[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I want to just respond to one point
> which was stated by Mark ...
> Mark said "It would be difficult if not impossible to force the p*rn
> industry to be part of 'xxx'."
> Why would that be difficult, Mark? In many communities now, those
> places are required (just like taverns) to post notices that persons
> of minority age cannot be on the premises. It is not considered a
> free-association issue, but rather a matter of public policy and any
> challenges to the 'minors stay away' rule are always defeated. Why
> would it be a free-speech issue to impose on p*rn sites in the same
> way, with 'xxx' being the equivilent of a 'minors not allowed' sign?
> I have never yet seen a tavern, or a gay mens 'bathhouse', or an adult
> bookstore for example, which got anywhere trying to argue that that
> signs on the wall ordering minors to leave the premises were somehow
> an imposition on the establishment (or the patrons therein) rights of
> free speech or free association. Or, for that matter, a movie theatre
> (adult or otherwise) which attempted to enfore an 'X' or 'PG' rating
> making free speech claims, etc. So why would an internet establishment
> suddenly have that problem (assuming the law said that public policy
> dictated the protection of minors?
Go ahead and try to force me to move one of my customer's sites from a .com to a .xxx site.
Where will you go? Your ISP? The police? Hire a lawyer and go to court? Which court?
See, this internet thing surpasses jurisdictional boundaries. I'm in Canada, my clients are in Canada, and unless a similar law was passed in Canada, the best you'd get is a US court to agree that my site really should be somewhere else, but that's about it.
Even if you got ICANN onboard, the site could be in .ca rather then .com, and ICANN has no authority.
Next, there are literally millions of sites. With all the crime existing in the world today, who exactly do you expect to pursue sites appearing and disappearing daily?
Next, we have the question of who defines "adult" -- Again, the internet is international. What your average rightwing nutjob in the US considers "adult" or "offensive" may be common place and completely legal in the less-inhibited portions of Europe -- The whole world isn't as upright about breasts as Americans seem to be.
A more workable solution would be a .kids or .family TLD which would specifically exclude adult material -- This would be enforceable, since it would be controlled by a central authority under a single jurisdiction, and anyone who wanted to purchase a domain in that TLD would need to agree to appropriate terms.
One thing that 'xxx' _would_ do is provide a good screening and
> filtering mechanism for 'adult' purveyors who did _not_ want to be
> bothered by kids coming around, etc (when combined with their other
> validation techniques such as credit card proof of age, etc.). People
> who were so inclined could filter out 'xxx' in the same way they can
> filter out other spam and trash. What's your objection to that? PAT]
There are already tons of techniques to allow legitimate pornographic sites to keep children away. If you use Internet Explorer, go to Tools --> Options --> [Content], click the "Content Advisor"'s [Enable] button, and set some appropriate ratings.