Friday, March 28, 2003

Watch-it.com

American legislators are proposing and will probably pass laws that criminalise the use of innocent sounding domain names which then lead a user to a porn site.

Laws like this are subject to the supposed meanings of words. The example given in the article, whitehouse.com, one may expect quite reasonably is a link to The White House. But it is a porn site. Strangely, here in Auckland New Zealand, there is a "Gentleman's Club" (strip bar and sauna emporium) called The White House.

What caught our eye was that the law seeks to criminalise those who represent themselves with domain names from any country, which is not only contrary to free speech in America, but redefines what words may mean elsewhere to suit the prosecution of a case.

Interesting.

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