As Was Predicted, Libya Is Shutting Down Some .ly Domains With No Notice
from the watch-out-bit.ly dept
A year and a half ago, Rogers Cadenhead wrote a post, right after the company Bit.ly raised a bunch of money, pointing out that the .ly top level domain (TLD) is from Libya. He wondered if that might lead to trouble down the road, pointing out that the registrar states clearly that no .ly domains can be used in a way "contrary to Libyan law or Islamic morality." Cadenhead pointed out:So the names must conform to Islamic morality, and it's possible that the use of the domains could fall under the same rules. What are the odds that some of those 20 million clicks on a Bit.ly-shortened URL end up at sites that would be considered blasphemous or otherwise offensive in an Islamic nation? Bit.ly conveniently provides search pages for such topics as Islam, sharia, gambling and sex, any of which contain links that could spark another controversy.Since then, of course, the .ly TLD has actually become popular with lots of webby startups. I'd guess that most companies registering those domains didn't even think about it. But... exactly as Cadenhead predicted, it appears the registrar has actually started to remove domains it doesn't like. Ben Metcalfe, who had been using vb.ly for a project discovered that the domain had been seized by the registrar, for apparently violating Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law.
Apparently, this has some other .ly domain owners running scared. Even presidential hopeful Mitt Romney stopped using the Mitt.ly domain he'd been using. Bit.ly also uses j.mp (the .mp stands for the Northern Mariana Islands -- which shouldn't be much of a problem, especially since they just licensed the TLD to some other company), so perhaps they might want to start pushing people towards that URL shorterner. Of course, given how many Bit.ly links are out there, I would imagine that it would create quite a bit of havoc if Libya suddenly deleted bit.ly.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
how is this any different to what the USA did when taking down ninja video
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
2) Libya took down the domains because it offended Sharia law. Sharia is law by precedent of a religious book, hundreds of years old. This also means that any old man who calls himself a mullah with a stick up his ass about a picture of a woman on the internet and they control the domain can take the domain down. No recourse, no appeal, simply because some guy said "God says". That's a ridiculous way to run an internet. Suppose the old man says "God says computers are evil, the internet should be destroyed." Remember, no jury by peers, no appeals, no nothing. Its "God's" will.
3) In the United States any legal decision can at least be appealed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
More correctly, they took them down because they offended LIBYAN law. Let's not lose sight of the fact that this is a sovereign nation we're talking about, and the rest of the world should have fuck all to say about how they run their country.
"This also means that any old man who calls himself a mullah with a stick up his ass about a picture of a woman on the internet and they control the domain can take the domain down."
That's simply not true. The Libyan government is far from a beacon of freedom, but they do have both Executive and Legislative branches that are voted in. The country is 97% Islamic, so one would expect those branches to reflect that, which they do.
"That's a ridiculous way to run an internet."
Agreed. Still, it's their choice.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
2 US bank notes say in god we trust
3 appealed sure (but again this does not exist in sharia law)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
They don't need any evidence, they just accuse anyone who offends them as an infringer (who is promptly disconnected from their ISP), and any website they don't like as promoting infringement (which is promptly censored).
But, you're right. If you're really wealthy you might be able to afford to appeal the excommunication.
Law should be based on the individual's natural rights, not privileges of immortal corporations nor commandments of supernatural beings.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That comes of misusing country TLD's
Problem is, when someone buys a domain like "touch.me" or "this.is" from a generic "buy-your-domain-here" site, they might not realise that this implies more than a cool name, it also means it's subject to whatever laws that country happens to impose.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There�s worse things than deleting the domain�
�or they could hold the registrants personally liable for the content they find objectionable (sorry, there's no DMCA exemption outside the US).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Switch to goo.gl
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I don't know why, but that sounds delicious!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My rock is better, obvi.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There's no reason at all for there to be a restricted quantity of top level domains let alone their being restricted geographically.
It's just an accident of history that the evolving Internet was birthed in a world where limitations of current investment and technology created bottle necks and past political arrangements seemed reasonable arbiters of allocation.
This is no longer true, and restrictions on TLDs ought be done away with promptly.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This Is Why I Don’t Like URL Shorteners
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Right Way To Do It.
Twitter's official use of bit-dot-ly was a dumb idea, of course. They will no doubt have a bad few days writing scripts to go through their files and change all the bit-dot-ly references to something else. More fundamentally, they can just display tags with long URL's and short texts, and not count the URL size against the 140 character limit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Death of bit.ly is good news
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Death of bit.ly is good news
It's no more dangerous than clicking on a link in a regular browser.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]