Internet specialists gathered in Colombia on Thursday called for the creation of an “.xxx” domain for pornographic Web sites, saying it would make it easier to police them.
“Since we cannot fight the pornographic industry on the Internet, a thousand-headed monster ... we are demanding that they be socially responsible and adopt a code of ethics,” said Carmen Sanchez, from the NGO Internet Commitment for Social Responsibility based in Spain.
The group, which works to ensure the quality of Web content, expressed the hope that the California-based Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) would approve the creation of the domain name yesterday during its convention in Cartagena.
“We should have a sort of red zone on the Web where, under the name “.xxx.” we can clearly identify pages we do not want children to see and block them,” Sanchez said.
ICM Registry, a company sponsored by the International Foundation for Online Responsibility, owns the domain name and has been trying to get the green light from ICANN since 2004.
Should ICANN finalize a deal reached earlier this year to launch the domain name, ICM Registry would sell .xxx addresses for US$60 each to an estimated 500,000 adult entertainment providers starting next year.
If approved, the .xxx domain would join other so-called Top-Level Domains, including .com, .edu, .mil, .gov and a host of country code ones.
Sanchez said the process had been held up by conservative and religious groups in the US, who feared that creating the domain name would normalize the industry. ICANN has remained neutral in the debate.
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