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Adult .IE Domain Names Banned As Immoral

Posted by kdawson on Sun Oct 15, 2006 03:25 AM
from the naughty-naughty dept.
An anonymous reader writes, "The Irish domain prefix, .ie, is controlled by an organization called the IE Domain Registry. In their terms and conditions they state, 'The proposed domain name must not be offensive or contrary to public policy or generally accepted principles of morality.' But this policy is only applied to sex words as this adult webmaster has discovered. Murder.ie is acceptable, Porn.ie is not. Can a word be immoral? And in this day and age, should a government-chosen domain registry be allowed to enforce their own moral code on the public?"
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  • juden-raus.ie (Score:5, Insightful)

    From TFS:

    And in this day and age, should a government-chosen domain registry be allowed to enforce their own moral code on the public?
    porn.ie is a poor example, since pornography has been a strict superset of free speech since the 1960's; how about: juden-raus.ie?

    juden-raus.ie, I suspect, would convert many here into willing censors.

    • Re:juden-raus.ie (Score:5, Insightful)

      by donscarletti (569232) on Sunday October 15 2006, @04:00AM (#16442321)
      If pornography was a superset of free speech, strict or otherwise then all free speech would be porn. What you mean is that porn is not a subset of free speech. But I think in Ireland which is fairly conservative IIRC, it might actually be a disjoint set to free speech.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      juden-raus.ie, I suspect, would convert many here into willing censors.
      torture-and-kill-arabs.ie, I suspect, would not raise an eyebrow here.
        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          This isn't insightful, it's just nasty to both Arabs and Irish people.

          Just to set the record straight, I'm Arab and Muslim. When I said "here", I was referencing to /. not Ireland. That remark, sadly seem to make consensus.
          If you don't see the west's double standards in treating Jews and Arabs let me refresh you memory; People get sent to jail for challenging the accuracy of the Holocaust figures, yet freedom of speech in invoked everytime someone gratuitousely insults the prophet Mohammed and his teachin

          • If you don't see the west's double standards in treating Jews and Arabs let me refresh you memory;

            I see a double standard, but let me rebutt yours before I argue mine.

            People get sent to jail for challenging the accuracy of the Holocaust figures, yet freedom of speech in invoked everytime someone gratuitousely insults the prophet Mohammed and his teachings.

            No one ever gets sent to jail in the west for insulting the Jews or their teachings. Insulting the prophet Mohammed (isn't there supposed to be an addition there?) is the equivalent of saying that Kabbalah is devil-worship; it's freedom of religion.

            Those counties (of which the United States is NOT a part) that made denying the Holocaust a crime did so because they were complicit in the holocaust. It'd be as if the United States made questioning the reality of southern slavery a crime. You're comparing apples and, well, pears.

            Israel gets away with a stockpile of nukes but no Arab country could dream of being allowed to develop them.

            No arab country has millions of Jews planning on burning it from existance. And while Israel implies that they have nuclear weapons, they do not openly admit to having them, and they have never performed a nuclear test. It's entirely possible that they don't have a single nuke of their own, and are just mis-stating the presense of nukes installed by their allies.

            As for how the Jews get special treatment -- you're right. They, as a part of their religion, believe that they're special, and as part of their politics, hold that they have a modern-day right to do so. Because they've done such a good job adapting to the west, the jewish idea of what is offensive and abhorrent is treated as an agnostic view, and so carries a fair bit of weight. This is, in essense, subversive, but it's not the sort of thing that my country is going to get riled up over. After all, Christians and Muslims have exactly the same access to influencing our country; they just need to play their cards right.
                • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                  I have heard that this is precisely the reason Sadam Hussein wasn't very clear when he said Iraq didn't have WMDs; he (foolishly) wasn't concerned about the US (he never thought we'd actually invade Baghdad) but wanted to make sure that other more dangerous countries thought he might have WMDs, to deter them from invading.
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            People get sent to jail for challenging the accuracy of the Holocaust figures, yet freedom of speech in invoked everytime someone gratuitousely insults the prophet Mohammed and his teachings.

            You're comparing apples to oranges here.

            Freedom of speech would also apply to people insulting Abrahm, Jesus or any other prophet and their respective teachings.

            Israel gets away with a stockpile of nukes but no Arab country could dream of being allowed to develop them.

            I think that's a matter of culture. Israel is more o

            • Re:juden-raus.ie (Score:4, Interesting)

              by lixee (863589) on Sunday October 15 2006, @10:57AM (#16444041)
              What's it like being an anti-semite?
              Arabs being of semitic heritage themselves, I fail to see how such a thing is plausible.
              Ironically, your post illustrates my point; There's no way to have an intelligent debate when one of the parties dares to say that Jews don't have a monopoly over suffering. Emotions quickly take over and the word "anti-semite" is used as a wildcard.
              Do you wake up in the morning and blame the Evil Jews when you can't find your slippers? How about when you bang your toe? The Evil Zionist Conspiracy must have been lying in wait for just the right moment to smack you on your toe.
              Wrong! I grew up in a country with a firmly rooted Jewish community. Early on, I learned to judge people based on what they do, not who they are. This wasn't the case for many of the bullies which agressed Jews for religious reasons. I was beaten up many times because I tried to defend the Jews.
              I think you'd find that the West would gladly accept mainstream (i.e. from those not born or assimilated into a western culture) Arab culture if the largest Arab countries would stop stealing from and oppressing their people and then blaming their plight on the Evil Jews.
              So, you agree that the west isn't accepting mainstream Arab culture? Ok, that was too easy.
              The west is backing those same countries making any change of regime very hard. I can only back that claim with my own experience.
              I don't blame the Jews for anything. Heck, I know most people in Israel are against the massacre the IDF is perpetrating.
              I'm not gullible enough to believe in an organised racist conspiracy. Yet, I recognize a genocide when I see one; And the Israeli government is responsible for it. Granted, the Arab leaders are jerks and should have acknowledged Israel's right to exist early on but there are not actively responsible for the victims.
              I can only assume that you live in the US, but perhaps you live in Ireland/the UK - in either case, this point is still valid.
              Indeed you can. But you'd be wrong again. I live in Sweden ('cause of all the blondes and pirates).
              FYI - I did a small amount of research, and the only place I could find a source for the Kissinger quote above came from either blatantly racist sites or whackjob International Banking Conspiracy idiots
              It was originally quoted in a book by Walter Isaacson, "Kissinger - A Biography", on page 561.
            • Do you wake up in the morning and blame the Evil Jews when you can't find your slippers? How about when you bang your toe? The Evil Zionist Conspiracy must have been lying in wait for just the right moment to smack you on your toe.

              And we would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling Slashdotters.
      • Apparently it was a board game that glorified the out-ing of the Jews in the same way Monopoly glorifies making money.

        Or am I oversimplifying?

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            I disagree. You probably accept that the airwaves "belong to the public", and you probably accept that we need to regulate them technically to keep them usable. So regulation in some form is okay, right? Here's the part where we disagree... if the airwaves belong to the public, then the public should be able to determine their use. While our democratic process might be flawed, it remains our best option for determining how to use public property. In my mind, banning nudity during daytime TV is no better or

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                Cable and satellite are just as "public" as broadcast, and the rationale for regulating them is identical. Both use scarce public resources.

                I disagree, friend. Anybody with a receiver in range can pick up broadcasts, but with cable and "most" (not all) satellite services, you have to have a subscription. You're correct that satellite does use spectrum, though. I suppose it's tomato, tomahto. :)

                I look at XM Radio (I have no experience with Sirius) as an example of where I believe the FCC should stay out o
      • Re:juden-raus.ie (Score:5, Informative)

        by NewToNix (668737) on Sunday October 15 2006, @03:34AM (#16442217) Journal

        juden-raus == Jews Out! From the Nazi era, and also a board game - of equal value.

  • Yes? So.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jawtheshark (198669) * <slashdot@jawthesh a r k . c om> on Sunday October 15 2006, @03:30AM (#16442201) Homepage Journal

    Isn't this standard procedure for most country TLDs? I just checked for my country:

    From their webpage: [www.dns.lu]

    DEMANDES D'ENREGISTREMENT REJETÉES

    ...

    (c) noms de domaine manifestement contraires à l'ordre public ou aux bonnes moeurs.

    Translation: The proposed domain name must not be offensive or contrary to public policy or generally accepted principles of morality

    Thus, identical to the Ireland registry provisions. The real question here is, why someone would consider "murder" falling into that provision? I clearly don't. You see, this could be a website about prevening murder, or a forum for people seeking help that had a relative murdered. I don't know.
    Also keep in mind that pretty much all "normal" sex-related words should be registrable just because of *that* reason. tits.com used to be about birds (the real, flying kind). Now, I do not know what the porn guy exactly tried to register (just checked the article: it was porn.ie). It would be hard to defend "bondagegirls.ie", but a case for "sex.ie" might be acceptable, if the content clearly is non-sexual. (Well, the applicant was a p0rn peddler, so good luck to that)

    Oh, and I see he owns sex.ie... Now really, it's not as if sex.ie is registrable, so should be murder.ie.... He is complaining about nothing *at all*.

    What I think that happens: the registration process is completely automated and the words just pass through an automated filter which, incidentially, just contains sex-related words. He should try "t1ts.ie" ;-)

    • Sure then what about prawn.ie? Hey! That's not a shrimp!
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Apparently it isn't for Germany. The DENIC just hast this rule regarding domain names:

      Unzulässig als Domain sind die Bezeichnungen anderer TLDs (wie z. B. .com, .net, .org und sämtliche länderbezogenen TLDs), Buchstabenkombinationen, die in deutschen Kfz-Kennzeichen zur Benennung des Zulassungsbezirks verwendet werden, sowie Zeichenfolgen, die sich ergeben, wenn man in derartigen Buchstabenkombinationen ä durch ae, ö durch oe und ü durch ue ersetzt.

      Translated:

      Inadmissible a

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      It would be hard to defend "bondagegirls.ie"

      Why?

      I mean, it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but clearly some people are turned on by this kind of thing, and so long as it's just a theatre of willing participants what's the problem?

      If it isn't just a theatre of willing participants, then there are crimes being commited that need to be addressed by far stronger means than censoring website names, and anyone who is going to suggest that any resources be spent on censoring website names while such crimes are being
  • by Corbets (169101) on Sunday October 15 2006, @03:38AM (#16442231) Homepage
    As much as I love the country, remember that you're talking about a nation that banned the sale of condoms to minors for a long time. They're simply more conservative over there; I don't believe that makes them wrong (or right, for that matter).
    • As much as I love the country, remember that you're talking about a nation that banned the sale of condoms to minors for a long time. They're simply more conservative over there; I don't believe that makes them wrong (or right, for that matter).

      I believe it makes them wrong but then I live here. Things have improved of late. I've noticed around the college I'm studying at now that safe sex is promoted heavily - even more than last year. I think there's been a realisation that promoting safe sex isn't promoting casual sex. I know when I'm looking at that chlamidya poster in the toilets I don't care if I never get laid again (althought that soon passes) ;).

      As for the .ie domain? Who cares? They priced themselves out of the market [wikipedia.org] a long time ago - only larger businesses can afford them anyway. The current management of the .ie domain seems to run contrary to the overriding trend of making communications infrastructure more accessible - it took serious government pressure to make affordable broadband available in even the most densely populated areas. It was laughable when Ireland was dubbed by the government as the "e-hub of Europe" [google.ie] when most of the population who wanted to connect to the outside world were paying per minute for flakey dialup.

      In summary, is Ireland a conservative, moralistic hellhole? Yes, but it's getting better. We no longer export pregnant teens and force them to surrender their children for adoption!
  • Murder.ie is acceptable, Porn.ie is not.

    That is disgusting. If true, I feel that IE Domain Registry is revealing their own sickness by enforcing such as bizarre standard.

  • What about /.ing it? Is it ironic if it is /.'ed?
  • We are talking about the country where reading Playboy was illegal only a few years ago, check out the wikipedia page for the whole censoring frenzy [wikipedia.org].
    • Let me tell you a little something about Ireland.

      Yeah it's all true. Playboy was Illegal, along with condoms and being homosexual until 1993. Yes 1993. Prior to thise, people were still selling playboys, condonms and being homosexual, but it was in fact illegal. We don't actually have an explicit right to freedom of speech in this country. In the Irish constitution, most if not all personal rights are, to use the exact phrase, "subject to public order and morality". Oy'veh!

      Anyway, it's not like that over here anymore. Long story short, people got relatively wealthy and now have the money to be as debauched and decandent as they like, hence the laws got changed. The current Taoiseach of the country, that's the Prime Minister, is divorced and living with his girlfriend. Or he was at any rate, while still Taoiseach. He might have married her. Might. So no we are not currently talking about a conservative catholic theocracy anymore. Because it was a conservative catholic theocracy at one point. I've got witnesses who can testify to that.

      However! There's still a lot of old guard catholic dead wood hanging around. The kind who thought that Vatican II was an opening of the floodgates of sin. They're here and there, usually in minor offical positions that they obtained through their connections to government. "Pillars of the Community" had a lot of government connections over here, mostly because everyone else had emigrated.

      Anyway, these kind of officals tend not only to be catholics, they are very often members of some subversive catholic organisation like Opus Dei or the Knights of Columbanus. I believe the attoreny general in the infamous X case [wikipedia.org] was a member of the latter. Think Pat Robertson, only without the TV show. Trust me, these guys are the real pros, Robertson's just a wannabe.

      Anyway, it's highly likely that someone of that ilk is running the .ie registry. In fact it's almost certain as they tend to be incompetant misers and .ie domain names are about $90 a year. So on behalf of the country, I formally apologise for this disgrace. We'd get rid of them, but ironically, the smaller the country, the harder it is to dislodge the dead wood from office.
  • Slavery, apartheid, imprisoning and executing unwanted people. These have all been public policy at one time or another. If we base our decisions on "public policy" instead of freedom of expression and liberty we are on the way to totalitarianism.
  • he proposed domain name must not be offensive
    ...why is offensive.ie not allowed? :-)

  • murder.ie? (Score:5, Funny)

    by zecg (521666) on Sunday October 15 2006, @04:09AM (#16442339)
    Nice domain, would've been really cool during the browser wars.
  • by Ron Bennett (14590) on Sunday October 15 2006, @04:40AM (#16442441) Homepage
    .US bans various domains too for similar reasons, such as FuckCensorship.US

    For the timebeing, along with others, it's in perpetual limbo:

    http://www.whois.us/whois.cgi?TLD=us&dn=fuckcensor ship.us&TYPE=DOMAIN [whois.us]

    Ron
  • "should a government-chosen domain registry be allowed to enforce their own moral code on the public?"

    yes.

    your right to free speech does not:
    1. extend to other countries
    2. usually does not extend to material unsuitable for minors, depending on the situation and audience.
    (like creepy domainnames for porn site)
    3. does not extend to other things, like slander, libel, false advertising, misrepresentation, etc.

    mostly your right to free speech is there to criticize the government(your own government), it's not there so you can download child porn.

    If you want to get upset, having a nazi.xx domain is illegal in most European countries. but as far as I know it is legal in the US. WHOIS for: nazi.com [dnsstuff.com], nazi.org [dnsstuff.com]

    I personally find domains like IHR.ORG and VHO.ORG far more offensive, they belong to Holocaust denial groups. Relastically we should ban those domains before we ban BIGJUICYSLUTS.COM (is that a real domain? I bet it is)
  • by Max Threshold (540114) on Sunday October 15 2006, @05:10AM (#16442557)
    But I'll still let your mom be on it.
  • quick.ie
  • by 4D6963 (933028) on Sunday October 15 2006, @08:25AM (#16443361)

    It's pretty much like asking "Is God fair?". I only hope you don't expect an objective answer, because morals are just as subjective as religious beliefs (and please don't hit me back with a Wikipedia link to an article about moral absolutism or moral objectivism).

    • Re:Murder or Porn (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ozmanjusri (601766) <aussie_bob@hotmail. c o m> on Sunday October 15 2006, @03:46AM (#16442261) Journal
      A site about murder is far less likely to inspire murderous actions than a porn site is to incite pornographic actions.

      You're still implying there's something wrong with pornographic actions, and that it's the role of the government to regulate them.

      I'd suggest that whatever sexual activity takes place between consenting adults (or solo, given that this is Slashdot) is their own business.

      • (or solo, given that this is Slashdot)

        /ME runs off registering "masturbation.ie" ;-)

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          The next time you see a girl in a video online, ask yourself if you're sure she wants to be there. There's nothing wrong with a fantasy--but there's something wrong with slavery that's used to visualize it.

          You're right, and that's really the only argument I see as being valid here. I'd say though, virtually every human activity can and will be misused. That's a good reason for effective laws and law enforcement, not a good excuse for censorship and repression.

          It's the slavery (both physical and economic

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          Yeah, but I have to go to work, otherwise I starve, too.

          If women were told that they couldn't work any job, but porn, then you'd have a better argument.

          The next time you see a guy breaking his back working shit labor, ask yourself if he's sure he wants to be there. This is, essentially, the trafficking of human beings.

          Watch everything you buy. You don't know where it came from.

          We should make buying shoes illegal; I hear that the people who are forced to make them don't have any alternatives. It's essentiall
    • Porn sites inspire people to create porn?
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That country would have been the United Kingdom (specifically, Northern Ireland), not the Republic of Ireland. And even there, they stopped a while ago. You're wrong in both time and space.
    • by evilandi (2800) <andrew@aoakley.com> on Sunday October 15 2006, @04:29AM (#16442411) Homepage
      Did you think countries of religious fundamentalism were restricted to poor 3rd world countries?

      No, we just thought they were restricted to America [guardian.co.uk].

      Boom-cha! Thank-you, I'll be here all night.
      • by Darkman, Walkin Dude (707389) on Sunday October 15 2006, @06:30AM (#16442865) Homepage

        No, we just thought they were restricted to America.

        Actually even in Ireland, the situation is changing extremely rapidly. What the GP was referring to was the "troubles" in the north, which had almost nothing to do with religion - Catholic / Protestant was just a convenient title for the opposing camps. Republican / unionist would be better. All that is besides the point, however.

        The gap between younger and older generations in Ireland is staggering. We basically went from ultra conservative, churchgoing folks to hedonisitic, hip, and tech-savvy in about thirty years. The older generation is still in political power however, which is why you see things like this .IE decision cropping up from time to time. Give it another thirty years and you won't be able to tell an urbanite from Dublin or Galway from someone from New York or London, apart from the accents. Not saying its a good thing or a bad thing, but its how I see it going.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          I visited Ireland for the first time about 5 years ago and I was blown away by how modern it is, both in infrastructure and attitude. Really a great country, friendly people, nice climate (it was sunny the entire time), high tech industry. Can't say enough nice stuff about you folks.
    • by DrFaustos25 (788264) <george,s,bills&gmail,com> on Sunday October 15 2006, @04:54AM (#16442493)

      The countries domain is a service provided for the country; privatized or not, it's supposed to be run in the interests of the people. If enough people of Ireland feel that their countries service isn't what they want then they have every right to demand that the government improve that service, again, privatized or not. They shouldn't have to use another countries domain name when their own government is supposed to be providing their citizens with a service that the majority of them like.

      Would you argue the same about other privatized services? Water? Transport? "If you don't like it, use someone else?" In a lot of countries there is no viable competitor, and in this case, if Irish people want an Irish domain (surprise!) then they have no other service to go to.

      Maybe the majority of them want the restrictions, and that's their choice. But you don't get to shut down the argument over whether or not this is a good choice by simply spouting some inanity about the market deciding blah blah blah. If the citizens want their own countries domain rules to change, they should.

    • by freeweed (309734) on Sunday October 15 2006, @04:57AM (#16442509)
      There is nothing wrong with keeping society prim, proper, polite and personable on the surface.

      Except for, you know, the idea that we should be free to do whatever the hell we want, so long as we're not harming others. I know freedom (and liberalism) in general is out of favour these days, but still...

      don't force those who adminsiter and check these to suffer your personal tastes, and don't cry foul by their decisions. That is what pisses me off.

      So we should all suffer YOUR personal tastes? Or should we go with "majority rules" here, and fuck anyone who disagrees with the majority?

      Meet Bob, he had the same rights as everyone. One day he fucked a watermelon, and loved it. Now he felt that he didn't have the same rights as everyone else and started a campaign for 'equal rights' and 'tolerance'

      And so long as Bob isn't harming a soul while fucking watermelons, what precisely is the problem? If he's prevented by law from doing that, he damned well SHOULD campaign for equal rights and tolerance.

      I think your poorly-veiled allusion to gay rights, plus your use of quotation marks around 'equal rights' and 'tolerance' speaks volumes about your position, though. You do realize that without 'equal rights', it's just as easy for someone to find something about you that is slightly different than the majority, and get after you about it?
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        Except for, you know, the idea that we should be free to do whatever the hell we want, so long as we're not harming others. I know freedom (and liberalism) in general is out of favour these days, but still...

        This has very little to do with freedom to be honest. It's their tld, they've setup the rules. Don't agree with them, buy a .com name.

        So we should all suffer YOUR personal tastes?

        No, you should suffer the Terms Of Service of the registrar, like the ones many tld's enforce. Don't like it? Write to

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      And you know what, the majority would agree. You don't like it? Go live in fundamentalist/survivalist camp and then decide who is the kooky one.

      Personally, I think that the one who is the kooky one is the one who thinks that disagreeing with censorship is equivalent to being a fundamentalist. That's just my opinion though...

      Here's a decent definition of censorship: The practice of suppressing a text or part of a text that is considered objectionable according to certain standards.

      This is censorsh
    • by TheNoxx (412624) on Sunday October 15 2006, @01:29PM (#16444881) Homepage Journal
      Who modded this insightful? It's just a half-assed retard attempting to take a pot-shot at personal freedoms. So now sexual liberty is equivalent to some nutjob fucking a watermelon? Eat shit and die, you conservative prick.

      Don't like personal freedom, cocksucker? Go to China. Stop fucking up the civilized world.

      You heard me. GET OUT.
    • by Dunbal (464142) on Sunday October 15 2006, @08:00AM (#16443259)
      Girls sleep around, and that's really no good for anybody.

            I would argue that effective birth control has a lot more to do with this than "television". You're a LOT less likely to "take a chance" with that good looking guy you met if there's a high probability you'll end up with a baby out of a night's passion. Oh and why is it that girls sleeping around is no good, but guys sleeping around doesn't get a mention?

            Women were culturally restricted to be a subservient class in a male dominated world. All this has changed, and now women fend for themselves, work for themselves, and educate themselves. Basically the sexual differences between male and female have been blurred now. There's no reason why they shouldn't entertain themselves sexually as well. What's good for the goose is also good for the gander.

            While I agree that extremes in any situation including sex may lead to disappointing results, I feel that education, not imposition from the outside with stupid (and unenforceable) laws, is the solution. Outlawing something only makes it illegal. It does NOT stop people from doing it.

            Morals are individual things. Respect for your fellow human being means you can't impose your point of view on them.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        In light of the news that Republicans consider sex immoral, I'd like to ask "How do you get republicans?

        You misunderstand. It's not sex that's immoral. It's sex between Democrats that's immoral. Personally, I even condone Republican-Democrat sex (if they're married of course), but Democrat-Democrat sex... ewwwwww. ;-)