According to a report in Australian IT ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ), the governing body which sanctions Internet addresses has rejected the suggestion that they permit the creation of .XXX URLs for adult content Web sites.

See http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21488365%5E16123%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html for details. 

This, in my opinion, is a mistake.

Having a separate designation for adult web sites would have made it easy to block unwanted content not just from family computers but also to stop illicit activity at work.

The reasoning behind rejecting this change is apparently that it would not completely solve the problem.

So what? Nothing ever completely solves ANY problem and establishing a XXX extension would be a big step in the right direction. It would probably also be welcomed by many adult content web site owners because their main customers are probably people who intend to go to an adult site. It would probably not cost them much, if any, business and would take a lot of the heat off this highly profitable part of the Internet.

In my opinion this rejection by ICANN of such an obvious and helpful change on non-technical grounds is absurd.

The biggest problem in life and business is having responsibility without authority.

ICANN has turned that around and decided it can have authority without taking responsibility. (Sorry, I don’t HAVE humble opinions!)

What’s your angle on this?