Well, if it is for names that people get into the sex and gambling sites, to some people is not that easy! In Spain a couple of weeks ago, some parent discover a site that was posting child pornography under the name of a very popular cartoon series that is shown there. This father went in to download an episode for his kid, and found a surprise when he saw the episode before recording it for his kid. He called the police and they found a group od pedophiliacs that was operating through those names and under those sites... only thing they had a special word on the title to identify from the others. But this company taking a step towards having "clean names" I think it is a good decision if it helps their business.
berlinlife06 Wrote:Well, if it is for names that people get into the sex and gambling sites, to some people is not that easy! In Spain a couple of weeks ago, some parent discover a site that was posting child pornography under the name of a very popular cartoon series that is shown there. This father went in to download an episode for his kid, and found a surprise when he saw the episode before recording it for his kid. He called the police and they found a group od pedophiliacs that was operating through those names and under those sites... only thing they had a special word on the title to identify from the others. But this company taking a step towards having "clean names" I think it is a good decision if it helps their business.
That's really terrible to disguise child porn under a cartoon name. It's a kind of ironically disturbed code. But then again, all child porn is bad.
But, getting back to the point, not all porn is child porn. And unlike child porn, not all porn is universally detested. Many people enjoy pornography, and believe that as adults, they have a right to decide what they view, as long as it does not harm others.
Afternic is not preventing HARM (such as child porn) by banning names. They are promoting a social ideology where porn = bad. But not everyone shares that ideology, and not everyone wants to be forced to accept that ideology when using their service.
Zach
I have never been an advocate of censorship. Being somewhat of a freelance writer, I am all for letting the public and the young people of the land read whatever is out there on the market. I do believe in careful placement of reading material. So for example you are not going to place Teen Life next to Playboy (or worse) on the magazine stand. In the library, they don't put the children's books next to the women's steamy romance novels. I don't think that censoring or disallowing adult or violence sites is going to stop the industry. There need to be tighter controls on how these sites and products of the Internet are promoted. It's not right that spammers can get into free email accounts and sell sexual aids.
As far as a single company deciding they are going to clean out their customer lists, well, that is their perogative. As stated elsewhere it is probably to the good of the general reputation of their company. Although I don't advocate censorship I wholeheartedly support a company that wants to stand up for what it believes to be right. Their business may suffer or receive some trashing by ex clients for a while. In the end, their purity of ethic is going to put them ahead in the race of life in general which may be more important than trying to get ahead of the International Bank of Internet Millionaires or whoever else may be in the competition.
I guess until less experienced domainers take years to build up their domain portfolios and all the lessons learned from that hard work they will not see why the best of the best professional domainers left Afternic.
I am done talking in this post as it seems many think its all about censorship. Saying " I believe its wrong to censor" or something like " I support those who keep out adult names" is not the issue. Who cares about that. We make those choices every day, what we like or do not like.
My domain friends who have decided to leave Afternic don't give a damn if we can or cannot list certain names there. What we care about is telling us we can't in one email and then damning those who do by labeling us and the industry that support adult names.
Its not about if you are me or a different members views about the subject , its about Afternic declaring those industry leaders who allow adult names for sale as promoting hate and violence.
Personally I salute companies like Moniker and Sedo who allow adult domains. I do not think Afternic does so when they delcare industry leaders who allow adult domains to be not living up to "industry standards".
I take this view not because I have much investment in adult domains. I own hundreds of domains and I might have ten that are of adult content. I take the view because I am a professional domainer and companies I choose to deal with will have industry standards that I agree with.