from www.onenewsnow.com – An attorney with a prominent pro-family organization says last Friday’s action by an international group gives preferential treatment to pornographers.

The board of ICANN — the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — has approved a triple-X Internet domain for the “adult entertainment” industry. In Friday’s vote, three ICANN board members opposed formation of the domain, and four abstained; unofficially, nine voted in favor. That decision essentially establishes a virtual “red-light district” on the worldwide web.

The move was vigorously opposed by Christian and other traditional-values groups, among them the American Family Association. AFA attorney Pat Vaughn [pictured] says the designation gives the porn industry special recognition.

“Setting up the XXX domain is the first time that a specific viewpoint has been given a domain of addresses that they can use — and it puts everyone else at a disadvantage,” the attorney argues. “We, for example, are going to have to go reserve [the domain] AmericanFamilyAssociation.XXX so that nobody else comes in and does dastardly things with it.”

Critics contend ICANN’s action will allow pornographers to exploit the Internet even more than before, plus giving them a right to market something which is illegal under U.S. obscenity laws.

Vaughn points out similar steps have not been taken, for example, to establish a separate domain for Christian groups. “You could go [then] into those domains and look for particular kinds of information — [but] there’s no movement to provide that kind of viewpoint-oriented domains,” he says. “Instead it’s the pornographers that have that privilege.”

The irony, he adds, is that porn purveyors do not have to give up their .com addresses, so they will have both to use.

Some porn providers objected to creation of the triple-x domain, saying it will cost them millions to set up their new web addresses.