XXX top level domain will be blocked in India and many Islamic countries

The government of India has announced what many adult entertainment companies already feared: the .xxx top level domain will be blocked in India. Only last week, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the request for setting up the .xxx suffix for pornographic websites. The creation of an online red-light district is, unsurprisingly, very controversial.

The rationale for creating a separate adult section is that this domain can be made free of illegal content and give customers the assurance that they visit trustworthy and legal porn websites. Also, the separate domain allows for more effective parental control and policing by employers. Critics of .xxx have warned from the start that the separate top level domain would accommodate censorship. 

“India, along with many other countries from the Middle East and Indonesia, opposed the grant of .xxx domain names in the first place, and we will proceed to block the whole top-level domain, as it goes against the IT Act and Indian laws,” a spokesman for the Indian government said. In many countries viewing or distributing pornographic footage is illegal.

It is questionable whether blocking the entire top-level domain will be effective, as the same content can still be hosted in other domains like .com and .in. In any event, the new top-level domain has already registered about 250,000 domains in anticipation, even before the approval came this month. The domain names will be on air in 2011.

Source: The Next Web