Critics Say XXX Domain Only Creates More Porn
Type "porn" in Google and you get over half a billion results.
But expect the number of pornography websites to explode now that ICANN has approved the .xxx domain – essentially creating a red light district on the internet.
On Friday, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers voted 9-3 to approve the triple-X domain name during its annual meeting in San Francisco.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Thousands of people have pre-registered over 267,000 .xxx domains with ICM Registry, the company that proposed the top-level domain. Over 40,000 of those .xxx domains were reserved within 24 hours of the Friday's decision, the registry said via Twitter.
Critics were quick to blast the ICANN decision, saying the .xxx domain simply multiplies the number of adult websites on the internet. Porn site operators can now occupy both .com and .xxx .domains.
"I think this is a dumb decision and just adds more porn to the web and makes the web once again known for porn," Craig Gross, co-founder of XXXChurch.com, a ministry which helps people overcome their addiction to pornography, wrote Saturday.
Gross, who brings awareness to pornography addiction through church events and debates with porn stars on college campuses, said the .xxx domain could be a "great thing" if regulators made it mandatory for all porn sites abandon their .com and move over to .xxx.
But since that isn't the case, the only benefits that the XXXChurch pastor can see is that the .xxx domain will make it easier for parents to block child access to inappropriate adult material and that the land of .com is "likely to become cleaner."
Morality in Media CEO Patrick A. Trueman said there is still no evidence that the public wants or needs the .xxx domain.
"I am deeply disappointed with the decision of ICANN because the .xxx domain was unwanted by the public, by governments and even by the porn industry," Trueman told The Christian Post.
The former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Trueman rejects the argument made by .xxx domain proponents that the move will protect children from being exposed to pornography.
First, only a small percentage of families use web filtering, he pointed out. Secondly, he said children will have even more access to pornography with the .xxx domain because there will be more sites providing porn.
Obscene adult pornography causes great harms to both children and adults, according to research compiled by Trueman's organization at PornHarms.com. Pornography causes sexual exploitation of children, children sexually abusing other children, porn addiction, increased sex trafficking and the breakdown of the family, said Trueman.
Unlike Gross, Trueman takes a harder approach to pornography. He believes that simply creating a .xxx domain and enacting legislation that would mandate porn sites to use that domain would not solve the fundamental problem, only the prosecution of pornography would.
Trueman said hardcore obscene pornography on the Internet is illegal but laws against it are not being enforced.
"The U.S. Department of Justice has given pornographers a green light by not enforcing federal laws which prohibit obscene hardcore pornography on the Internet," he said.
ICM Registry is currently selling .xxx domains wholesale for $60 each.
But don't expect porn site operators to be the only ones rushing to snatch up the obscene domains.
Critics say that many respectable businesses will be forced to purchase a .xxx domain to protect their good name.
