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[council] FW: RE: interesting decision on SLD terms
All --
Vint thought this might be of interest.
Theresa
>[ Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) acted properly in denying
>[ registration of some 30 sexually oriented domain names, the U.S.
>[ Dist. Court, Concord, N.H., ruled Sept. 28. The squabble arose
>[ when NSI refused a request by Lynn Haberstroh and National A-1
>[ Advertising to register domain names ranging from "tits.com" and
>[ "feelmytits.com" to more explicit terms. Haberstroh sued,
>[ charging NSI, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and several
>[ NSI employees with violating her First Amendment rights. After
>[ reviewing the U.S. and NSI roles on the Internet, U.S. Dist. Judge
>[ Steven McAuliffe disagreed, saying NSI wasn't acting as an arm of
>[ the govt. when it rejected Haberstroh's request, and that even if
>[ it had been, no free speech rights were abridged. "In the end,"
>[ said the court, "plaintiffs' claim that they have a
>[ constitutionally protected right to include particular words or
>[ phrases in the space occupied by second-level domain names falls
>[ short. Plainly, URLs, transfer protocol identifiers, [top-level
>[ domain names], and second-level domain names were not designed,
>[ intended or traditionally employed to act as fora for speech...
>[ [T]o the extent that it is at all reasonable to view a Web address
>[ as a forum for speech, it is appropriate to look at the complete
>[ URL. In the 'forum' -- the complete URL -- plaintiffs' speech has
>[ not been suppressed or inhibited in any constitutionally
>[ significant way by the complained-of conduct of [NSI] or the NSF."
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