The XXX Domain Debate
See Did US Government Pressure ICANN to Drop XXX Domain?
It's been an interesting story involving the porn industry, anti-porn groups, the Bush Administration, senators trying to gain points with the public, Toronto based ICM (the company that proposed the .xxx domain and hoped to make a bunch of money being its official registrar), ICANN (the internationally organized, non-profit corporation responsible for domain addresses) and some world governments complaining the United States has too much influence.
Neither the porn industry nor the anti-porn people wanted the domain. Which pretty much guaranteed it wouldn't happen. The porn people like things fine the way they are and the anti-porn people don't want to accept things as they are.
It would have cost internet porn businesses a bit of money and a bunch of headaches trying to keep others from grabbing their branded domain names. Also, they didn't want to be segregated with the possible restrictions and costs segregation makes possible.
The antiporners didn't want to legitimize porn by giving porn its own domain. They want it to cease existing, by legislation if necessary.
If the xxx domain were created, there could not have been a law requiring porn sites to move to the domain because it would have been unconstitutional. So the xxx domain couldn't have been used to filter porn. The senators must have known this and were just playing for conservative votes.
The story didn't end with ICANN's decision to drop the XXX domain idea. ICM is taking the US government to court to find out if the Bush Administration subjected ICANN to undue pressure.
ICM hopes to gain access to information it alleges was withheld by the DoC in a freedom of information act (FOIA) request made in October 2005.I'm impressed with a government that allows a foreign company to take it to court. I just hope to my pretty porn star that Bush doesn't have undue influence in the courts.
Stuart Lawley, the head of ICM Registry, told Times Online that this information will provide the "extra evidence that provides the irrefutable proof" that the US Government intervened in the issue to prevent .xxx going ahead.
