more on Open letter: Why "dot-xxx" is for chumps

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Seth Finkelstein <sethf () sethf com>
Date: September 19, 2005 8:39:47 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: Ip Ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Open letter: Why "dot-xxx" is for chumps




> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> So if dot-xxx arrives, my strong recommendation is that *you ignore  
> it*.
> ...
> Dot-xxx is for chumps.

    I concur with Lauren Weinstein's recommendation, but
essentially from a different line of reasoning. While I'm not a
lawyer, my study of Internet censorship cases indicates that, contrary
to much of the censor's hype, there have always been ample defenses
for out-and-out commercial pornographers (the battle has usually been
over much broader or generally noncommercial expression). For example:

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/EFF_ACLU_v_DoJ/HTML/ 
960612_aclu_v_reno_decision.html

 "Perversely, commercial pornographers would remain relatively
  unaffected by the [Communications Decency] Act, since we learned that
  most of them already use credit card or adult verification
  anyway. Commercial pornographers normally provide a few free pictures
  to entice a user into proceeding further into the Web site. To  
proceed
  beyond these teasers, users must provide a credit card number or  
adult
  verification number. The CDA will force these businesses to remove  
the
  teasers (or cover the most salacious content with cgi scripts), but
  the core, commercial product of these businesses will remain in  
place."

    Dot-ex-ex-ex does not, in fact, actually *DO* anything notable
in terms of ratings. It's utterly trivial, a standard one-item
labeling system (I call these "Scarlet Letters"). These types of
systems have been around for years, at no cost (yet), with built-in
browser support, not tied to any TLD.

    What ex-ex-ex will do, however, is produce an ongoing stream
of monopoly rents for the company proposing it (ICM Registry), as
speculators, cybersquatters, and site-owners wanting to protect their
domain name recognition from the first two groups, all rush to pay
through the [censored] for a TLD which basically nobody wants except
those who stand to profit from it (obscenely!).

    So, instead of making an argument from a free-speech point
of view, I'm making an argument from a business point of view. As
a product, ex-ex-ex mainly has no value except to enrich the sellers.

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com
Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php


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