On 03/17/2011 08:02 AM, John R. Levine wrote:
If you think that .xxx is to be banned then I suggest that there is an argument that could be made for banning something that many consider worse than sexual porn - and that would be images of murder and torture of human beings. Yet consider how that would denude the internet of great works of Christian art or books on the lives of saints.
If you'd bothered to read the article describing the protest, you'd know that it has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone who wants to ban or outlaw porn.
It has everything to do with it. .pro represented the same idea of corralling "professionals" into a top level domain, presenting the same concern that "professionals" would have to ante up $$ to buy an expensive name in .pro. Of course, .pro, became a total flop because people realized that "professionals" could happily live without a .pro name. (I put "professional" in quotes because .xxx, rather than .pro, might be of use to the worlds oldest professionals.) Similarly TNA people have a choice to not buy a .xxx name; ICANN is not coercing anyone or creating a ghetto - unless the TNA people voluntarily chose to paste the a .xxx patch onto themselves. Nearly every TLD represents an intent to categorize - yet it is only .xxx that is being singled out and characterized as a ghetto or placed for forced buying. And why is that? Because of the concern that .xxx would be a vehicle for censorship or coerced labeling of material that some people would like to censor. It simply is not any of ICANN's concern what kind of material people may chose to represent with a proposed TLD - that way leads to a giant, bloated, and dangerous ICANN. --karl--