Issue date: 9/5/05 Section: Opinion

Porn should be separate from .coms

By Jason Perdue

The idea of creating a .xxx top-level domain, or TLD, for Internet pornography is not only smart, it's responsible. There are literally millions of Web sites dedicated to adult content; anyone who has ever made a mistake entering in a URL can testify to being redirected to any number of them. Now, if that was the content you were looking for in the first place, then it's no big inconvenience, but if you were looking for something a little less graphic, like a professor's homepage, you might be somewhat annoyed. The goal of a .xxx domain is not to censor the material on the Web but rather to organize the Internet to make it easier to use for both those who want to look at porn and those who don't.

The Bush administration has objected to creating an Internet "red-light district," citing 6,000 letters and e-mails it has received since June, when the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) green-lighted the idea. Michael Gallagher of the Department of Commerce stated in a letter to the chairman of ICANN that the letters expressed concern over the impact of pornography on families and children. Considering that the new domain would not be mandatory and that any site that used it would be easier to filter, the impact on children from any site that went over to a .xxx domain would be significantly less than .com pornography Web sites.

The Family Research Council, a self-proclaimed "social policy establishment," has mobilized its members in an effort to block the .xxx TLD because, as its senior legal counsel Patrick Trueman said, it would "cloak the porn industry with legitimacy." Apparently, the FRC doesn't think that the millions of sites already out there or the billions of dollars that the porn industry puts in its collective pockets every year legitimizes pornography. What does the trick is a period followed by three x's.

The FRC's No. 1 ally in this battle turns out to be some of the pornographers, although they object for economic rather than moral reasons. If they lost the .com sites they have had for years, it could mean a loss in profit for the whole porn industry, from the huge companies to the entrepreneurs. Apparently, if Web sites are moved to a different domain name, the demand for pornography will dry up and disappear. They dissent slightly from strange bedfellow the FRC, which believes that this will lead to an increase in the number of porn sites available.

The American Civil Liberties Union has yet to throw its hat in the ring, but the porn industry is already making claims about possible First Amendment issues. If the .xxx domain is created and if it becomes mandatory, it could be possible for the government and a conservative administration to prohibit the public from viewing sites that contain sexual or objectionable content. That seems like a lot of ifs. With as much trouble as it is taking to establish this new domain, it seems very unlikely that all of its opponents will simply walk away from the issue, should it ever be approved.


New domain is a problem

By Adam Kemp

You know something is wrong when the Bush administration and the porn industry agree.

As most college students are well aware, the Internet is littered with pornography. In fact, porn is such a huge portion of the Net that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is responsible for assigning IP addresses and regulating domain names, is considering creating a new top-level domain just for porn. The new domain, .xxx, would be the equivalent of .com, .org, .gov and so on, except that it would be used exclusively for adult content.

The debate over this proposal heated up recently when the U.S. Department of Commerce expressed concerns about it. At the same time, many groups in the porn industry itself are also lobbying against the new domain.

Conservatives are against the new domain because they think that it will legitimize the porn industry and give them more power and freedom, while the porn industry fears that it will be used as a method of mass censorship. The industry is right to fear this change.

The Bush administration hates porn. John Ashcroft made the prosecution of pornography his number one priority when he assumed office, and it is safe to say that it is still an important issue for this administration even after his departure. Although the administration is against the .xxx domain now, they may get a consolation prize if they lose. With the new domain in place, it will be fairly easy for them to pass a law requiring all porn sites to switch to it, which is where the problem comes in.

Once all porn is under a single top-level domain, then it will be easier to filter all of it out. The next step would be to make a law requiring all government networks to use these filters, which could include public universities such as Texas A&M.

Now the really scary part: Who gets to decide what "pornography" is? The law is so vague when it comes to porn that in a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Justice Potter Stewart said that he could not define it, but "I know it when I see it." Many conservatives consider gay and lesbian Web sites to be adult content and would demand that they use the new domain. The same could be said of sex education Web sites or nude art.

While the .xxx domain itself is not censorship, it will give conservatives the perfect opportunity to effectively block just about anything they deem offensive. The porn industry and any other group that fears censorship should avoid any move that would make it easier for conservatives to censor them.

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