IP: Here we go again -- British Telecom wants ICANN to regulate sex-themed web sites

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
> Cc: john.c.lewis () bt com
>
> Some of the corporations hoping to influence ICANN want the group to 
> segregate web sites with erotic or sexual-themed material. In a post sent 
> apparently accidentally to a public mailing list, we see that the British 
> Telecom delegate to an ICANN working group says such sites must not be 
> able to register in, say, a new top level domain (.ent?) created for 
> "entertainment" purposes.
>
> "This is becoming a more significant issue for us as the introduction of 
> digital tv and its potential for distribution on the Net raises the public 
> awareness of this issue," wrote BT's John Lewis.
>
> It might sound like a good idea at first, but there are lots of problems 
> with it. For instance, who decides what sites have an unacceptable 
> percentage of sex-themed content? ICANN? British Telecom? Network 
> Solutions? Morality in Media? The police?
>
> It's not an obscure issue. Web sites that most of us might think to be 
> perfectly legitimate contain sex-themed content. Editors of news 
> organizations like Salon and CNET testified in the Child Online Protection 
> Act lawsuit that they could be vulnerable to prosecution because their 
> content might upset America's self-appointed purity protectors. (The judge 
> agreed, and blocked prosecutors from enforcing the law.)
>
> Original post from British Telecom's John Lewis:
> http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga-full/Arc00/msg00090.html
>
> Mirrored copy here in case it disappears from the archive:
> http://www.well.com/user/declan/docs/msg00090.html
>
> Background on ICANN DNSO working group:
> http://www.bcdnso.org/WGrapporteurs.htm
>
> Article on Salon and CNET testimony in COPA lawsuit:
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,17465,00.html
>
> -Declan