Global agency reconsiders '.xxx' for porn sites

NAIROBI (AP) - A global Internet oversight agency is reopening discussions about whether to create a “.xxx” domain name as an online red-light district where porn sites can set up shop away from the wandering eyes of children and teenagers.

Parents would be able to use the system to help block access to porn sites, though because its use would be voluntary, the “.xxx” suffix wouldn’t keep such content entirely away from minors.

Religious and other anti-porn groups worry that “.xxx” would legitimize porn sites, and the proposal has already been rejected three times since 2000.

But the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees the allocation of Internet addresses globally, may revive ICM Registry LLC’s bid yet again as ICANN meets in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

Last month, responding to complaints from ICM, an outside panel questioned ICANN’s grounds for the latest rejection in 2007. As a result, board members have been weighing the matter ahead of formal consideration of the “.xxx” bid, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom said in an interview.

Beckstrom said he was not able to give details of those discussions for legal reasons, and he could not say when ICANN may reach a decision.

Stuart Lawley, ICM’s chief executive, said he has been the victim of a process that he considered far from open and nondiscriminatory.

ICM, which planned to charge $60 for a site to register a “.xxx” name, first proposed “.xxx” in 2000 as a way to help the online porn industry clean up its act.

Those using the domain would have to abide by yet-to-be-written rules designed to bar such trickery as spamming and malicious scripts.

And parents could set up Internet software to automatically block any site ending in “.xxx,” reducing the chances that minors and other Internet users would accidentally stumble on pornography online.

Given its voluntary nature, however, “.xxx” would unlikely have much effect on parents’ ability to block porn sites. And because a domain name serves merely as an easy-to-remember moniker for a site’s actual numeric Internet address, even if its use is required, a child could simply punch in the numeric address of any blocked “.xxx” name.

Anti-porn activists, meanwhile, worry that the creation of a virtual red-light district would serve as an endorsement of the adult-entertainment industry, as “.xxx” would be sitting alongside other suffixes such as “.com” for commercial sites and “.edu” for schools.

Skeptics note that porn sites would likely keep their existing “.com” storefronts, even as they set up shop in the new “.xxx” domain name, thereby expanding the number of porn sites on the Internet.

When ICANN last considered “.xxx,” board members also expressed worries that the suffix would leave the agency in the business of regulating content, or the type of material that would find itself there.

The board also questioned whether “.xxx” had the support of the adult-entertainment industry, as many operators of porn sites were concerned that governments would later make the voluntary red-light district mandatory.

ICANN still wasn’t swayed after ICM said that the content-regulation role would have been left solely with the company and that ICM would fend off efforts to mandate its use.