Polly Ticks: Triple-X Domain
The battle between freedom of speech and the internet is being waged on a new front. The governing board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rejected a proposal by ICM Registry to create a new internet extension: .xxx.
ICANN is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California. They manage the assignment of domain names and IP addresses, a task previously preformed on behalf of the U.S. Government by IANA. (For more information on ICANN)
Voting took place in Lisbon, Portugal, on the final day of ICANN’s 28th International Public Meeting, whose members rejected the ICM Registry proposal 9-5. This vote ended a debate that has been raging since 2000, when the proposal was originally submitted to ICANN by ICM Registry.
One of the deciding factors, for the board members of ICANN, was the responsibility of deciding which sites should be .xxx and which should not. It is this issue which has faced much deliberation from both sides.
Proponents of the .xxx domain extension argue this will give the opportunity for the adult entertainment community to bring confidence and certainty to their online business while also offering society at large, wishing to avoid adult content, an easy and reliable filtering method.
The opposition finds the online adult-entertainment industry and religious conservatives fighting for the same cause. While the political right, particularly in the United States Australia and Brazil, are worried that the .xxx domain may offer a legitimate method for the adult-entertainment industry to deliver their content easily. The industry is concerned this new domain could place their sites into “an easily controlled online ghetto.”
So, what is the next step for the highly disgruntled ICM? It looks like they may be heading to court. “This will probably go into litigation,” ICM Registry CEO Stuart Lawley said. “There are multiple prongs for challenging the ICANN decision.”
Polly Ticks: a snarky look at the happenings in the world today entangled in female perception, appears every Thursday right here at iconoclastic
Technorati: xxx, domain names, ICANN, ICM Registry, first amendment, freedom of speech
