Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

The .xxx TLD has been delayed again.

This entire issue is really quite stupid though, on all sides.

Originally the .xxx domain idea was proposed by lawmakers in the "Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006". It was intended, so they say, for "corralling pornography in its own domain" and to create a "do not enter zone" for kids. This is the first really dumb thing pertaining to this issue - there is no way to create such a restriction, you can create a new TLD but you will never get all material of a certain type INTO that domain space - never. (This should be rule number one of making laws, can it be enforced? no, no law, next.)

The only technical way to actually filter content and keep items which are inappropriate for children inaccessible to children is very simple, it is called a whitelist. Blacklists, such an an xxx TLD, or "net nanny" type software do not work reliably enough to be relied upon for such purposes (they may work 80% on one day, maybe even 95% on the next day, but children should probably view pornographic material more like 0% of the time). A whitelist works just fine and is trivial to implement from a technical standpoint (no one has to move their domain, no one has to compile and upload a list every day which is outdated by the time it is downloaded, etc). Whitelists seem to get little or no attention from the media, the legislature, etc, but they work perfectly (and a simple admin interface can be created such that parents, or whomever, can add new sites to the list).

The delay in the xxx TLD matter is purportedly coming from pressure by religious and conservative groups that oppose the .xxx domain. These groups seem to claim that making a .xxx domain will make it EASIER to find such material. The second really dumb part of this story is that these groups could claim something sensible like it is unfair to so categorize one particular type of business and not others in this manner (if they really want to NOT allow the domains), yet instead, with a straight face, they claim that somehow porn would be made more available than it currently is (stop laughing please).

And lastly, the most dumb of all concerning this issue, is the notion many parents and lawmakers and so on seem to have that some type of regulation is going to raise their kids properly. PARENTS need to be aware of what the kids are reading, surfing, watching, who they are friends with, etc. Parenting requires EFFORT, unforunately this seems to be lost on many parents. If you cannot figure out a way to restrict the content your child may be exposed to on the web (or on TV, or at the library, or at a Baptist church, whatever) then do not allow them to use the web, period. (And obviously this would be detrimental to a child also, at least in my opinion, but it would be better than unrestriced or unsupervised - even with a blacklist - material exposure.)