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ICANN, the so-called independent organisation responsible for the coordination of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers (i.e. domains such as .com and .org), has refused an application for a new domain that could have helped to protect children from inappropriate content.
ICANN has voted against the introduction of a new domain called .xxx which would have given the adult industry its own domain. The so-called independent body cited a list of reasons why the application was rejected. However, they didn’t cite ‘how’ it failed to meet their requirements. The application has now been put forward and rejected 3 times.
The idea behind the .xxx domain was simple. Each registered Web site using .xxx would use a Content Label to enable browsers and search engines identify adult orientated content. This would help parents protect their children from potentially harmful content by selecting preferences to exclude all .xxx Web sites from search results.
The application received widespread support from those who know more than anyone, how to protect children from inappropriate content and those of us who specialise in content classification to enable more reliable and relevant search for the future.
On March 30th 2007 I received an email from Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI, formally known as ICRA) informing me of the bad news. FOSI’s board represents brands such as AOL, Microsoft, AT&T, BT, Cisco, GSM Association and others. Due to project work, I haven’t been able to write about Segala’s position until now.
In order to declare our relationship, Segala has a licence agreement with FOSI for the provision of Segala-verified services to Web sites that carry an ICRA label. This helps users to differentiate between self-labelled and independently verified Web sites.
A recent news release put out by FOSI includes
Stephen Balkam, CEO of FOSI. wrote:
We are disappointed by ICANN’s decision not to approve the .xxx domain.
We believe it has missed a great opportunity to increase the use of content labels and thus make filtering and other child protection efforts more effective.
We also regret that the voluntary funding of the International Foundation for Online Responsibility from the .xxx registrations will not now become a reality. Contrary to the ICANN resolution, which erroneously asserts that the .xxx proposal avoids the protection of vulnerable members of the community, the proposal was actually an important self-regulatory effort in the field of online safety, and passing it up only hurts parents and children.
I think ICANN has not only demonstrated its lack of understanding in how to protect children online, it has also demonstrated that it is not independent and free of political agendas. It has fallen foul to religious commentators who have the ear of one or two seats in the White House. In my opinion, ICANN should not reside in the US, it should reside with the United Nations, which is completely independent.
What is the answer?
Well, current filtering methods are certainly not the answer as they are extremely limited and mostly ineffective. For example, Internet Explorer uses a very old W3C recommendation called PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection). To the end user, this is called site advisor and can be found in the options section of the browser’s preferences.
Segala amongst others such as FOIS, Vodafone, T-Mobile and others, feel that Content Labels is much more appropriate. Content Labels is currently going through a W3C Full Recommendation Track to ratify the method as *the* standard for content classification and labelling. Content Labels is also being proposed as a replacement for PICS.
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