FC: More on allowing "naughty" words in domain names

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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> Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 13:57:32 -0800
> To: declan () well com
> From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
> Subject: Re: FC: Are "naughty" words in domain names allowed?
>
> > with an attempt at using the word "fuck" as part of a domain name. It may
>
> Well ... it's in my Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary.  Hey! What's good 
> 'nuf for Noah's good 'nuf for the net!  :-)
>
> --jim

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> From: terry.s () juno com
> To: declan () well com
> Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 16:37:35 -0500
> Subject: Re: FC: Are "naughty" words in domain names allowed?
>
> On Sat, 25 Nov 2000 12:29:08 -0500 Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
> writes:
>
> > It seems as though some registrars allow "indecent" .com domain names
> > and some don't. Not a new problem.
>
> If US present legal standards were applied, it might be argued that
> www.fuckthedraft.com should be legally protected speech (see Cohen v. CA,
> a 1971 USSC case), while a "porn" (whatever that is) site of
> www.fuckmewild.com might be restricted.  While it's hypocritical to
> consider the latter bannable and something like www.rocksoff.com as OK,
> the legal argument over "fuck" presumes a valid basis (from Miller and
> Pacifica, etc.) to regulate speech, but apply strict scrutiny to
> political comments and mere rational basis to commercial speech in
> general.  It also assumes some rationale to apply legal or economic
> standards of the US internationally.
>
> I'd suggest instead that the Supreme Court fucked up, and needs to
> revisit Pacifica and Miller.  "indecency" and "profanity" are themselves
> ideas rooted in religion, which cannot be legislated or adjudicated
> without arbitrarily picking which values are endorsed, and which
> denounced.  Calling such discrimination "social order" fails to change
> the nature of such concepts and included values as religious in origin
> and nature, such that the only legitimate posture for the US Supreme
> Court is to hold viewers responsible for their own levels of self-induced
> offense or lack thereof at the beliefs and life paths of neighbors,
> domestically or internationally.  IOW, a sexual suggestion of "fuck me
> wild" can be a positive request for what some of us view as an intense
> spiritual experience, and others as one to be suppressed, and as such
> deserves the same level of strict scrutiny test protection from
> censorship as "fuck the draft" received on Mr. Cohen's jacket worn in the
> LA County Courthouse during the Viet Nam war (even if some other people
> do not associate "fuck me wild" with religion at all).
>
> Internationally that legalistic test and judicial error issue set may be
> irrelevant.  The nature of underlying issues of diversity and content or
> viewpoint discrimination to amount to disguised hate speech is even more
> severe than when limited to one culture and people.  The idea that a
> singular standard of "nonoffensiveness", even if economics rather than
> directly religion or culture based, may be the myth in need of
> destruction.  Censorship used as indirect hate speech is so offensive
> that merely having standards for allegedly non-offensive speech is
> contradictory, and impossible to do honestly.
>
>
> Terry

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> From: "Russ Smith" <russ () consumer net>
> To: <declan () well com>
> Subject: RE: Are "naughty" words in domain names allowed?
> Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 13:26:36 -0500
>
> When the distributed registrar system went into effect some registrars did
> not filter the words. I got Fuck-You.com the first day.   Most of the
> registrars will accept them but not NSI or Register.com.
>
> Russ Smith


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