The Lair

We like sorting things into pigeonholes. It’s nice to be able to say “these are the sites I visit for news, these are the sites I visit for educational purposes, these are the sites I visit for … “. But there is sometimes an overlap. Figuring out the overlap means displacement of pigeonholes. Or their expansion, whichever.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
The first quote that came readily to my mind is that old hoary chestnut from Shakespeare. Sue me for being unoriginal and illiterate. I probably deserve it.

One of the myths I fondly cherished till recently was propagated by authors of books and articles aimed at introductory internet use. Any address with a .com is for commercial entities, .org is for non profit organizations and so on. Yes, there were more of those conventions. Was .net intended for ISPs ? Possibly. I can’t remember. But there were those unofficial rules and to a person who was looking to stake their claim on a piece of virtual internet territory, those seemed like harsh bureaucratic impositions of red tape. Yes, I was looking for a virtual piece of internet real estate. And I was wondering that I didn’t fit in as a commercial interest, nor as a non profit, certainly not as an ISP.. The point was moot because with the limited currency that I had at hand in those days, buying a domain seemed to be a minor consideration anyway.

In the early days (I’m talking mid 90s here), I had an obsession with discovering more about computers. Unfortunately, one of the best sources of information in those times (and even today, I don’t doubt) was the so called underground, the dark alleyways inhabited by people called hackers, crackers and phreakers among many other things. And there, one of the most popular (and newbie friendly) sites immediately posed a contradiction to my imagined rules. A hacker known as Silicon Toad had tutorials and lots of material on his site. (The URL was www.silitoad.org . Don’t bother visiting, it’s long since shutdown). silitoad.org .org ? But that’s not allowed! How are hackers allowed to get a TLD like .org ? I didn’t know. In my naivete (and laziness to investigate further), I imagined that this had been “stolen” or acquired illegally in some way. It added to the aura of invincibility surrounding Silicon Toad and those of his ilk.

And then, later on, much much later on, I discovered a discussion similar to this. And that discussion made it clear that although conventions about the use for various top level domains existed, they were merely conventions. In the case of .com, .net and .org, they were not hard and fast rules nor were they actively enforced or policed. For instance, .org is handled by the PIR which has a FAQ.

.ORG has been an open and unrestricted domain since it was created in the 1980s. ICANN has therefore decided (and PIR agrees) that .ORG should remain an open and unrestricted domain. This will keep .ORG registration affordable, fast, and fair.
It would be difficult, expensive, and sometimes unfair to impose new restrictions. Some of the issues are:
It would be difficult to determine who is a “not-for-profit” and who isn’t. Every country has different laws and definitions about what a nonprofit is.
.ORG isn’t just for registered not-for-profit organizations. It’s the recognized home for all kinds of noncommercial activity — registered and unregistered, formal and informal.

Of course, that didn’t entirely dispell my vague (and unjustified) impression that .org was restricted in some way. I attached a bit more intrinstic value to a .org TLD address of my own because of this, hence my choice of domain name. But if the main three TLDs are unrestricted, what’s in a name and why are top level domains such a big deal ?

Well, for one thing, it’s a huge huge business to register a domain these days. Remember the pope’s domain ? Remember all the sordid details about cybersquatting ? Domain names are an investment, a speculation as much as anything. And that’s why the new .xxx domain is such an interesting concept. Like the .biz domain, it’s a huge money spinning venture for registrars. The typical .org/.net/.com domain goes for around $10 a year. Ok, so the more expensive registrars still charge around $30, but the market isn’t going to pay that for much longer. .biz, on the other hand, still charges at least $40 and there are no signs of lower prices anytime soon. The proposed .xxx domains are slated to go for as much as $60 a year. And in essence, one domain is much like the other in terms of maintainence cost. The price associated with individual TLDs is almost purely market driven. Or more accurately, set according to what the market will bear. With the rumoured profit margins of the porn industry, is someone is looking to make a fast buck here?

And then, there is the tricky concept of morality to consider. What is .xxx ? A TLD for pornography ? What constitutes pornography or even adult content ? Ask a European, someone from most Middle Eastern countries, an Asian or even someone from the Americas and you’d get widely differing opinions on that topic. And yes, I was being overly generic about it. Ask me what constitutes pornography and I’d give you an answer which probably differs from the norm for my demographic pigeonhole. The choice of what constitutes adult content depends on the individual, although cultural, regional and sometimes dominant political and religous influences also play a part. So now what ? Who decides ? The US ? Heh. Sun’s page 3 girls are probably classified as pornography in the US. Remember Janet Jackson at the Superbowl ? The morality police of the US are going to have a field day dispatching sites off to the .xxx TLD arent they ?

Ok, so let’s assume this is a voluntary pigeonholing. Companies which depict adult content (according to their definition) will voluntarily set up camp in the .xxx TLD. Now what ? Does this mean it’s the only source of adult content to be found ? Will the Sun need to set up shop for Page 3s’ in a sun.xxx ? Oh, the horror. The reality is that quite a few adult content outfits have no intention of voluntarily banishing themselves to some far off .xxx TLD or making it easier for proxy servers to block them. What of typosquatters who serve porn ? How about those who watch popular domains like hawks, waiting to pounce on expiry and set up their own porn websites ? Was bash.org so off the mark with the following classic ?

[Imaginos] damn
[Imaginos] my neices cat ran away
[Imaginos] i said it went to kitty land, so she wants to know where kitty land is
[Imaginos] i bring up my browser
[Imaginos] type in www.kittyland.com
[Imaginos] and then closed it as fast as humanly possible

And imagine the stigma of having .xxx site with actual information on your prospective visitors ? This report outlines some potential consequences. Some interesting observations also in the RFC. How many people will want to visit a site with a .xxx domain. What if the visit is associated with adult content or pornography ? And if those visits appear in a proxy log somewhere ? Ouch.

Well, regardless of the futility, the silliness and the inevitable attempt by morality crusaders to create a red light district on the internet, .xxx has been approved. And in a complete subversion of it’s intended purpose, let me offer a cookie to the person to register linu.xxx first. I think two letter domains aren’t allowed, otherwise any subdomain after su.xx (think you.su.xxx) would be cool. In a similar vein, more ideas for cool domain names can be found here. And I was just thinking of registering cyb.org last night. The comedy continues.