The internet practically groans under the weight of suspect sites. Search for anything (within reason) in a Google image search and, more than likely, you will find someone sitting naked on top of it, within a few pages of results.
Why then, if filth is so easy to find, would anyone seek to make it easier? Don’t know? Let’s ask Icann, the internet body for assigned names and numbers, it must know. Nope, actually, it doesn’t. That’s why it is asking you what you think. Do you think that pornography should have its own domain? Like, say, a .xxx suffix? Well, do you? It’s no use blushing, we need to work this out.
Icann has picked up and put down the triple-X domain with the same kind of frequency that some men do certain kinds of magazines in newsagents near to where their parents live. Now it seems it has decided that it can resist no longer and it has given the green light to the, er, red light domain. Well, nearly.
The triple-X domain was first mooted in 2000 and last rejected by Icann in May 2006. It has been a bumpy ride for those three small letters, and their rise to Icann semi-approval has taken longer than one of Sting’s tantric thingamybobs. But rise it has, and now Icann has changed position and is more open to experimentation. Ooer.
When it rejected the domain’s advances last year, it said that the task of orchestrating the coming together of pornography laws would be far too complex – presumably a bit like some of the drawings I saw in that Kama whatsit book – but now it is acquiescing. Almost. The body has opened up a consultation period and will seek to find out whether the hairy palmed and granite biceped among us actually care whether their grot is dot-commed, dot-netted or dot-xxx’d.
Anyway, the suggested adoption proposal would see the domain’s sponsor, ICM Registry, employ independent parties to monitor and enforce registrants’ compliance. Icann is also likely to insist that sites adhere to self-labelling criteria, rating themselves on some kind of “Ooh, I say!” scale that users could refer to before deciding whether to visit the site or not
The idea has its knockers: the anti-porn lobby thinks that such a domain would just be another channel for filth to find its way into the home (they obviously have the same Sky subscription as I do).
Whether it is harder or easier to find it online is by the by. What is significant is that sites that are branded with the .xxx suffix can be blocked from the enterprise faster than you can say “John! Not at your desk!” and for the busy, lawsuit-aware IT manager, that can only be a good thing.
