From owner-nanog@merit.edu Thu May 11 12:41:20 2006 Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 13:40:22 -0400 From: Alain Hebert <ahebert@pubnix.net> To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: MEDIA: ICANN rejects .xxx domain
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 11 May 2006 08:46:40 -0400 From: David Farber <dave@farber.net> To: ip@v2.listbox.com Subject: [IP] ICANN rejects .xxx domain
Begin forwarded message:
As reported in:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/print?id=1947950
ICANN has reversed their earlier preliminary approval, and has now rejected the "dot-xxx" adult materials top-level domain. I applaud this wise decision by ICANN, which should simultaneously please both anti-porn and free speech proponents, where opposition to the TLD has been intense, though for totally disparate reasons.
Nick's AP piece referenced above notes that there are still Congressional efforts to mandate such a TLD. It is important to work toward ensuring that these do not gain traction.
Why?
If we can coral them in it and legislate to have no porn anywhere else than on .xxx ... should fix the issue for the prudes out there.
And _that_ is *precisely* "why not". <grin> When you figure out _how_ to accomplish the 'and' part of your statement, *world-wide*, and _how_long_ it would take to do so, *AND*CAN*GET*UNIVERSAL* *AGREEMENT* about what has to be inside the coral(sic), well, then, and -only- then can one consider 'what _useful_ purpose' such a TLD would serve. Note also: attempting to impose additional restrictions on _existant_, registered domains would likely constitute breach of contract. With big liabilities attached -- look at what the hijacking of 'sex.com' ended up costing the registrar that let it happen. Restricting future domain registrations _in_an_exsiting_TLD_ raises a separate can of worms, regarding existing registry operator and registrar contracts.