Our thoughts, rants and inside knowlege of web design & development!
Posts tagged pornography
ICANN approves new ‘.xxx’ top level domain
Mar 20th
On Friday the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved a new ‘.xxx’ top level domain (TLD) that will be operated by the ICM Registry. The ‘.xxx’ TLD will join the ranks of other TLDs like ‘.com’, ‘.co.uk’, ‘.org’ and so on. The intended use for the ‘.xxx’ will be adult websites, but it will not be compulsory for sites containing pornographic content to use that TLD. At the time of writing over 284,000 domains have been pre-reserved.
The introduction of the new TLD has met a lot of opposition from a wide range of factions. Conservative groups have opposed the introduction of ‘.xxx’ as they believe it legitimises the production and publication of pornographic material, whilst figures in the adult industry have opposed the TLD as they believe it could lead to legislation enforcing ‘.xxx’ on pornographic websites, effectively ‘ghettoising’ adult websites on the internet and leading to censorship of all websites under that domain. They are also frustrated that they will have to pay out to protect their brand by reserving their website domain again under the new TLD.
Proponents of the new TLD have been keen to point out its advantages, namely the protection of minors from More >
UK government proposes nationwide filtering of adult websites
Dec 23rd
The Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has proposed cutting off access to pornographic material at the ISP level in an interview with The Sunday Times. The government has been in talks with internet service providers (ISPs) to implement a system to filter access to pornographic content. Under these proposals, customers would have to contact their ISP to have the block removed.
Proponents of the proposal have noted that easy access to pornography can be damaging to children who view it. Miranda Suit, chair of the Safer Media organisation referred to a report compiled by the US-based Witherspoon Institute – “Children are becoming addicted in their teens to internet pornography. They are being mentally damaged so they cannot engage in intimate relationships.”
ISPA, the industry body for ISPs, has responded to the government proposal: “Ispa firmly believes that controls on children’s access to the internet should be managed by parents and carers with the tools ISPs provide, rather than being imposed top-down.”
Critics of the plan have noted that filtering systems tend to be extremely indiscriminate and with alarming frequency block access to important material such as sex education resources. Civil rights organisations have also noted that the classification of which material is More >