In an article today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is blasting the XYZ Registry and its decision to propose to ICANN an automatic domain censoring process, from a Chinese government blacklist.
The article states:
“Even so, as ineffective as it may be, xyz.com’s complicity in advancing the Chinese government’s censorship of the Internet remains profoundly misguided, and contrary to their role as a provider of domain names to the world.”
The 12,000-strong list of banned words was unveiled by DomainIncite’s coverage ten days ago, and now the EFF is taking a strong position on the issue.
EFF article page.
The EFF article points out that the XYZ Registry is not the only one to blame, pointing the finger also at ICANN:
“ICANN itself opened this can of worms in 2012 by adding, with minimal community consultation, a list of no fewer than 1,281 reserved names that would be unavailable to register in any of the new global top-level domains, due to claims from governments, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Red Cross. For example, try registering something like “olympics.sucks” or “idea.tech”, and you’ll see that you can’t, even though those domains haven’t been (and can’t be) registered by anyone else, because ICANN has reserved them (respectively for the IOC and the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance).”
For the full article, titled “By Accepting Chinese Censorship of Domains, Registry xyz.com Invites More”, click here.
I really had to concentrate on the ‘100 True’ symbol….I honestly thought this was a joke at first…I am left without words for the moment, censored by reality.
Aaron – The subject of government censorship in China can be a matter of life and death for some Chinese bloggers.
DG – Agreed….. Hypocrisy can be defined by an American calling for censorship. Freedom ends when censorship begins.