ICANN have finally approved the controversial .xxx top level domain. Apparently all the porn on the Web is suddenly going to up sticks and move to this new domain. Whilst our jolly pornographers get to grips with that, lets take a moment to leave fantasy island and consider the real world implications of this move.
Who is the new TLD going to help? Will it help those of us trying to keep impressionable youngsters away from pornographic material? Not really. At Smoothwall we have been blocking this non-existent domain pretty much since we started making web content filters. It is not hard to do, but it certainly does not get you much traction. Most porn sites will keep their existing domains, and even if legislation eventually forces the US and EU sites to consolidate under .xxx, there's still the less salubrious porn sites whose owners are less than concerned about that sort of legal threat. Will it help the porn industry? Unlikely. It might lead to the odd fracas over a contested domain name, where two skin merchants try to muscle in on the same .xxx domain, having come from, say a .com and a .tv. No, the only people it will help are those selling domains, and the really unimaginative self-abusers who have a hard time finding porn (if this is you, please write in at the usual address).
Entertainingly, whilst we've been fannying around trying to find a new home for our hardcore, looking at pics of naked people has finally been relegated to second spot in the "internet usage highscore table". Yes, you guessed it, social networking, that digital white noise (that this blog almost certainly counts as), has overtaken porn in the UK web traffic stakes. I'm not sure what sort of a message this sends about our society as a whole. Idle chatter probably appeals to a wider demographic than the soon-to-be denizens of .xxx and is less likely to be blocked at web filter level, despite contributing to huge levels of timewasting in offices the world over. Maybe we should lobby for a "social notworking" tld - .poke? .trivial? .inane? .waste?
We all work in the internet security industry, and as such we're involved with a wide range of technologies, markets and people.
Our collective blog is a space for our insights, observations and interests...
(N.B. The opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors, and not those of Smoothwall ltd or Smoothwall inc.)
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