‘Domain Names’

To understand how to stop your child from surfing to Internet pornographic sites you first have to know how they could intentionally or unintentionally land at pornographic sites. The mind behind such sites is one that wants to get innocent surfers hooked. As such they offer direct and explicit content as well as hidden content. You want to prevent your child from getting to any of the content.

Teasing Content

Pornographic website owners post teasing content in the form of pictures at their sites with the idea of luring new users. If a child has unrestricted access to the Internet, curiosity can take over and it is not long before some rather explicit content is accessed by your child. The images stay in their minds for a long time and can even trigger further interest. As parent you have the responsibility of protecting your child against such images. If the child is already computer literate and a good web surfer he or she will also be able to turn safe search features off.

Safe Search

Google and other major search engines provide a safe search setting. It is, however, important to note that it is only a first line of defence against a child surfing to Internet pornographic sites. Do not rely on it alone to protect your child. Apart from easily being turned off, porno website owners also use other methods of getting someone to visit and get hooked on their content.

How Children Stumble Across Explicit Adult Content

Innocent surfing can lead to web porn sites because the website owners make use of keywords which children would type in to lead to their sites such as free games, kittens, animals, girls, and more. The Safe Search feature must thus be on at all times to prevent the child from accidentally stumbling on a site when searching for information on something as innocent as kittens.

Pornographic Pop-ups

The pornographic website owners also make use of pop-up windows to advertise their content. Just one or two pictures are needed to get the curiosity flowing and if your kid clicks on the invitation he or she will enter an adult world filled with explicit pornographic images. As such ensure that the browser pop-up blocker is enabled to prevent your child from accidentally surfing to an Internet pornographic site.

Misleading Content

Not all adverts are direct. Some of the pop-ups, banners, and other forms of advertising start all too innocent. A pop-up or advert for game codes can appear or perhaps your child is already at an online freeware game site. What you don’t know is that once the child clicks on some of the games other pages open with pornographic images. The pornographic website owners also make use of misleading domains to trap innocent surfers.

They can easily register a domain such as a museum or game domain and while your child surfs the Internet for information to use for a school project they can get to site that looks legitimate at URL level, but once they click on one of the navigation links end up at a full adult site. To prevent this from happening, you should have Safe Search enabled as well as pop-up block. In addition, you will need to ensure that you have a firewall installed that prevents specific websites from being displayed. Note that a large portion of these sites misuse well-known brand names with which children associate to get them to their sites for example, Barbie and other well-known brands. You cannot protect against such with only safe search, pop-up blockers, and a firewall. You will need to invest in software to protect against surfing to pornographic Internet sites.

Email Content

Unsolicited email is a huge problem for most Internet users, but even more so if the email looks innocent enough. You need to ensure that the firewall protection is on as well as the anti-virus program to immediately block any such emails. Note that not all can be blocked and some may slip through. In this instance, parental control over emails is a must. Ensure that specific words in the subject line of emails lead to blocking of the emails. In addition, set the email client so that the child cannot click on a link in the email to open a browser.

Active Steps You Can Take To Stop Your Child from Surfing to Pornographic Internet Sites

Now that you have an idea of how kids stumble upon or intentionally get to pornographic content on the Internet, you will want to take every possible step to prevent such:

• First line of defence – enable Safe Search.
• Disable pop-ups.
• Disable Active X content.
• Install an excellent firewall program and ensure that it is updated regularly.
• Set the email client not to allow link following in the email body.
• Educate your children about the dangers of pornographic sites and information sharing.
• Set specific guidelines regarding usage of the computers at home.
• Don’t allow your child to provide any personal information for the sake of entering a game or online site or any other reason.
• If your child is over 13 years, he or she most probably has a Facebook page. Make sure you are added as a friend to be able to monitor what is said at their Facebook page.
• Allow for open communication with your child to ensure that they know they can trust you because you want them to come to you if anyone sends them messages which they don’t like.
• Set the computer settings to maximum security.
• View and clear the search history daily and ensure that your children know that you allow usage of the computer and surfing on the Internet with the condition that you will have access to check once a day.
• Install a good software filter to stop your children from surfing to Internet pornographic sites.
• Install kid safe search browsers to prevent accidental surfing to pornographic website content.

One of the best online information resources for help on how to stop your child from surfing to Internet pornographic sites is to be found at GetNetWise.com. If you need help in setting computer settings, installing software filters and monitor computer usage, you will find the resource of value. Get advice from your computer technician regarding the best firewalls, virus programs, and browsers as well as content filters.

Since the year 2000 ICM Registry’s proposition of .xxx domain names has been rejected three times by the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In 2007 ICANN, who controls top-level domain names, refused the application yet again stating that the suffix didn’t comply with their documented policy as it wasn’t neutral, fair and objective. The application was also denied partly due to pressure from conservative groups who were discontented with the spread of online pornography according to ICM’s chief executive, Stuart Lawley.

ICANN’s point of view has changed towards this matter however. In a recent statement they declared that they regret ever rejecting the application three years ago, bringing pornographic websites closer to a new .xxx internet address. In more recent developments ICANN’s board held a meeting in Brussels, Belgium, at the beginning of June, 2010, after which their chairman Peter Dengate Thrush came forward saying that they are returning to negotiations with the applicant and that they promise to move swiftly with the standard checks on ICM Registry LLC.

The subject of XXX domain names has been a controversial matter however with both porn businesses and anti-porn crusaders opposing it. Coming from conservative groups it makes perfect sense that they would be against such developments as it will give an official acknowledgement of these sexually explicit content online – even though most of us know that the Internet’s biggest and most competitive industry is without a doubt porn. At the other end of this opposition lie those working in the pornographic industry who brought their worries to the forefront. For one, this will segregate adult websites making it easier for people to censor online searches, but more importantly it will affect their SEO (search engine optimization) greatly, which will ultimately harm their business.

To say that the online porn industry is big would be a huge understatement – it is enormous! There are approximately 370 million pornographic websites currently on the internet and new ones keep popping up by the minute. Recent figures collated by Internet Pornography Statistics found that that while “sex” is the most searched term worldwide, pornography accounts for 25% of all internet searches. This all adds up to more than $3000 being spent per second on Internet pornography. Moreover porn websites has been at the forefront of developing new marketing tactics which online marketers soon form part of their own strategies.

The aim of this new development is to get website authors who operate within the pornographic industry to move from .com or .org domain names over to .xxx domains. It is expected however that not many of these authors will do so as they cannot be forced to move over to the new suffix, meaning that it will mainly be newcomers who make use of the .xxx domains, provided that the trend becomes popular.

The question that many will ask though is why make the change? Parents and business owners will benefit from this move as they will be able to manage such content better by censoring pornographic websites. Although this will definitely weed out a great deal of pornographic content, it won’t stop it, bringing us to the second question as to who will benefit from this. While ICANN sells about 80million .com domains each year at $7 per domain, ICM’s Lawley said that he reckons the new address could easily attract at least 500 000 sites, making it the second biggest sponsored top-level domain name after “.mobi”. These domains will sell at $60 per .xxx site – of which Lawley stated that $10 will be given to child protection initiatives via the non-profit he has created – making ICM an expected $30million revenue per year. In conclusion to the various aspects of this transition it would appear that the ones who would be mostly affected are those in the pornographic industry, and seeing as they are and will probably always remain the leading entity online, it will be interesting to see what happens should ICANN give the official go-ahead for the .xxx domain names.

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