Three Strikes for '.XXX' Domain
The hotly contested ".xxx" domain - which would have drawn in and regulated porn sites that currently exist within the ".com," ".biz," ".org," or ".net" domains. - was rejected for a third time on Friday.
Christians expressed their approval over the ruling, saying that the bill was rightly rejected because it would have increased the problems among pornography use on the internet. They added that children would be exposed to pornographic images more readily, and it would increase accessibility.
"When it comes to deciding between protecting the profits of pornographers and protecting children, our children come first," said Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) special counsel Patrick Trueman, in a statement. "The proposed '.xxx' domain offered nothing but false hope to those wanting to keep Internet pornography from children. Pornographers would simply expand to '.xxx' and maintain their current .com sites, perhaps doubling the number of porn sites and doubling their menace to society."
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Before the proposal was defeated by a 9-5 vote Friday, many had criticized the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the international board that manages Internet domain names – for reviving the proposal in January after Florida-based ICM Registry LLC agreed to hire independent organizations to monitor porn sites' compliance with the new rules. ICM, a startup that handles Web-site registrations with the aim of overseeing sites that want to have the ".xxx" Internet suffix, first floated the ".xxx" proposal seven years ago. ICANN has been accused of trying to gain money since each site would have a $60 annual fee paid to the board.
The .xxx domain was one of the few issues where online pornographers and Christians shared a common view on. Christians were worried that the new domain would legitimize the adult video industry, and that it would be even more difficult to protect children from mature content sites. Porn site owners disagreed with the domain because the government could later mandate its use. The ".xxx" domain also would essentially "ghettoize" those sites under that URL.
Instead of creating a new domain, Christians have been in favor of the government monitoring and creating some restrictions on adult web sites to keep children from accessing porn sites online. They feel that more can be done to restrict pornography, and that there are more than enough tools to completely protect children.
"Both hardcore pornographers and sympathetic federal judges are laboring under the misconception that the Constitution provides smut peddlers with an absolute right to disseminate all forms of graphic and obscene material on the Internet," explained Matt Barber, Policy Director for Cultural Issues for Concerned Women for America (CWA), in a CWA response. "They ignore both Supreme Court precedent and federal laws which permit reasonable restrictions to be placed on such material. They demand unfettered access to your children requiring that the filth they produce remain just one click away. They cower behind the First Amendment, shielding their perversions from all scrutiny and moral parameters."
Federal law currently prohibits the distribution of hardcore pornography, but it has mostly focused on only small companies with extreme sexual cases, such as depicting animals, human waste, and vicious rape material. This only covers only one percent of illegal content, according to ADF, a legal defense that defends Christian right to defend and hear the "Truth."
"This approach has given a green light to the largest porn companies, which distribute a wide variety of illegal hardcore material on hundreds of thousands of .com sites," added Trueman in a statement. "Congress did not intend to exclude 99 percent of hardcore pornography when it passed new pornography laws targeting Internet pornography 10 years ago."
Trueman, who formerly served as the chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in the U.S. Department of Justice's Crime Division from 1988 to 1993,warns that the ".xxx" domain will probably emerge again in the future.
"There is too much money at stake," he said.
According to AP, ICANN will no longer hear ICM's proposal, but an entirely new application could be considered. Furthermore, Stuart Lawley, ICM's president and chief executive, said ICM would pursue the matter further and said a lawsuit against ICANN was likely.
