At last, a domain for the decadent

1 April 2006

WASHINGTON, April 1 (AFP)—After years of tussling with Congress over establishing an .xxx top-level domain for pornography, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has unveiled a compromise: a new top-level domain encompassing not only pornography, but any Internet content deemed “not safe for work”.

While everyone has their own opinion about how to define pornography, the new .nsfw domain will be governed by simple and objective standards. Any employer who believes that the content available on a Web site is not safe for work may file a complaint with a special ICANN committee, whose members are nominated by the United States Chamber of Commerce. The committee has the authority to reassign any IP address to a new domain in the .nsfw hierarchy. Employers can filter access to all these domains, and be assured that their workers are not endangering themselves on the Internet. Consumers will be allowed to access .nsfw domains from home, of course, but if they have trouble reaching them, they will not be able to get help from their Internet service providers, since the ISP’s technical-support workers will have their access filtered.

If the owner of a site believes that he or she was put in the .nsfw domain by mistake, he or she can petition the NSFW Board of Appeal, which meets to hear such disputes in the bar of the Raffles Hotel, in Singapore, from 10:00 a.m. to noon every February 29.

A spokesperson for the Electronic Frontier Foundation could not be reached for comment.

• Later: Don't try this at home (or in the maternity ward)
• Earlier: Maybe they had slept through their derekh eretz class