The domain that won't die

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March 17, 2006 | Sex & Society

The domain that won't die

Like a bad fashion trend or a stubborn character on your favorite soap opera, dot-xxx, the proposed top level domain for adult websites, just won't die. Its most recent revival is courtesy of two U.S. Senators who want to make it mandatory for all websites deemed "harmful to minors" to end their website address with ".xxx."

Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) introduced the "Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006" to the U.S. Senate on March 16, according to AVN Online. If passed, it will require the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to establish a new international top level domain (TLD) to house objectionable websites. Companies and webmasters would be required to register for the TLD within six months and violators would be subject to civil penalties and prosecution.

Perhaps the most troubling part of the proposed legislation, which the Senate won't likely review until the end of the month, is its subjective definition of offensive material. According to the bill:

“The term ‘material that is harmful to minors’ means any communication, picture, image, graphic image file, article, recording, writing, or other matter of any kind that is obscene or that a reasonable person would find […] with respect to minors, is designed to appeal to, or is designed to pander to, the prurient interest; depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive manner with respect to minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, an actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual act, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals or post-pubescent female breast; and taking the material as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”

It's a mouthful, for sure. More than that, though, it's a long-winded threat to free speech, according to the Free Speech Coalition (FSC). According to AVN Online, FSC says the bill would lead to the "ghettoization" of protected speech on the Internet and would not, in reality, protect children from adult content. More effective, it suggests, would be a dot-kids TLD for content that is child-friendly.

A proposal to enact the dot-xxx TDL has been on the table at ICANN for at least a year. It has been subject to a series of delays, however, while the group debates and researches the idea, which most in the adult entertainment industry agree is a bad one. Let's hope they can convince th U.S. Congress the same.