The Weeds are Allowed to Flourish

The Internet generally operates in a decentralized manner, which is why you can add network equipment in your house without needing to coordinate it with anybody. However, there are two types of network resources that are centralized: internet addresses and domain names. A non-profit organization known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers manages these resources. The organization has a contract from the United States Department of Commerce, but is contractually required to be an independent organization.

ICANN had been considering a proposal at create a ".xxx" top level domain (ie. like ".com" and ".org") that could be used to register domain names for porn sites and other "adult" material. The new domain would have had two consequences. The first is that it would make it easier for people to locate porn sites. The second is that it would have been easy to create new versions of web browsers that could avoid going to any site with a ".xxx" extension. Companies could even wildcard split-horizon DNS to poison the entire ".xxx" domain internally.

A centralized top-level domain might have had other positive consequences too. If porn-seekers could easily find what they were looking for, then perhaps the porn sites might have less incentive to use underhanded means to draw visitors. This ranges from spam to search term manipulation, and other annoying techniques. Further, it would be easier to filter out results that pointed to suspect sites. ISP's could even require that porn-clients resolve their addresses into the .xxx domain.

The proposal was going along well at ICANN, when suddenly ICANN voted against the proposal. It is now coming out that the United States Government pressured ICANN into voting down the proposal. This pressure was the result of lobbying by Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. After Karl Rove met with James Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Administration turned the screws on ICANN.

Apparently, the benefits of people being able to filter out the porn-sites weren't good enough, because the proposal would have made it easier for people wanting porn to find it. James Dobson would like to see an Internet without porn. I would too, but I also know that is not achievable. As long as the demand is there, porn will spring up like weeds. To use a TV analogy, it's easy to avoid the Playboy channel. But if the Playboy channel content was interspersed randomly with all the other channels (and some would say it is), it is much harder to avoid.

Oh, and with regards to the "Protect the Children" line: the kids know where this stuff is better than the adults do. They IM links to their favorites sites to each other. A separate domain would have given parents a chance to at least filter 30% of this junk out. Now thanks to James Dobson, the parents have a zero chance of being able to do this. James Dobson should stick to providing advice on how to raise kids, and leave the technical solutions to people who understand the technology.

What bothers me most is that the US Government pressured ICANN in their vote. The US Government has always claimed that it would take a "hands-off" role for the net. Now it has given the supporters of a UN-controlled net some leverage. And a UN-controlled net would be very bad for everyone.