.xxx registry sues US government

An anonymous reader writes in to say that "ICM Registry LLC, the company behind the proposed .xxx internet porn domain, is to sue two departments of the US government for access to documents it claims show the US pressured ICANN into rejecting the domain. The Florida-based startup will sue the Department of Commerce and the Department of State to get them to release documents that they redacted when they responded to a Freedom Of Information Act request that ICM filed last year."

Comments

IN SOVIET RUSSIA...

[yobjob]

...xxx screws YOU!

WTF? Redacted?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the government was only allowed to redact documents obtained under the FOIA to preserve national security. Since when does letting people have a naughty domain name threaten national security?

FFS, kick the knee-jerking puritans out of office already.

Those internal documents

[zerojoker]

[http://www.internetgovernance.org/pdf/xxx-foiapag e.pdf] are a very interesting read and show how the US Government changed its mind from neutrality to influencing the decision. Probably due to pressure from conservative family-oriented politicans...

From Bush

[styryx]

BUSH: "Ya see, that's what the pr0n terr'ists want! They'd love us to just release this information. Can't you see people will get hurt! National security (of the children) is at stake here."

Suing the U.S. Government? Fair play, you got some balls and/or a lot of naivety. Good luck.

Also, if we don't want a .xxx domain then we should probably take the magazines down from the top shelves and put them with the rest.

Just a thought

Re:WTF? Redacted?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

It's the mentality of these people. Never tell the truth, or at least the whole truth, even if doing so would be the simplest course. Refuse to release information, withhold vital pieces of information, mislead, or outright lie -- but never just tell people what's going on. Honestly, I think there are an awful lot of people in government who do it, basically, for the little-kid thrill of saying "I know something you do-on't, nyaah nyaah!" It's an attitude which I saw way too much of in the military, and one which, in the *cough* post-9/11 era, has pretty much taken over every level of government from the White House to your local city council.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

I care. I don't care about the .xxx TLD. I think it wouldn't hurt, but it won't help either. But I do care how the decision was made: I want to know if it was independent or if ICANN just executed what the US government demanded. In discussions about control over DNS and the root servers, the US constantly reiterate that ICANN is independent, and even though it is on US soil, it acts without interference from the US government. If there is evidence that the US government pressured ICANN into making a decision that it would have made differently on its own, then it is high time for the rest of the world to establish independent DNS roots.

Re:Why?! This .xxx registry is a big waste of spac

[vertinox]

Secondly, if .xxx sites get registered it'll make it even EASIER for kids to find porn now.

And easier for parents to block.

Well... If they so choose to educate themselves on the matter in order out how to set their router firewall to block all *.xxx connections.

Not that kids have been looking at their parents porn mags and adult video tapes for the past 20 years. Truth be told... Porn never hurt any kids. Uncaring parents too disinterested in the welfare of their kids have.

Teach your kids to be sexual healthy and not sexually repressed.

Otherwise they are going to learn the hard way... You know... Teen pregnancy and STDs.

Hopefully the domain registry company loses...

[Zweideutig]

Many people (including myself) resent this disgusting smut. I would rather it didn't become legitimized by having its own top level domain. These "adult entertainment" companies should all cease and desist for the morality of the U.S.

Re:WTF? Redacted?

[six11]

I completely agree that these people (government types) play this childish "nyaaa-nyaaah I know something you don't know!" game. I don't know if things are more likely to be redacted now than before 9/11, but it's been crazy for a long time. A long time.

Yesterday, I was just curious what one had to do in order for the FBI to start a file on you (something that I aspire to have at some point), so I googled for "How do I get an FBI file?"

The second hit is the John Lennon FBI Files, which is hilarious and frightening at the same time. In particular: The Parrot Story was at first given to a researcher in a completely redacted form. Only after going through a court battle over this and other redacted documents did the true, criminally horrifying nature of the Parrot Story become clear. John Lennon had been harboring "Linda", who owned a parrot:

THE PARROT STORY

The informer's report written by Julie Maynard about her trip from Madison to New York in March 1972 continues with a story about "a girl there named Linda" who has a parrot that "interjects 'Right On' whenever the conversation gets rousing" (NY-88 page 5). That story was featured in news reports on the settlement as an example of the trivial information the FBI had been collecting in 1972, information to which the FBI devoted substantial resources to keep secret through ensuing decades. This page includes a variety of other movement gossip and information, none of which describes plans for criminal activity. This page was withheld in its entirety for fourteen years as confidential and then released as part of the 1997 settlement.

Remember, that ENTIRE STORY had been redacted, and remained so until after a court forced the FBI to reveal what the page contained. Not only did the federal government spend American tax dollars collecting the story, they spent money, time, and legal resources depending their goal of keeping it secret.

I suspect the reason the government does this is similar to the reason that the RIAA or commercial software publishers might corrupt peer-to-peer networks with corrupted versions of files. In both the redaction and peer-to-peer cases, The Man is introducing noise into the medium and frustrates efforts of users to get at the content they are looking for.

Maybe the sequel to the Freedom of Information Act should be the Freedom from Redactions act.

I wonder what would happen if..

[Plunky]

I wonder what would happen if this company ICM just went out and bought some bandwidth (guess they already got some of that), and set up a DNS server that would handle requests from the .xxx domain, and started selling subdomains of it to people who wanted name resolutions there. Although ICANN are 'the domain authority' they have refused to handle this TLD so surely its up for grabs? ICM could advertise their services and its up to the DNS admins of all the DNS servers around the world if they want to add it as an authoritative server, surely? If some porn sites decide to get on board and offer free porn to all comers (heh) then the end customer demand might be high enough that ISPs the world over add it. I freely admit, I am no DNS admin and I dont know how it works.

Using TLDs For Filtering Harmful

[EzInKy]

There is a W3C article, Why Using TLDs for Filtering is Ineffective, Harmful, and Unnecessary, that points out all the downfalls of creating a .xxx domain. This excerpt sums up why I am personally opposed to the idea:

"7. The definition of what is offensive obviously differs greatly from country to country, from year to year, and from person to person. If bare ankles are considered obscene in some cultures, but are permitted in photos of Web sites in France selling sandals, then individuals wishing to keep photos of bare ankles out of their home using filtering on ".xxx" are unlikely to succeed. How will sites about safe sex or AIDS be treated? Who will establish what is art and what is pornography?"

Also, having read these documents it appears to me that this whole thing is nothing but a land grab by ICM.