The digital red light

I've seen this all over the internet today. ICANN has refused to create .xxx as a top level domain. This story is apparently huge... I'm not sure why. Apparently advocates of the .xxx top level domain argue that the extension would separate porn sites from the remainder of the internet, there for making it easier to keep porn off the computers that don't want it. The people against it say it'll make porn easier to find. In the end however ICANN said NO! but for completely different reasons.

I must admit I agree with the advocates... kind of. I think that if all I had to do was block the top level domain ".xxx" and I would never hit a porn site, and my children would never hit a porn site; that would be great. However for that to work. Each and every website with "adult content" would need to move over to the new .xxx extension. Some how I doubt that would ever actually happen.

As far as the guys auguring against it that it would make porn easier to find. I don't know that porn could be easier to find. Personally I find that argument to avoid the reality of the situation. Beyond this I have little to say about the argument... it is simply void of a realistic view of internet porn.

Finally, I talk about ICANN. They denied the idea of a .xxx because they feel that doing so would be a kind of over regulating the internet. They decided that doing this would control the information on the internet in a way that they thought was against the spirit of the internet. Frankly I agree with them. I think; considering their argument; that they made the right decision.

~Richard