months, but I believe it will happen, and I believe that the benefits will far outweigh the detriments. I will set my browser to protect my 5-year old and roll with the continuing flow that is the World Wide Web.
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