Greetings - fowarded on behalf of: ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- <snip> From: Elizabeth <E-DengateThrush(a)GlobalEsoft.com> Subject: Registration of offensive names <snip> Comment and feedback sought for proposed policy change. ISOCNZ has proposed a change to its registration of offensive names policy. The proposed policy has been previously circulated to members for comment. The quality of the comments has been worthwhile though the level of feedback and comment has been low. This is an area where our membership who are largely and 'on-line' population, potentially has a different view from the general population, who also have an interest in the Internet in New Zealand. The proposed policy covers registration. Perhaps some thought could be given to remedies for people or organisations that find a name offensive. This would be an adjunct to the proposed policy rather than necessarily change the direction that is indicated in the proposed policy. I urge you to consider the effect on our society of the ability for anyone to register and promote an offensive domain name and what, if anything, we should do about this. I welcome your comments and views. In the interest of brevity please reply to me, and in line with the ISOCNZ policy development process, I will log comments, summarise and include points of view if appropriate. Comments and associated policy developments will be available on the website in due course. Regards Liz Dengate Thrush Policy Committee, ISOCNZ ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- <snip> Below is the policy on offensive words which Council approved in principle for public consultation. "We have not defined in our current policy what words are necessarily offensive and unregisterable but DOMAINZ tends to follow the FCC list of seven words that can not be used on air. Policy Committee recommends that we should remove the ban for the reasons below 1) By banning just some words we are seen to give implicit approval to the words we do let through. This contrasts with our general policy of not making judgements as to who may use what name.. 2) The gTLDs like *.com no longer ban any offensive words 3) People have been able to work around the ban with domain names such as motherf-cker.co.nz which is a legal and registerable name 4) Because we only control third level names we are unable to anyway stop people registering for example sucker.co.nz and setting up a 4th level domain such as cock.sucker.co.nz 5) Why ban certain words just in domain names when they are can be used on the websites themselves. 6) We have been unable to come up with any definitive list of what words we will ban and hence can be accused of having a very ad hoc policy. 7) We only ban offensive words in english yet let through potentially offensive words in Maori which is also an official language of NZ. 8) Having the current policy, without defining what words are not acceptable, stops DOMAINZ from being able to have a fully automated registry where people can register names without human interference in the registry process, thus restricting the registry to normal working hours only. Therefore for all of the above reasons we recommend to Council that the ban on offensive words be lifted. Public comment is sought before Council makes a final decision to rescind the current policy banning offensive words. ------------------------------ Sue Leader - Executive Director ISOCNZ (Internet Society of New Zealand Inc) Exe.Dir(a)isocnz.org.nz Voice: +64-4-801-6256 http://www.isocnz.org.nz Postal: Level 1, (e)-Vision Centre, 282 Wakefield St, Wellington "Error: Press any key to continue or any other key to quit..." --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog