.XXX Domain

[Gumpngreen]

https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=AL05F04&track=0

The Family Research Council is opposing the establishment of the .XXX domain. Apparently no one at their offices understands how the Internet works, so I sent the below letter to them:

I noticed the Family Research Council is opposing the introduction of the .XXX Top Level Domain by ICANN. While I believe FRC's intentions are good I think there is a clear misunderstanding on the technical reasons for why the establishment of the .XXX domain is a GOOD thing.

The decision to oppose the .XXX domain appears to be derived from the misinformed notion that the voluntary nature of the .XXX TLD means sex.com will "expand" to sex.xxx instead of CHANGING TLDs. The Internet is in no way analogous to geography. In the long term, if all pornography sites were FORCED to move to the .XXX domain it would make it far EASIER for Web Brower filters and Email filters to completely block ALL pornography. Isn't that a good thing?

Now I am a software engineer and an IT Technician. If you don't believe me I suggest you contact a technical consultant to confirm what I'm saying since as it is I believe the FRC is making a huge mistake in opposing the .XXX domain.

If you guys could contact them also and say pretty much the same thing I'd appreciate it.

https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=CONTACT_FRC

Or call them at:

1-800/225-4008

[Rebecca]

Gump,

I agree with your arguments. Isolating porn to the .xxx domains would make life much easier for those of us who want to steer clear and/or protect our children from filth. My only concern is that I don't see an effort to force the porn industry to abandon .com, .net, etc. and move exclusively to .xxx. Without forcing them to move over, the .xxx domain is pretty much pointless. Do you know of any organized effort to make this happen? What are your opinions on this?

Thanks, :)

Bekka

[Gumpngreen]

The only way the pornography will get isolated if it's done in steps. Legislation that attempts to make a big leap is likely to get shot down. The foundation for all this is to first establish the .XXX domain. From there it's a matter of legislating the move of US-based companies to that domain. Obviously there will be some First Amendment lawsuits but I believe that splitting up the domains into sectors will benefit the organization of the internet and shouldn't be construed as a limiting of free speech. The government has .gov for a reason...and it's fully up to an individual if they want to block that domain.

In the meantime if the porn companies want to keep their old domains that is fine as long as their TLD is a .xxx domain. For example, with my own company we recently moved to xrucifix.com. Now we still kept twoguyssoftware.ca BUT it ultimately links to the xrucifix.com domain. So if I set up a filter for xrucifix.com it would still get blocked even if I attempted to access it using twoguyssoftware.ca

[Merry]

I'll be happy to give them a call.

[AngelAzariah]

_____Is there a direct e-mail that we could use?

[Rebecca]

In the meantime if the porn companies want to keep their old domains that is fine as long as their TLD is a .xxx domain. For example, with my own company we recently moved to xrucifix.com. Now we still kept twoguyssoftware.ca BUT it ultimately links to the xrucifix.com domain. So if I set up a filter for xrucifix.com it would still get blocked even if I attempted to access it using twoguyssoftware.ca

Ah-ha. I hadn't thought of that approach. Makes a lot of sense. !thumbsup!

Bekka

[Hisart]

Originally Posted by Gumpngreen In the long term, if all pornography sites were FORCED to move to the .XXX domain it would make it far EASIER for Web Brower filters and Email filters to completely block ALL pornography. Isn't that a good thing?

There, is the problem, you can't force them, First Amendment. If they ENFORCED the already existing laws they could 'guide' them to .xxx eventually. :rolleyes:

[Gumpngreen]

How is organizing domains based upon business sector against the First Amendment, which says "or abridging the freedom of speech"? Their right to speech isn't being infringed at all in the form of censorship. Now I would "like" to see such the domains be enforced but while enforced "ratings" aren't the same as censorship, they are a form of branding. Forcing a site into a .xxx domain SOLELY could be construed as a de facto way of regulating speech. But there "might" be a way around this. I "believe" that it "should" be possible to regulate it so that if any porn company tries to register a non-.xxx domain they'll automatically be assigned a .xxx domain also. So if a company wanted www.nakedpeople.com (<- I have no idea if that links to anything, but don't test it ;) ) they'd also be assigned www.nakedpeople.xxx There is also the sticky issue of ICANN being an organization independant of any government so technically the US government could request separate system (China does this all the time in order to crack down on dissenters). Even if the US government doesn't make a specific request with enough public pressure ICANN could start enforcing .xxx domains by themselves, which obviously would not break the First Amendment (though there might be other laws regulating corporations I don't know about).

[wgjones3]

I understand the intention, but this just has UN Internet Control (http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031117-113002-7678r.htm) written all over it.

It starts out by forcing the porn sites to move to .xxx domains, but where does it stop? A website that criticizes the war on terror is shut down by the request of the Office of Homeland Security? A site teaching that the Bible forbids extramarital sex is shut down for being hate speech? CW being shut down for fostering hate crimes?

Just keep in mind, the government--all governments--operate in increments and by precident. McCarthyism, interment camps, forced censorship--they all seem like great ideas at the beginning, and anyone who opposes them must be ignorant and backward or worse--subversive.

Just look at what happened in England in their war on terror. The police are given shoot-to-kill orders and the first thing they do with those orders is shoot an innocent man in the head eight times AFTER he's been contained on a subway train, then they lie about it steadfastly (apparently paying off everyone in the car to lie for them as well). It isn't until a security tape is leaked this week (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050817/ap_on_re_eu/britain_bombings_brazilian_4;_ylt=Aj6AH.e0iCOukmPb 9MGJiyW9Q5gv;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl ) that we see the truth.

If highly-trained law enforcement officers can take such leaps when lives are at stake, what about a regulatory body that's established to police websites?

[Gumpngreen]

Sorry, but there is huge difference. This idea has nothing to do with controlling access to websites. It does not censor information in any way. It only changes how the addresses for the websites are organized, which makes it easier for end users to customize what they want to access. In short, the government couldn't "operate in increments" towards censorship using this as a precedent since the end users would still control which sites they access. That would require an entirely different set of legislation, and as I said before ICANN is NOT part of any government (they're of course "influenced" by various governments). Personally I wouldn't mind if they created more TLDs. Like ".vg", which would be specific to websites about video games.

[wgjones3]

I'm sorry that you either can't or don't want to understand what I'm saying, but that doesn't make it any less valid.

By the way, you said yourself that ICANN is influenced by the government and that China does it all the time, so don't act like I'm stupid for thinking this thing out farther than "porn sites bad, we must force them to change domains so we can control them".

[ellenjames]

My only question is: Will it be possible to isolate them? My understanding that they want to push their views (and scenes) anywhere on any site!

Is that statement right or wrong? :confused:

Ellenjames

[Gumpngreen]

I had actually the thought about possible internet censorship scenarios a step further but didn't bother mentioning them since it's a separate issue. Let's say a government wants to ban sites with certain content. They "could" take the roundabout way of first changing the domain for a specific site and then filtering it out as you're worried about. But why even bother with that extra step of changing the domain if you already know the original domain and the person/corporation/dummy corporation it is registered to? Instead of going the complicated route of filtering the site at an internet backbone why not simply track down the physical server and shut it down? Why even care at all what TLD the censored site was assigned? Plus, at least in the US this scenario is highly unlikely since it requires that the independent ICANN, the government, and all the various corporations hosting the internet backbone (unless they were seized by the government) to be working together. It just doesn't make any sense.

Oh, and I should have been more careful with my remark about China; it's a completely separate issue from the control of TLDs. ICANN isn't doing anything special for China, and it's influenced by all governments and the public at large. But since the Chinese government hosts the country's internet backbone they're "allowed" (as if ICANN could really do anything about it!) to filter and block anything they please since all internet traffic must go through government controlled systems (which is what I meant by "request separate system", though "request" is a poor choice of words; "set up a separate filtering system" is more precise). The internet backbones in the US are all controlled by independant corporations. Only if the US government seized these assets or legislated some sort of oversight/control could they directly censor internet traffic (and ONLY within our own country).

Now there is one possible scenario where the TLDs could be used as a sort of indirect censorship. Let's say a TLD named ".hate" was created for any sites that were considered to contain "hate speech". Many people would likely set their internet browsers to block all .hate sites by default. Now ICANN could conceivably do this by themselves without any government being involved. So ICANN could start moving any sites they didn't like to the .hate TLD. This wouldn't directly prevent anyone from accessing these sites but the bad association with the name of the TLD would still act as a deterrant. Of course, the world wouldn't stand for that type of nonsense from a supposedly independent organization. So again, if we were worried about our government censoring information they would still need to seize the internet backbones and set up a separate system. And again, at that point the enforcement of TLD becomes a negligible issue since it's pointless to bother with changing the domain name when you can shut down the server (assuming it's located in the US) or filter it out.

[ellenjames]

So, all of that means that the only way to really eliminate it is at your personal computer. We all know we can block e-mail from addys we don't want coming to our inbox. Wouldn't that be the best way to block pornography?

Ellenjames

[Gumpngreen]

You can also eliminate it at the level of the ISP. Unfortunately not enough ISP's offer that ability and they often charge more for it, too.

[Gumpngreen]

FRC's response:

Thank you for contacting the Family Research Council
> regarding your concerns about the .xxx domain.
>
> If we promote legislation that will force ALL
> pornographers to the .xxx domain, it will not
> resolve the problem. You see, there already is law
> which prohibits pornographers from selling hardcore
> porn on the internet (anywhere on the internet).
> Unfortunately, for pornographers, the law means
> nothing as they've been doing it for years. Attorney
> General Alberto Gonzales is now launching a major
> effort to prosecute internet pornographers. For more
> information, we recommend that you read the 2nd
> paragraph in the Alert we sent a short while ago
> (https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=AL05F04) as it
> directly answers your question and re-illustrates
> what I described above:
>
> "Others naively suggest that passing a new law to
> force pornographer to move to .XXX will solve the problem
> but let me assure you that that won't work either. Law means
> nothing to hardcore pornographers. There already is
> a law prohibiting them from selling hardcore porn on the
> Internet - anywhere on the Internet -- yet they've been doing
> it for years. They can be prosecuted under federal
> obscenity or RICO laws which not only provide very heavy fines
> and jail time but also forfeiture of all their assets. So
> what is needed is not another new law -- which will likely
> be tied up in the courts for years -- but vigorous
> prosecution under current laws, and a good filter on your
> computer. I just met with Attorney General Gonzales and right
> now he is launching a major effort to prosecute the porn
> industry.
> He intends to smash these criminal enterprises on
> the Internet and elsewhere with a special new obscenity
> strike force. That is the only way to handle hardcore
> pornographers! Also, our legal experts say that a
> law telling pornographers to move out of .com would be
> struck down as unconstitutional. The .XXX proposal gives
> false hope to parents that the problem of Internet porn
> will be solved. It will increase, not decrease porn, on the
> Internet."
>
> Patrick, please feel free to contact us if you have
> any further questions regarding this matter. We hope
> you will stand with us to prevent the porn industry
> from expanding.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jenna Timmer
> Correspondence

In short, I do not think Jenna comprehended exactly what I meant so I elaborated:

When I say "forcing" the pornographer to the .XXX domain I mean that ICANN should be pressured to organize top level domains based upon business sector. Unfortunately, forcing a site into a .xxx domain SOLELY could be construed as a de facto way of regulating speech since while enforced "ratings" aren't the same as censorship, they are a form of branding. But there "might" be a way around this. I "believe" that it "should" be possible for ICANN to regulate it so that if any porn company tries to register a non-.xxx domain they'll automatically be assigned a .xxx domain also in order to foster a more coherent organization of the internet. So if a company wanted the domain www.nakedpeople.com they'd also automatically be assigned www.nakedpeople.xxx Already existing porn sites with .com would also be assigned .xxx as their TLD. In order to be fair the same would be done for other businesses. So a video game developer like my own company would automatically be assigned www.xrucifix.vgd since we already have the www.xrucifix.com domain.

"Also, our legal experts say that a law telling pornographers to move out of .com would be struck down as unconstitutional."

"[The .XXX proposal] will increase, not decrease porn, on the Internet."

Now I'm not a lawyer so my analysis of the situation might be flawed in regards to whether or not this would violate US law (though I do not see how it would since ICANN is a separate organization). But I do comprehend the technical issues involved. As I said before, the internet is NOT like geography so they would not "move out of .com" nor would they be "expanding" to a new section of the internet. Technically they would be adding an additional domain that would be routing to the same Internet Protocol (IP) Address. If the TLD for a website is nakedpeople.xxx even if I type in nakedpeople.com to access their website I will ultimately be routed to nakedpeople.xxx and then a specific IP address connected to these domains. The web browser will detect this transition to the .xxx domain and if a filter is in place for all .xxx websites the porn site will be blocked.

You can see how this works with my own website. The old domain for my company used to be www.twoguyssoftware.ca . We have kept this domain but now our TLD is www.xrucifix.com . If you go to www.twoguyssoftware.ca you'll see that you are automatically routed to www.xrucifix.com and the internet's DNS service translates the name into the corresponding IP address. Which in this case is 69.90.8.17 for BOTH domain names and this shows that we have NOT expanded to a different section of the internet. Try this yourself.

The FRC seems to be focused on having the filtering be done by the government. The point of forcing the pornographers to .xxx is not further regulation by the US government. The US government or ICANN would not and cannot directly filter the pornography themselves (except by prosecuting pornographers based in the US who are violating our already existing laws). Forcing the pornographers to .xxx would allow end users and ISPs to easily filter out pornography. THAT is why I think the .xxx TLD should be supported.

Now I realize that as a member of the correspondance team you probably do not have any authority to make any decisions. But I would appreciate it if my message was passed onto someone higher in management since as it is I believe the FRC is making a huge mistake in opposing the .XXX domain.

I have a feeling Jenna is a low level employee tasked with responding to such emails. Unfortunately the only way to change these people's stance is to be loud enough that word of their mistake gets to the higher management.

[Gumpngreen]

FRC's new response:

By establishing an .xxx domain, the government would be legitimizing
internet pornography. However, the Supreme Court has recognized that
obscenity and child pornography laws are still in effect, both for
physical transfers and electronic transfers, noting in Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S.
844, 117 S.Ct. 2329, at 2347, n. 44 (1997), that: "Transmitting
obscenity and child pornography, whether via the Internet or other means, is
already illegal under federal law for both adults and juveniles."
Therefore, the solution to decreasing and eventually ending the existence of
pornography on the internet is for federal prosecutors to vigorously
prosecute obscenity crimes.

You may also be interested in our August 26 press release, "FRC
Applauds Indictment of Internet Pornography Spammers," at
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR05H17 .

The first sentence is utter nonsense. ICANN is an independent organization so how is the US government involved? They can put pressure on ICANN as can the public and other governments. They might have more influence but that would hardly "legitimize" pornography in a legal sense.