Classifying the Internet

A young teenage boy logs onto the Internet to play games and chat with friends. As he logs onto the world of cyber reality, he is bombarded with ads containing semi-nude or completely nude women, and is linked to websites containing obscene pornography.

The web is a vast domain for everything humanly possible. Whatever a person wants to search they are able to find it.

The reason for a domain is to weed out certain websites and the legitimacy of them.  There is a new domain in town and the news of it is sparking both interest and controversy. Academic scholars know to use certain domain names for more reputable sources, like .net and .edu.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, approved the suffix .xxx for pornography websites.  Online pornography businesses and activists are concerned about a large-scale arbitrary censorship by governments across the world.  These governments would now be able to easily identify porn sites because of the new nomenclature.

The domain name .xxx will be used for websites that are sexually explicit, and are not illegal or fraudulent.  Currently about 230,000 domain names have been reserved.

With so many .xxx websites in reserve it will be interesting to see how this new domain develops over time. Interesting questions have been proposed about these new websites and who would be allowed to access this new domain.

"I think it would be better that way," said sophomore communications major, Kristen Brewster.  "Then people will know that the website is a porn one if it ends with .xxx. It would be a warning for people to let them know they are entering a porn site."

The new domain name is being established to help people avoid accidently running into adult websites, particularly children. Internet filters can scan for the .xxx domain name and make then inaccessible for whoever wished to deny access to them. The .xxx domain name will not be mandatory for all adult websites.  

Another argument is that this new domain leaves room for individuals to take well-known companies and make a mockery of their names by adding an .xxx to the end of it. For example companies with wholesome backgrounds that are not in any way involved in porn could be featured on websites like "www.disney.xxx."

The internet has always been a place where people can look at porn. The .xxx url is not going to change anything other than making the websites content more noticeable.

There have been many arguments and implications surrounding this new internet advancement just as any other technological development has caused in the past.

The citizens of United States aren't the only ones who have opinions on this new url; India plans to not allow the use of the .xxx domain. According to Economic Times Today, "India along with many other countries from the Middle East and Indonesia opposed the grant of the domain in the first place, and we would proceed to block the whole domain, as it goes against the IT Act and Indian laws," said a senior official at the ministry of IT".