XXX domains to be banned in India

India not up for hosting the XXX-factor
India not up for hosting the XXX-factor

India has announced that .xxx domain will be blocked by the country – a sign of what is to come when the web address suffix is officially rolled out.

The Economic Times is reporting that India is going to block the whole domain due to laws in the country, with a statement explaining: "India along with many other countries from the Middle East and Indonesia opposed the grant of the domain in the first place, and we would proceed to block the whole domain, as it goes against the IT Act and Indian laws," according to a senior official at the ministry of IT.

Although the distribution of pornography is illegal, you are allowed to view material - so it's interesting that the government is taking this stance.

Cen-sore

This sort of censorship was what worried the adult industry, given that if a such a site snaps up the .xxx version of their website name, then there are fears that all its domains will get blocked by countries that don't want to provide access to .xxx sites.

ICANN approved the .xxx top-level domain earlier this month.

The new domain is meant to offer a place for adult content to be better regulated, but there has been opposition both from the adult industry and religious groups, who believe that the arrival of the domain legitimises pornography on the web.

Via TechSpot

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.