Bill would create .xxx domain for porn

WASHINGTON – It’s rare that Christian conservatives and the pornography industry agree on anything. But a congressional proposal to create a new Internet domain has made odd bedfellows of the two groups.

Some moderate Democrats in Congress are pushing for an Internet red-light district where pornography would be isolated on a “.xxx” domain. Conservatives and the adult entertainment industry are fighting the idea – but for dramatically different reasons.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is crafting the legislative package that would require the Department of Commerce to create the new domain name. Pornographic Web sites would be required to abandon their “.com” addresses, ideally consolidating them all in one Internet neighborhood.

The idea, supporters say, is to clean up the Web.

It’s similar to the actions a lot of communities take in zoning adult stores, Baucus said.

But the groups fighting the idea say it is unrealistic and would be difficult and costly to implement.

The Free Speech Coalition, one of the nation’s largest adult entertainment trade groups, calls the idea the “ghettoization” of their content and says it could be unconstitutional.

The industry has proposed a “.kids” domain instead, arguing that restricting children to one domain would be more realistic.

That idea has gained little traction, though, as influential conservative groups have strongly lobbied on the issue and argued that the Internet should simply be scrubbed of all offensive content.