.xxx

I see that ICANN has approved the .xxx suffix. Absolutely ridiculous. How about these first:

.art
.museum
.church
.work

I can't believe that they are pandering to pornographers above worthwhile sectors of the world's community!

Doesn't it make it easier to classify and shutdown rogue sites? There must be an immediate benefit. Is there??

Other ones their trying to bump in:
.jobs
.mobi
.travel
.cat
.post
.asia
.tel

I dont want to sound like a dumbss, but what are you guys talking about?

Several of which seem much more important...

Have a look at this article on the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4606125.stm

Erm. That's a good question. I would have thought it would have the opposite effect. Nobody apart from a mainstream pornographer would use the extension .xxx - anybody with particularly seedy activities would naturally shy away from an obvious .xxx domain?

I was thinking more on the lines of protecting one's children. An instant block on all xxx sites would be easy and therefore less of a worry. I take your point about steering away from .xxx. At least 'we' would know that a site without .xxx showing porn would be non legit. Sorry Mike, I agree with the idea. Not sure about priorities though. I haven't thought that one through. Yet.

That is the immediate benifit I see as well. Content filters will have a easier time blocking pornographic sites. I don't know how many web masters running these sites will switch vuluntarily though. I read these .xxx domain suffix's will cost 4 times as much as a .com

Yep - these will come at a premium and there will therefore be a slow take up by existing site providers. I agree - a filter on .xxx would be very simple, but it will not take into account millions of pages hosted on non-.xxx domains currently. I imagine that the idea of block-masking .xxx domains in content filters will immediately mean that those interested in a .xxx domain might think twice and host on a .com instead

I agree with phil and selwonk, my children are 8 and 6, and they are both allowed on the net and use it often, I agree with phil in there terms it is a good way of preventing my kids from enetering into a site, that I would prefer them to no visit, but agree with selwonk, that unless there is a rule that dictates that ALL porn sites use this extension it will simply be another gimmick for the porn industry and not the tool it could and should be.

But lets face it when did the web care about kids or disgretion on what people should and shouldn't be subjected to, there has to be countless ways to show what a site contains, in an easy to pickup format and browsers could easily be intergrated into such a system but not one company has the ability to impliment it.

Yep - good point well made...

just to show i am against capitalism, i wonder how much financial influences it took the porn industry, to give ICANN to introduces its gimmick?

I bet it was a 7 figure sum!!!!!