Another voice against .XXX tld
Dear Reader, As a parent of two children and an Internet marketer for close to 10 years I am writing this to state my objections to the proposed .xxx tld. Those in favor of .xxx like to use words and phrases such as "voluntary" and "protect the children" in an attempt to fool people into supporting this notion. The problem being that as long as it is voluntary there is no way that it can protect anyone, and secondly, setting up a tld that labels a site as being adult does nothing to protect children. It only helps the curious to find it should they desire. The only way that a tld can even attempt to protect anyone is to make it mandatory, except you then have the problem of enforceability along with freedom of speech issues. If .xxx becomes mandatory it would only be enforceable in the USA, and that only insures that the sites that we must truly be concerned with are located off-shore. The cliche' that "if guns are made illegal, only criminals will have guns" can not help but come to mind in this situation. The issue of protecting children from porn is a serious one, but it is one that must be dealt with by parents. As a parent I would much rather see a .kids tld created so that I know there is a tld that my children can visit with no concerns about what they might view. Creating a voluntary or mandatory .xxx tld does nothing to ease my concerns as a father, however, as a businessman and American citizen it does cause concerns about First Amendment rights. I can foresee ISP's blocking tlds by default. I can foresee drawn out and expensive litigation over domain ownership rights. ICM Registry did not come up with .xxx as a way to protect children, but as a way to make money. They admit this is a for profit venture. I have no problem with someone trying to make a dollar, but when it steps on my rights to conduct business I do. Lloyd Brown CEO/President - SPP Productions, Inc. Director of Business Development - Got Web Host |