Judge Denies Lawsuit Over Dirty Domains

caledon writes: "A Brooklyn judge has ruled that Network Solutions cannot be sued for civil rights violations because it refused to register obscene domain names. This New York Law Journal article describes how Island Online, Inc. sued NSI and the National Science Foundation for denial of free-speech rights because NSI refused to "register three 'dot-com' domain names that incorporated words commonly considered obscene: 'f---me.com;' 'f---you.com' and 'c---s-----.com.'"" The main point here is that NSI is supposedly not bound by the rules that bind the U.S. Government, despite holding a monopoly granted by the Commerce Department.

Comments

The NSI doesn't hold a monopoly

[emmons]

The main point here is that NSI is supposedly not bound by the rules that bind the U.S. Government, despite holding a monopoly granted by the Commerce Department.

Network Solutions no longer has a monopoly on domain registrations, you can go to any of the ICANN members to register whatever domain is not taken. ICANN is not part of the US government either, as the bottem of their website clearly states.

Re:personally.....

[hiryuu]

To paraphrase Larry Flynt, if the law/policy/actions protect the perverse, then we can rest assured that the remainder of the population (on- or offline) can expect to be treated fairly, sensibly, and justly.

Not that I really care whether or not some porn tycoon makes money on such an opportunity, but the principle still holds.

Domain Name Censorship

[jmorse]

This whole situation stinks of the PMRC witch hunt of the 1980s. The sad part is that *most* domain resellers will eventually be pressured into censoring domain names. And there's nothing we as citizens can do about it, short of changing the law.

As it turns out, register.com censors domain names too. But they won't even tell you you're being censored; they just give you the standard "this domain is not available" message...it took me 5 phone calls to get them to admit that they censor domain names.