Faced with opposition from conservative groups and some pornography Web sites (EMPHASIS ADDED), the Internet’s key oversight agency voted to reject a proposal to create a red-light district on the Internet.
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Anti-porn advocates, however, countered that sites would be free to keep their current “.com” address, in effect making porn more easily accessible by creating yet another channel to house it.
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The porn industry trade group Free Speech Coalition believes a domain name for kids-friendly sites would be more appropriate.
I think this is a HORRIBLE decision. Conservative groups AND porn site operators were on the same side of this issue? This thought alone to me seems ridiculous. I’m sure whatever conservative groups that were behind supporting this decision meant well, but their reasoning, to me, seems to be flawed.
The argument that porn sites would still be able to keep their .com addresses, so allowing them to have a .xxx domain would make pornography more accessible, is absurd. If anything, this should make pornography LESS accessible. With specific .xxx domains, it would be very easy to block children, or even adults, from seeing material on these sites. Sure, some pornographic sites will still keep their .com addresses, so they will be harder to filter, but putting an automatic ban on any .xxx addresses would make it easier to block at least SOME pornography, and blocking some pornography is better than blocking none at all. In addition to blocking access to webpages, it would be much easier to filter pornographic spam emails as well.
A separate domain name especially for kids sites sounds like a great idea. It could be something like .kids or such. But how does that help me stop my child from seeing pornography? Would I only let my child view websites with the .kids domain? What about other kid-appropriate sites that have .com domains, like www.nickjr.com or www.cubs.com or even www.mikelaughead.com? Those sites are kid-friendly. But if I allow my son to view those sites, I am potentially allowing him access, even if it is accidental, to a pornographic .com. When it comes to protecting children, it should be easier, not harder, for parents shield them from things that are not appropriate. Allowing .xxx domain names for pornographic sites would have the effect of making it easier for parents to protect their children.
That does seem to be a wrong choice, I know that I, as a parent would like to make it easier to recognize which domain names I would not want my children able to view.
I agree. I think the decision must have been made by porn site user so that it isn’t as easy to know where they surf.
i tseems it would only make sense. how man o fus have typed in what we thought was an innocent website to get the wrong thing.
not sure what conservatives were thing there, unless is was just the thought of opening a can of worms with an xxx specific domain?
Yeah I think I’m going to have to agree with you on this one. Yes, some porn sites will continue to keep their .coms or .nets or .infos or whatever it is they’ve got but those of them that are going to abide by the rules will move. It does seem like a win win situation if everyone will just follow rules as they should.
OHHHH… Look! Smileys! Well, then… Those conservatives
I can’t believe they would do such a thing! When I think of accidently going to a site like that it makes me 
! I wish they had been thinking a little bit harder about that decision!