CHICAGO, IL – In a letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), J.D Obenberger of Chicago’s J.D Obenberger and Associates (xxxlaw.net) voices strong opposition to the establishment of the proposed .xxx Top Level Domain, characterizing .xxx as a “thing of no legitimate value whatsoever to any person.”“The Internet is the realm of commerce and industry, science and technology, and the arts and humanities alike,” Obenberger observes. “As an information highway, it serves the mature and adult purposes of the world and it grows to serve them better. The technical means established for this function must be designed with that mature and adult purpose in mind.”
Obenberger alludes to and makes clever rhetorical use of a descriptive term often associated with the internet – “Information Superhighway” – in constructing an extended analogy which serves as a foil against the child-protection rationale frequently used as the primary impetus behind the creation of the .xxx TLD.
“Those who would aspire to make the internet safe for children should better consider how autobahns and interstate highways might be safe for children to play upon,” Obenberger writes. “Massive trucks, sometimes carrying toxic substances, barrel along these thoroughfares on a constant and unremitting basis…. (T)o render the interstate highways safe for children at play by banning such traffic would deprive society of the adult purpose behind the road. The place for children to play is in designated and protected places that are not in the midst of adult traffic.”
Obenberger also raises the possibility that establishment of the .xxx TLD could serve as a first step towards a legally mandated censorship of sexually explicit material, asserting that some proponents of the TLD “plot and plan for the censorship of such material once the domain has been created and its use made mandatory by local law.”
“The existence of such a domain facilitates internet filtering by moralistic governments with the aim of affecting the ideas and concepts their residents may see and the alternative moral schemes to which they are exposed,” Obenberger argues. “The segregation of thought, entertainment, and ideas because of content and appeal is a dangerous first step towards local and parochial control over the global internet. It paves the way for TLDs aimed at religious and political content.”
Obenberger’s letter joins an apparently growing chorus of opposition to the TLD within the adult internet industry and related industries. Obenberger acknowledges this trend in the letter’s opening, in which he states that although his firm submits the letter on their own behalf, “it is my strong impression that the large majority of our clients embrace the sentiments expressed in this letter.”
