xxx versus www

["Tech Support" <tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Folks (Sam FYI)

This is something I've been meaning to write, and I'm thankful the folks at 
sureflix.com forwarded the correct email address.

I'm an adult webmaster with about five years' experience in a variety of online 
adult situations. I've created the pages for paysites, free promotional 
galleries, and link lists.


I'm very much opposed to the proposed "xxx" domain format for adult sites for 
several reasons.

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First, I do not feel it's going to be a positive step in the goal of keeping 
underaged persons from looking at adult content. There are a number of elegant 
and easy to use solutions already available, in the form of content-filtering 
client software combined with authoring solutions such as ICRA, et al.

The bottom line here is this: Those who are interested and motivated already 
have a wide variety of cost-free ways to prevent children and at-work employees 
from accessing adult content.

I can attest to the functionality of these solutions; as a responsible 
webmaster, I've employed the client-side solutions for years to double-check my 
product to ensure that it isn't accessible from inappropriate locations.
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Next, I feel it will create a situation rife with "gray area" issues. Some 
sites which present anatomical information for legitimate medical purposes, or 
general information which might include nudity for reference purposes, might 
find themselves in a dilemma. It will also hurt a vast number of artists who 
produce nude paintings, drawings, sculptures, et cetera.

Not that these sites will necessarily have to move to a "xxx" domain - but by 
remaining within the "www" realm they'll probably generate complaints, cries 
for action, et cetera by the same folks pushing hard for the "xxx" concept.

And too much depends upon how the "rules" governing who must use an "xxx" 
domain are written. What, exactly, will the rules be based upon?
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In keeping with the points above, such a conversion represents a lot of work 
which won't add value or safety to the internet, but it will place a lot of 
power in the hands of a select few. Major ISPs who find themselves being 
pressured by special interest groups could conceivably deny access to the adult 
sector through there service.

This, of course, won't actually allow them to block all adult content. It will 
simply create a "black market" in the dot-com, dot-net and dot-org domains 
because there will always be people willing to circumnavigate such rules to 
make a buck.

In some ways, it's comparable to Prohibition - a foolish amendment to the US 
Constitution which created an illegal market out of thin air, and justified the 
creation of an expensive and previously unnecessary enforcement agency to 
control it.

You don't have to imagine hard to see the situation: Motivated parents and IT 
managers will still have to maintain the same content-filtering approach to 
weed out sites outside of the "xxx" realm whether or not they've chosen a 
"safe" ISP, making it pretty much a waste of effort on everyone's part.
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By no means is my final point the least important point. Such segregation will 
make the adult industry and their customers an easier target than they already 
are, simply by "rounding up" producers, webmasters, models and consumers and 
effectively consigning them to exist in a web ghetto. Anyone familiar with 
history can easily spot some troubling similies here.

While there is no presumed privacy on the web, its sheer scope and variety 
affords some. If a certain sector of the web is segregated to a special domain 
scheme, that privacy immediately disappears.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to spot this, and perhaps the following comment 
is redundant, but...

I don't think for a moment that the folks we truly want to find and remove - 
online predators and producers of child porn - are going to rush to inhabit the 
new "xxx" realm.

They'll find ways to continue their affairs in the exisiting scheme, 
effectively making the whole thing a nasty joke for parents who put faith in 
the wisdom of moving adult matters into the "xxx" realm.
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Sincerely,
Ray (Tech Support, www.patandsam.com)