FRC Attorney: Porn Domain Being Promoted Under False Premises
by Rusty Pugh
June 13, 2005
(AgapePress) - Most Internet users are familiar with the .com, .org, and .net domains ending most website addresses, or URLs; but now a new suffix could be on the horizon -- one just for porn sites. An attorney with the Family Research Council believes the new porn domain designation is a very bad idea.A domain is the descriptive or geographical scheme of two, three, or more letters that help associate and organize web pages. Last year the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California organization that manages the assignment of domain names and Internet addresses, announced the list of applicants for new Top-Level Domain names, including one for a ".xxx" domain.
A spokesman for the group that sponsored the application for the new porn domain has said he believes it will provide "a framework around which the adult industry can self-organize and communicate with the broader Internet audience." And Internet pornographers claim the suffix will also make it easier for parents to filter out pornography, since porn sites will be clearly identified.
"Nonsense," says attorney Pat Trueman of the Family Research Council. He insists it is a mistake to buy into the underlying premise that pornography will disappear from the .com domain because pornographers will go to the .xxx domain. "They've made huge profits on the .com domain," the pro-family lawyer says, "and they won't give up that territory. It is a cash cow for the pornography industry."
Trueman expects Internet pornographers will continue to exploit the .com and other well-known domains that have been so lucrative for them for years. But at the same time, he predicts, they will also populate the .xxx domain, "so they will have even more websites, and they'll be even easier to find."
The new adult-oriented web address suffix is one of ten new designations ICANN is considering. The .xxx domain is expected to be in use by the end of 2005.
