LOS ANGELES—An adviser to the British government on child internet safety has called for porn sites to be moved into the .xxx top-level domain, according to the Daily Mail. John Carr’s comments come on the heels of a report that Britain hosts more porn than any country but Holland and the United States.
Carr's main beef seems to be that individuals can register adult sites under the country code for the United Kingdom, .co.uk, through a private company called Nominet UK. Carr refers to the country code as the "national domain name," and is demanding action to rein it in.
"Ministers and parliament must be satisfied they are entirely happy with the way that Nominet discharges its responsibilities," he added. "Nominet should have a policy that websites registered under the national domain name do not contain depraved or disgusting words. People should not be able to register websites that bring disgrace to this country under the national domain name."
Carr has called on Nominet to ban websites containing words like “rape” and said the "free for all" should end. According to the Daily Mail, “He said that all porn sites should be under the domain name .xxx and declared: 'The UK should not provide succor and comfort to porn merchants.'"
While it’s unclear if Carr meant that all porn sites in the world should move into an online ghetto, or just ones hosted in the U.K, the country's communications minister, Ed Vaizey, appears sympathetic to the advisor’s point of view, and reportedly "is now writing to Nominet to ask what its plans are to prevent 'abusive behavior.'"
The Daily Mail article also mentions U.S.-based hoster GoDaddy.com, which was reportedly offering the domain rapeher.co.uk for £2.99 a year. "The entry on its website reads: 'Snap it up before someone else does,'" reported the paper. "GoDaddy said: 'We are withdrawing the name while we carry out a review. We have not done this before.'"
Metacert's Paul Walsh, who coincidentally is under contract to provide services to .xxx registry ICM Registry, is responsible for the claim that Britain is third overall with 52 million pages of hosted porn, and will release proof of his claim this week, according to the Daily Mail.
