Re: TLD .sex dismay or resistance

[C C Magnus Gustavsson <mag@lysator.liu.se>]

On Mon, 19 Apr 1999, Garret Krampe wrote:

> > * It might replace sexsites under .COM but people will want to register in
> >   other domains as well, especially nTLDs.
> >
> 
> The availablility of .SEX domains will be not be a problem
> Those with .com or .com.XX domains will have those domains pre-reserved.
> Other TLD's such as .nl or .au .ca etc will have administration over .xx.sex

Still, people will most likely prefer www.porno.se or www.porno.nu to
www.porno.se.sex. They will also want to register in other domains like
.fsn.net and .ml.org.

All in all, the problem is that there are a lot of "neutral" domains in
which people will want to register sex sites.

> > * Everybody doesn't want to register an entire domain of their own just to
> >   put sexually explicit material on the Internet.
> >
> 
> I feel that this is the most valid point that you have raised here:
> The home user with a www.geocities.com/~fred_nerk/porn/ situation.
> 
> I propose the solution to this is a public www server available along the
> geocities style of setup.

That would mean either that every web space provider would have to 
register an alternative .sex domain or that the customer would have to use
different providers for his or her pages.

I just can't see why the TLD necessarily have to be included in this? Why
isn't it enough to tag the HTML code to decide which pages have sexual
content and should not be shown to minors?

What do we gain by not allowing sexual content on pages with adresses like
http://www.bigprovider.com.au/user/n/name/porno/?

> > * There will be only one .SEX gTLD and thus there will be a monopoly. (As
> >   the planned future registrar of the domain I can understand that you
> >   don't have a problem with this.)
> >
> 
> Yes as you have stated the monopoly does not worry me.
> You have to understand that a monopoly exists at the moment with various domains
> with internic, aunic, connect, .... where ever you have a central registry body
> this will exist.
> I feel that the comment is rather a bitchy one.

Well, yes, I admit that it was overly and unjustifiably bitchy and that it
might not even be a problem if being part of a working shared registration
system in the future. I appologize and withdraw the comment...

> > Use HTML to tag the content as sexually explicit instead. That's the right
> > way to solve to problem.
> >
> 
> I agree fully .. and I'm glad to see that this is being voluntarily done at the
> moment by many sites.

So, why not allow sexual content in other domains than .sex?

> I feel that you will find that the industry will welcome this TLD as an "about
> time"
> recognition of their right to a TLD.

> I feel that you have entirely missed the point or skimmed the previous emails or
> literature.
> It is not JUST for the consumer or consumer protection but for industry and for
> society in various countries
> as a whole. It provides the industry with a standard and a set of guidlines.
> Basically it's all about organising the mish - mash that is the internet at the
> moment.
> 
> Argue with this:
> .COM is for Companies
> .NET is for Networks
> .SEX is for SEX
> 
> It is an organisational structure.

You wrote earlier that an intent was to "clean up" by not allowing sexual
content outside of .sex. I don't mind the domain. I'm just arguing against
limiting sexual content to that domain only.

If it's only an organisational structure then it should be ok to have sex
sites like www.porno.se and www.porno.nl in the same way as it's ok to
have www.company.se eller www.isp.se. Thus you won't get all the sex sites 
gathered under a single domain (which I thought was one of the major 
reasons for this), no more than all corporations are gathered under .com.

Furthermore, if so, I don't think that .sex should be the only new TLD to
be introduced. Instead the approach should be to work out a general policy
for what kinds of activity motivates a TLD of its own and then introduce
TLDs for all these (newspapers/magazines, politics, religion, art, travel,
sports, etc.) instead of arbitrarily introduce one at a time.

/Magnus

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 C C Magnus Gustavsson    mag@lysator.liu.se   http://www.lysator.liu.se/~mag/

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