More Dumb Criminals On YouTube: Man Faces 10... >>
<< UK Says No Copyright Exception For Mashups
 tdicon 

Too Much Free Time

by Carlo Longino

Fri, Mar 6th 2009 2:40pm




Filed Under:
religion, tlds, vatican


Vatican Says Hold On With Those .religion TLDs

from the ICANN-has-lots-of-domain-fun dept

ICANN is having one of its regular meetings in Mexico City, the kind where proposals for all the latest and greatest top-level domains get kicked around. But some TLDs you may not be seeing soon are .catholic, or .hindu, or .churchofthefsm, after The Vatican said it didn't think it was a good idea. Essentially, they don't like the idea of some registrar or other group being given control of the TLD of a particular religious tradition, with ICANN forced to determine who gets to be the gatekeeper for each particular set of beliefs. It remains to be seen how this will fit in with ICANN's plans to open up the TLD system, which would let people register nearly any TLD they wanted (assuming they fork over the requisite amount of cash, of course). Throwing the system open would certainly seem to be setting the stage for a huge number of disputes, as companies fight over who should get to own something like .apple. By allowing .religion TLDs, ICANN could be setting things up for holy cyberwars -- but if it's going to open things up, should it be playing censor, or determining who the rightful "owner" of each religion's TLD should be?

13 Comments | Leave a Comment

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 6th, 2009 @ 2:48pm

    Sadly I am dissapointed at not being able to see just how destructive religious zealots could be in a cyberwar.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    icon
    Ron (profile), Mar 6th, 2009 @ 2:59pm

    Cyberwar

    re: "setting things up for holy cyberwars:

    C'mon, let's see whose god is stronger!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Yakko Warner, Mar 6th, 2009 @ 3:42pm

    What could go wrong?

    <sarcasm>The internet has always been such a haven for religious tolerance.</sarcasm>

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Theoden, Mar 6th, 2009 @ 4:05pm

    Vatican thinks?

    Maybe they are afraid that the .catholic domain would just be a haven for pedophiles, and that would give the church a bad name?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 6th, 2009 @ 5:00pm

    God?

    You people do you they have been lying to you your whole life right?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Sam, Mar 6th, 2009 @ 5:15pm

    no megusta

    As a flaming conservative and man that is on fire for Jesus, I don't think that this is a good idea.

    I can see the atheists really having fun with this one... .godhater .jesussucks ummm yea

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Dave, Mar 6th, 2009 @ 5:31pm

    re:no megusta

    they have to be a religion before they could get a domain (unless they fork over the money). Not something to really worry about.

    unfortunately that means the cult of Scientology would also be able to get a domain

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    spaceman spiff, Mar 7th, 2009 @ 9:23am

    "Stupid is as Stupid does" -Forrest Gump

    I wonder if Microsoft would object to a TLD of .bob? :-). In any case, if there was a .god TLD, then I would think that the Vatican, and other religious nut-cases would rejoice, as then they can truly attest to the fact that god exists.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Mar 7th, 2009 @ 1:22pm

    Does the world need any more TLD?
    I'm certain there are more than enough already.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    John, Mar 9th, 2009 @ 1:01pm

    Never overestimate people

    Instead of discussing who should control the ".religion" or ".religious" TLD's, shouldn't the admins be discussing how hard this will be for people to spell correctly?

    Will porn-squatters pick up the mis-spelled TLD to grab people? And will the Pope take complaints from people who go to www.church.relligon and get a hard-core sex site?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]

  •  
    identicon
    Articles on Spirituality, Dec 7th, 2011 @ 8:48am

    Good Idea

    It's a good idea not to allow anyone to use TLDs related to religion. It's a good thing that they don't have a control over these domains. Main reason is that negative or anti people might use this for a wrong or bad website/blog.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in chronology ]


Add Your Comment

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Save me a cookie
  • Note: A CRLF will be replaced by a break tag (<br>), all other allowable HTML will remain intact
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
More Dumb Criminals On YouTube: Man Faces 10... >>
<< UK Says No Copyright Exception For Mashups
 tdicon 
Follow Techdirt
Flattr rss rss
A word from our Sponsors...
Sponsored Resource
Essential Reading
Techdirt Reading List
Techdirt Insider Chat

A word from our Sponsors...
Recent Stories

Wednesday

1:20pm: Released Video From Silva Beating Shows His Last Moments; Video Of Actual Beating Still Missing (7)
12:17pm: AT&T Says You Can Use Any Video Streaming App You Want... Just As Soon As It Can Get The Meter Running (10)
11:14am: Reporters Find Exposed Personal Data Via Google, Threatened With CFAA Charges (37)
10:07am: New York Times Tells Startup It Can't Even Mention The NY Times (34)
9:12am: So It's Come To This: Seven High School Students Arrested For Throwing... Water Balloons (120)
7:50am: First Hand Account Of Judicial Smackdown Of Prenda In Minnesota (91)
5:51am: Quack Professor Releases Dumbest Violent Video Game Theory Ever (45)
3:46am: How Low Can Drones Go? (62)

Tuesday

11:19pm: Prenda Gets Some Tiny Bit Of Good News, As It May Get Out Of Two Critical Cases (18)
8:16pm: Ridiculous Timing: Obama Administration Responds To Spying On AP By Pushing Journalist Shield Law That Wouldn't Matter (34)
More arrow
A word from our Sponsors...

Close

Email This