Wow! What a newsy month this has been.
http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=8969
Cheers
dzinerbear
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Wow! What a newsy month this has been.
http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=8969
Cheers
dzinerbear
While it'd initially be a bit of a hassel to move stuff - I'm personally in favor of such an extension.
We might need to get Luke a huge supply of no-doz though ... :P
In complete contrast to Bec if this gets the go-ahead its going to have some serious implications on the industry as a whole especially if the US government gets involved in the process, we have already seen what they have done with 2257 just imagine what they could do if 'porn' had to be placed on a specific .xxx extension :wtf:
Regards,
Lee
Greetings:
I can't agree with Lee on this one more! This is NOT a good thing, not at ALL.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
And, of course, the yearly registration fee is $60 / domain, about 10x more than a .com costs you anymore.
I can just SEE the US Government trying to force us off of our .com and onto a .xxx Ugly ugly UGLY!
This is currently one of the top news stories on CNN.com by the way:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/interne....ap/index.html
http://www.new.net actually have $60 for a 2 year registration period or $35 for a single year registration period.Quote:
Originally Posted by JustMe
Its actually not as expensive as .com domains were when they first came out, i remember having to pay upwards of $75 per domain at the time LOL
Im not 100% on this but, from what i recall i think it was the FSC (again) who was all for this .xxx TLD, incidently, several members of the FSC at the time also had errr.. 'ties' to the companies who were bidding on / won the bidding on the .xxx TLD. Not suprising they were such strong advocates for getting the .xxx extension passed really ;)
Regards,
Lee
I oppose the segration of any group, and xxx is just that type of process. I am sorry but this is just one more example of how extreme the USA is moving and while I am Proud to be Gay, Proud to be Jewish, right now I am even Prouder Not to Be an American...
Folks, this smacks so much of what went on in 1932/1933 Germany that is scares the crap out of me. Since when did I have to become responsible for some idiots kid who gets online and finds my site? Since when did the parents pass the responsibility of monitoring and protecting their own children to me?
If the FSC is pushing for this, then shame on them and shame on those who believe in segregation simply to appease the narrow minded bigots now running the USA. That is a sure road to extinction. or as it was called in the 30's... 'selection'
Sorry for sounding so heated too, but sometimes it just seems that so many wish to bury their heads in the sand and say everything is just fine. Sometimes you just have to shout out a wake up call, but knowing how things go, I am sure I'll get the 'cry wolf' attack. Oh well... so be it. This is real, eventually it will come to pass and by then it may well be too late.
As usual, merely my opinion, feel free to ignore it.
Ian
i think it's bullshit. if they wanted to protect children, they would make filtering software mandatory for parents to use.
the aclu fought the idea of putting adult material on the .xxx domains before, and i imagine they will again. i feel this is some more scary shit.
WOW GayWideWebmasters.xxx is available !
I'm all in favour of the creation of a xxx tld and I have been for a while. Yes, it can amount to ghettoization of the porn industry. But such a move hasn't seemed to harm the sex industry in places like Amsterdam: if you want sex, you go to the redlight district.
In a .xxx domain, I don't have to worry about warning pages, or whether my outside images are too explicit – if you've wandered into the xxx area, that's no longer my problem.
Yes, parents should be using filtering software, and yes, parents should be more responsible for what they're children are seeing on the Internet. But the operators of porn sites should be more responsible, too. We shouldn't be sending out SPAM to people who never asked for our e-mails, but every day I get bombarding with no less than 50 e-mails. Pornographers should not be telling search engines through the use of META tags that their site is about Madonna when it's really about "big tits," but they used to. Porn sites should not be pulling half the shit and tricks that they do.
And arguing that parents need to be more responsible ... well, you're essentially asking them to sit with their children, anticipate every click of the mouse, ask the child to close his eyes while they check out that the click is safe. Because as it stands now, a porn site can be anywhere on a .com. And you're asking parents to shoulder more than their share of the responsibility. Not all of the people in our industry are ethical or responsible. Shit, we can't even give a surfer a thumbnail gallery when they click a thumbnail. With one click of the mouse on a TGP, presto, suddenly I find myself looking at some hideous Russian site with questionable content.
Nope, the online adult business hasn't done a whole lot to show that they are responsible.
I, for one, would be happier with a .xxx domain because then I don't have to worry about what is legal and where, in what country, what's obscene, what's alright.
Cheers,
dzinerbear
Okay, Amersterdam and the xxx is not quite the same. For starters Amersterdam has a much healthier approach to sex in general than say the USA and comparison is a bit off the mark.
Secondly, the matter of responsibility. If you believe that segregating.. because that is exactly what this is, any section of a population will end abuses by some in that group, then in all frankness Dzinbear, you are still dreaming. The spam you receive is not from honest hard working adult webmasters. It comes from a few who have no qualms about what they do, whether it be breaking the spam laws or whether it be showing a minor having sex. Segregating the adult industry will not end or reduce the spam, in fact it could very well increase it, driving normally responsible people into venturing into the dark side for increased revenue due to the segregation.
Already some talk show is mentioning that the problem with the xxx concept is that it is voluntary. In short, the groundwork is already being laid to attemp to make participation mandatory.
As to the reduction of what you can or can't show, that is governed by 2257 and with the xxx segregation you can bet those rules will become even tighter.
We live in an information age, some of it honest and some of it fairly well slanted to one or the other side, and it is and always has been up to the individual to make up their own mind as to what they believe, but given how the media today is so slanted, is the truth ever fully told?
There are, in my mind, two things that can have no compromise. One is the responsibility of being a parent and in the duties involved. No you don't go to a party when the kid is at home alone, no you don't smoke or drink when pregnant, etc. yet today parents eagerly dismiss that responsibility never mind actually sitting at home with the kid. More and more kids are lured out to meet perverts because mommy & daddy don't assume basic responsibility for their kids, never mind actually sitting in the room and seeing what little johnny or suzie is surfing to. The other is education. Yet as each year passes, we produce more functionally illiterate children than the previous year because we keep on lowering the bar for education. This eventually creates a group of drones who can easily be led by a loud mouthed bigot, or a soft spoken one for that matter.
Segregation in the guise of anything is wrong. That hasn't changed from centuries of history if not the entire history of man. When you segregate any group you put them at risk for harsher penalties for simply being different. Yes there are indeed sometimes benefits, such as no warning pages but think for a second here. We have a government dedicated to obscuring truth, on a crusade to eradicate us so called purveyor's of filth, us evil monsters... do you really believe they won't put pressure to make xxx mandatory, that when they get their way they won't then put pressure on others in the community to remove our ability to earn money?
If you were some despot, which would be easier for you to accomplish? To force Google to ban any site that had 'adult' in it or simply any site that was registered as xxx? And before anyone says that will never happen, let me remind you that is exactly what many said in 1933... its a period of adjustment they cried, they'd never do that to their own citizens they screamed... until the cries and screams were silenced by gas.
Once you isolate a group, segregate it, it is easier to manipulate their economic abilities. Without a strong financial base how easy would it be for Bush to pressure VISA to drop processing for anyone using a xxx domain? He's already applied pressure and its worked. You think Google won't buckle to similiar pressure and delete xxx domains?
Google and Yahoo are big, have resources and sure they could fight it. MSN did, and lost.. and who was bigger then? DOJ goes to Google and tells them we'll investigate you, we'll bring in the securities people, we'll tie you up in court and before the press for various trumped up charges, your stocks will go down in price, your reputation will suffer further damaging your revenues, and while the guys at google may want to fight it, will the shareholders?
And it is a whole lot easier to put that kind of pressure on three companies, versus an entire industry... but if that industry is locked up behind a segregated wall, it can happen. ISP's will be easy targets too, forcing again more restrictions on an industry that is already overburden with stupid ass regulations that do nothing to end C*P or the so called spam even.
To me support of segregation is just wrong, even if it does at the beginning supposedly make my life easier. Kids will find a way to get access, hell they'll know long before mom & dad about the xxx and be there with their little peckers in hand snickering and that in turn will give rise to even more repression... because gee, the kiddies are gaining access...
To even assume xxx will prevent such access is like burying your head in the sand, waving your tushie to the world figuring no one is gonna see it wiggling in the air. If the goal is to protect children, going to xxx will only ascerbate it. It means that kids don't have to search they just need to type in xxx and get there. So you really think it will make our job easier as adult webmasters? I don't think so.
Will all this happen? I don't know, but what is scary is that it can happen, that it could become reality if people continue to bury their heads in the sand and believe this could be good for the industry. It really isn't, its a way of attempting to control and segregate what a minority finds evil, finds ungodly... and those kind of people are dangerous.. very dangerous...
Sorry but this is a cross roads for this industry. I truly believe that certain elements are out to do harm and using the guise of protecting children is just that, a ruse. In 1933 it was to protect the national identity, to protect the common worker who suddenly found themselve working 12 & 14 hours for less than before... so it has happened before and it can happen again.
Anyhow, just my opinion.
Ian
the issue that begs to be asked is how one would fare with all of your present SE listings, google rankings, back linking network, etc. if all adult were forced to move to a .xxx tld?
sure you can park the old domains...or will you be allowed to do that? but that's not the same.
Don't you think you should provide a source for a serious allegation of this type? It's become clear that you have some anti-FSC agenda, but that post is wholly irresponsible, not to mention completely false.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee
Quote:
Originally Posted by gaystoryman
3 Stand Up and Cheer's :)
PapaBear
Quote:
Originally Posted by basschick
I'm gonna get me some good exercise today....
3 more Stand Up & Cheer's!
PapaBear
I actually posted in another thread that it was ASACP not the FSC who were backing this .xxx TLD ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by JustJohn
Incidently, initially, the FSC did back it but then decided not to, this was back in 2003 ;)
Regards,
Lee
John,
Also you may find this link of some interest..
http://forum.icann.org/lists/stld-rfp-xxx/msg00003.html
I do beleive he is one of the members of the 'FSC' ;)
Regards,
Lee
I have to say my concern is purely a practical one: what happens to the .xxx versions of my .com domains. It seems my choices might be:
-Pay $60 for each of the two dozen ,com sites I own
-Have someone else buy the .xxx domains and skim wehat should be my type-in or other traffic
-Have someone else buy the .xxx domains and offer them to me...for lots of money
If the move is not mandatory but quickly captures the public's attention, many surfers may assume ALL adult sites are now.xxx domains and that could cause more problems for webmasters than the 2257 regs.
And unless I've read things wrong, the company that will likely be administering the .xxx is a Canadian company. Now I don't want to start a my-country-is-better-than-your-country discussion because that's simply not true and it's a pointless discussion. Both Canada and the U.S. have their good points and bad points. However, what is true at the moment is that Canadian religious nutbars have far less influence than their American counterparts. Yes, we've got them. Alberta is full of them, the Reform Party (now Conservative Party) is full of them, but by and large, when they start going off about prayer in the school or whatever, the vast majority of Canadians simply say, "Would you please mind blowing it out your ass?"Quote:
Originally Posted by gaystoryman
So, if this is going to come to pass, and if we are going to be forced into a .xxx ghetto, then I'd rather have that ghetto monitored by a Canadian company than an American company.
I don't think this at all. What I was trying to say is that in the past the online adult community hasn't done a great job at acting ethically or policing itself. Yes, there are many of us who act appropriately, but generally speaking as a community we have rarely done much to slap the people who behave badly. For the most part, as a community we turn our backs and say, "It's not my issue, it's not my problem."Quote:
Secondly, the matter of responsibility. If you believe that segregating.. because that is exactly what this is, any section of a population will end abuses by some in that group, then in all frankness Dzinbear, you are still dreaming.
The only thing I think that a .xxx domain might do is make it easier for parents to help filter their children's online activities.
I don't happen to think that online porn should be so easy to get. I don't think it should be readily and easily available on .com tlds. I also think we need ticket collectors in adult movie theatres to prevent children from entering, I believe that pornographic magazines should be on higher shelves in variety stores. I also believe that hookers should be registered, licenced, and taxed and housed in a redlight district. They should not be able to stand out in front of my building to solicit johns and bring down the property values of my property. They should definitely be allowed to exist and make money, but let's put it in a controlled area of the city. Likewise with online porn. It should exist, but we need to have guidelines because when left to our own devices to figure out what is right and appropriate we almost always default to whatever will make us the most money.
I don't think this is an easy issue and there are definitely scary implications. And there are all kinds of issues around allowing people who want access to get it, billing issues, first amendment issues, etc. But right now there are very few rules, and that's just not right.
dzinerbear
Nice response Dzinbear, which is why I enjoy debating this with you.
Okay the responsibility issue for parents. The current software out there is sufficient really, it doesn't work for two major reasons...
1. Parents turn it off or let the kids be able to. No different than the parental controls currently in place with your cable... simple to use and operate but most parents never activate it... yet they are the one's bitching the most too.
2. Labelling your site. How many actively take advantage of ICRA and SAFESURF just to mention two... not many and that is our responsibility really which we should do.
As to the company being Canadian. Well that is nice and I agree in principle that if such monitoring is to be done I'd much rather have it done from a company outside the USA however that doesn't alter the fact that the three major players in SE are USA and as such far more succeptable to pressure from the current type of regime in power there.
The canadian company can monitor all they want but if the US government gets to Google, Yahoo, & MSN to block xxx domains, won't matter what the Canadian says or does, they get blocked... and we lose... all of us in the industry.. because targetted traffic no longer exists for us from the largest consumer region...
There are other economic considerations as well. To begin with it opens up a whole new way to limit our financial rewards all the way from limiting VISA to simply limiting advertising opportunities.
But to me the worse is the whole concept of segregation. My grand parents came from the shtetls of Russia... small enclaves there and they had vivid memories of how hard it was to enjoy the simple pleasures of the sabbath... because when things got rough economically in the area, the local land barons would pass out free booze and point the fingers at the jewish enclave... telling the drunken people it was them Jews responsible and naturally off they rode to wreak some havoc. Now it wasn't too bad, mostly burned homes, some beatings, bit rape.. but the point is, it was easy to point the finger, to generate an action when everyone was in one place.
Go to the 30's in the Southern USA... where blacks were kept in their own segregated communities and the Klan would rile folks up, get em liquored up and off they went to go teach them folks a lesson or two, to put them in their place... specially when some would want to say vote... very easy to intimidate when they could quickly and easily locate them.
Now fast forward to this scenario... where all adult sites are located on one domain... FBI goes to the ISPs and gathers up all the addresses, pressures Google and others to delist any xxx domain site... and suddenly we are out of business... it becomes easy to point the fingers of blame as well. In addition, remember 2257? Webmasters now are also going to be real easy to find, cause gee they have to list their addresses online... how hard will it be to point the fingers then to the drunken masses looking for someone to blame for all that is wrong?
So even though xxx is monitored and even say controlled outside the USA, the damage is still horrendous and the potential for it is not that far away. At least with adult sites being whatever TLD, it becomes harder for the crazies, for the easily inflamed to actually act.. in short harder for mob rule to exist.
By itself, the notion of adult having its own TLD is not that distasteful, but add into it all that is currently in place, the current mood in the USA, and it suddenly becomes a very dangerous proposition.
As to the industry being irresponsible. Well I don't know if I'd agree totally here either. Yes there are a great many who do indeed stretch the limits, and even now, given all the 2257 crap they still want to live in that make believe world where they assume no responsibility. But that is growing less and less over time, no different than the taming of the west took time.
I agree rules need to be enforced, and made clear. Problem is that the industry is world wide with different cultures mixing together and getting a world wide consensus is what is truly at the crux of the issue as to what is legit and what isn't. In some way the guidelines are being set by the market place and by outside sources such as VISA and Google...
Prime example is the whole issue of age. In some countries it is 16, others 21, and the range goes in between. No different than when you can get your drivers license or legally drink in a bar. Each state, province, country has different limits and getting a universal age is partly to blame. THe other part is the simple perception of porn.
In a survey conducted by some pseudo religious group I think 80% said they opposed porn being accessible... and like what else will they say? Someone phones you up and asks are you for porn online, whether you agree or not most will say no simply to avoid the problems that could come from answering yes. You have no idea who these people are calling, no idea what they record or don't so you play it safe... makes the results bogus but it is stll those results that will give impetus to government legislation.
Bush was comfortable in pushing for a constitutional amendment to define marraige as between man & woman not just because he believed it, but because the polling data said close to 70% of americans opposed calling same sex marraige.. marraige. It really is that simple.
Anyhow.. as usual just my opinion.
Ian
So I was all set to register my key domains at New.net based on an earlier post to this thread, but then when I got to check-out I read this:
I have read and agree with New.net's™ Registration Agreement. I also understand and acknowledge that the number of internet users who have access to New.net domain names is currently limited to the number at the bottom of this page, which includes those who access the Internet via one of our ISP partners or who have activated their browsers using New.net's plug-in software.
Going back to the news stories, most say the .xxx domains will be available for registraion in the fourth quarter, and I see nothing about New.net on IFFOR's website .
Can someone clarify what's going on?
Quote:
Originally Posted by dillmedia
It's my understanding from what I read on gfy (where someone did already buy a couple of domains from them), you are not actually buying, for example, the domain porn.xxx..instead you would be buying porn.xxx.new.net or pornxxx.new.net..something to that effect.
The xxx domains will not be for sale until fall at the earliest.
As you can imagine, they do NOT explain that on their site!Quote:
Originally Posted by Slade
Thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dillmedia
Yeah..sadly I can imagine that.
An interesting article on new.net and .xxx registrations
New.net's "top level domains"