A Domain of Their Own
New dot-kids domain may make the Web safer for children
Staff -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2000
A California company wants to create an online "safe zone" for young people up to age 18--a ".kids" domain. The Internet Commission for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an international group that manages the address structure on the Internet, will soon select several new top-level domains to dwell alongside .com, .edu, .net, and .gov. No new top-level domains have been added since the early 1980s. There are two proposed domains of particular interest to those who have been involved in the online controversies in libraries and schools: ".xxx" or ".sex" for pornographic sites, and on the other side of the equation, .kids for young people. Other proposals include ".biz" for business (.com has rapidly filled up and there are few simple URLs left for new online businesses), ".tel" for television, and ".mus" for museums.
Creation of a .sex or .xxx domain would not be helpful for those who are trying to exclude pornography, as many adult site promoters who own .com addresses will retain them. But the .kids proposal provides a helpful option for parents, teachers, and librarians working with young people, particularly those aged 12 and under. Four companies have submitted requests to manage a .kids domain; one is Kids Domains Inc. of Burbank, CA (www.kidstld.com). Kids Domains proposed to ICANN that under its management, .kids would "provide a safe and engaging 'green space' environment for children," governed by a content policy board that would ensure that only sites intended and suitable for young people will bear the .kids designation.
Matthew Hayes, a Kids Domains director, says that there would always be some gray areas for the board to consider--if, for example, the World Wrestling Federation wanted to establish a wwf.kids site, or Yahoo! wished to set up young people's chat boards at yahoo.kids. But, he says, "We believe there are things we can all agree on--conservative and liberal--that shouldn't be on .kids." Yahoo!, WWF, or other highly commercial and possibly controversial Web sites would pay a fee of up to $2,500 to use .kids. But nonprofit organizations, which would include schools and libraries--for example, if Los Angeles Public Library wanted to establish a children's site at www.lapl.kids--would pay as little as $39 annually.--Walter Minkel
