Porn domain may get the boot

Wellington's Vivian Street used to be the place to go for sex in the capital but this week the Michael Fowler Centre down the road has been the scene of a skirmish over plans to set up a web address for a virtual red light district.

Even stranger, the fight has the potential to spark a major international battle for control of the internet.

One of the most closely watched issues up for discussion at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (Icann) conference was the proposal to create a .xxx dedicated domain for online pornography.

Florida-based businessman Stuart Lawley has set up ICM Registry as a vehicle to push for the establishment of the .xxx domain and to administer it if and when it is up and running.

"The .xxx domain creates a clearly identifiable area of the internet so that users can be more informed when choosing to select or avoid adult content," said Lawley.

He believes .xxx would be a win for the consumer, the porn industry, families and child protection groups.

Porn consumers would have greater confidence the sites they visited were operating to proper business standards and would, therefore, spend more freely. The dedicated domain name would also make it easier to prevent children from accessing adult content.

Of course, as the boss of the domain registry for the multi-billion-dollar online porn industry, Lawley would do very nicely too.

He said Icann had already decided that .xxx fulfilled its criteria for approval as a top level domain "and as far as we're concerned we're just ironing out contractual arrangements with them".

But his bid to get .xxx up and running hit a snag when the US Department of Commerce wrote to Icann's Government Advisory Council (GAC) asking for more stringent conditions in ICM Registry's contract with Icann.

The GAC consists of representatives from various governments who report and advise Icann on public policy issues.

"It was rather unprecedented for any country, particularly the US Department of Commerce, to be suggesting to Icann contractual terms in contracts they're going to write with contracted parties," said Lawley.

He believes this was a delaying tactic from the department, which has come under pressure from US conservatives opposed to .xxx.

Signs of having been unduly influenced by the department would call into question Icann's purported independence.

This week, Icann's board has been digesting the GAC's report on the .xxx proposal. Icann's Australian president, Paul Twomey, had promised to announce the board's response yesterday but by early evening it was still considering the report, postponing an announcement until this morning.

However, many delegates believed the response was a forgone conclusion and the end result would be more delays in approving .xxx.

All this matters because Icann's ongoing governance of the internet was challenged late last year at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis. Against the reported wishes of 170 countries that the UN take control of internet governance, it was decided that Icann would remain in charge of managing the Domain Name System - the master directory which enables easy access to the web.

"Obviously, the US was trying to retain its ultimate oversight of Icann and a lot of other governments were resisting that. Ultimately, the US won and kept the status quo," said Lawley.

The US victory at Tunis was accompanied by soothing noises that Icann's independence would be respected.

More than half of all internet users are now outside the US and there is growing unease that the web's principal administrator is effectively under the control of the Bush Administration. Meanwhile, as dissatisfaction with Icann's rule grows, alternative domain name systems, effectively smaller independent internets, are springing up in Europe, China and the Middle East.

A recent letter to the Financial Times from former European Parliament vice-president Elly Plooij-Van Gorsel highlighted what was at stake.

"If Icann resolves the .xxx issue in an independent fashion, it will demonstrate to the world that it can stand up to US pressure and make important decisions based on global participation."

Plooij-Van Gorsel wrote that a failure by Icann would stimulate renewed efforts from forces within the European Commission to assert control over the internet.

She said those efforts failed because there was little stomach to fight the Bush Administration over the issue.

"Now, with growing dissatisfaction over the US Government and European internet operators openly questioning Icann's future, that may be a fight some are willing to undertake." 

 
Icann

* Founded in 1998, Icann stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
* It is a US-based private partnership responsible for co-ordinating internet domain names and addresses.
* 700 delegates from 90 countries have been attending the week-long conference in Wellington.
* They have been discussing issues such as the creation of a dedicated domain name for adult content, the security of the worldwide web and whether its role and responsibilities should be taken over by a UN-sanctioned body.