Posted on 05/24/2006 3:19:44 AM PDT by CrawDaddyCA
Newly released e-mails allege U.S. government officials pressured a leading Internet authority into voting against creating a kind of red-light district for adult Web sites.
The apparent involvement of the U.S. Department of Commerce, President Bush's chief political operative Karl Rove and others is significant.
If true, it means the U.S. government violated terms of a complicated arrangement it has with ICANN, the Internet authority that voted 9-5 two weeks ago not to OK the .xxx proposal.
What ICM Registry, the company that proposed the top-level domain, wanted was permission to distribute Web addresses that ended in .xxx to be used exclusively by adult entertainment sites.
The proposal won support from Wired Safety and Wired Kids, the Internet Content Rating Association and other child-safety groups because of the way it was expected to make it easier for authorities and parents to police the Internet.
Detractors said it just would make it that much easier to find porn.
ICANN voted it down 9-5, after seemingly being on track to approve of the effort.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I read through most of the e-mails, I don't see where there was any pressure from the white house. Mostly correspondence concerning what the issues were. If the UN had control, there would be zero Independence and you would have a bunch of left-wing socialists shutting down 'hate sites', conservative and/or pro-Israel sites. The US created the Internet, the US should retain control over the domain names. The only way to keep the internet free from censorship and free from tax is for the US to maintain control.
Yeah, because it's just so tough right now.
</sarcasm>
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