XXXcuse me

So a while back you may remember some legislation coming around with making a new suffix for the internet, .XXX. This new domain suffix would be made solely for sites that deal with pornographic material, obviously. The idea was that making passing this would 'clean up' the internet, and make it easier to block and keep the material out of the hands of kids. The websites would still be available for any who wanted to see it, and all sides would be happy. It seems that this motion, after already being rejected in 2007, was overturned and may be implemented shortly. This is good, right? Well, no it's not.

You see most adult websites don't want this change to occur, and have been fighting against it. Also fighting this move is religious organizations, oddly enough, feeling that this will in fact cause pornographic sites to spread out and become even more prevalent on the internet. And of course, as any dad with a nudie mag collection will tell you, no matter how well you hide it, putting all the 'bad stuff' in one place does not make it more difficult to discover, it actually makes it much easier.

But the real issue here, the issue most of the adult websites fighting this are worried about, is possible censorship. The way it works now is pornographic sites are governed by the same rules as every other site with a .com or .net suffix. So whether you want to visit Hustler's website to look at naked women, or the Martha Stewart website to find a recipe for apple pies, it's all generally run the same way. With the addition of the .XXX brings possible new rulings which could hamper or outright censor the sites on any number of reasons. If the board set to run this new domain decide they don't like something, they can simply remove it, and the company will have no choice but to accept it.

All in all this just seems like a bad idea. The internet doesn't need a 'red light district', what makes this crazy thing we call the web so great is the mass accumulation of information, media, and services. It's all in one place with no limits, it's all accessible without jumping through hoops. Sectioning off the internet will limit it's freedom, it will tier off the mass, it will give prevalence to one type of information, and subjugate another. This whole issue just smacks of the same kind of logic that brought on the idea that Net Neutrality is bad. The internet is not something that needs to be separately governed and controlled, it's not something that can be governed and controlled. The internet is a bastion of knowledge, and you can't control that.

And seriously, .XXX? You couldn't come up with something less silly?