If all of this is news to you, then I don’t blame you for being shocked and stunned.

But if you’ve caught even a whiff of any of the above information since you crawled out of the womb, you should not be one bit surprised, no matter how ridiculous their laws (and their interpretation) appear or whether or not they’ve written them in a language you understand. If you understand that by doing business in another country (which is what buying a dot-ly domain is) you are subject to *their* laws (that’s only common sense, whether or not they were explicitly included by reference in the registry’s terms of service) and not the laws where you live, you should not be one bit surprised. Upset? Sure, but not surprised.

I could say other more uncharitable things about the wisdom of your choice to set up a sex-positive website/service using the ccTLD of a Muslim country, but you’ve sufficiently embarrassed yourself by making the issue so public without starting off with, “Oops, did we ever screw up!” The same goes for anyone else using a dot-ly domain, or the ccTLD of any country. (I even avoid the ccTLD [dot-ca] of my own country because of the extra rules entailed and the fact that they can change.) In fact, it wasn’t so long ago that it would have been illegal (due to UN-mandated sanctions) for you to buy a dot-ly domain.

And for those of you who think that this couldn’t happen in the USA to your dot-com or dot-us domain, have a look at “U.S. Uses Domain Names As New Way to Regulate the Net” at http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5334/135/ , or the BBC story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8537771.stm about Microsoft shutting down 277 domains via a court order because of their “content”, so to speak.

For the record, I totally support (including financially) and am involved in sex-positive culture (and I certainly am not a supporter of Libya or Sharia law), so I’m totally in favour of your sex-positive work. I’m also against domain registries censoring website content … although I do think they should be involved in the fight against spam, pulling domains that are only registered for the purpose of spamming. But whatever the motivation of the dot-ly registry (legal, moral or financial), you screwed up on your due diligence and cannot possibly paint yourself as the victim here.

or the pursuit of hops (hoppiness?)

You are correct that state-based registrars can enforce policies. However, the laws of Libya violate the principle of an open internet (as well as the principles of human rights). Your bias is predictable. It is not a “Western” conception to allow women to bear their arms – it’s a “Human” conception. In other words, to assume that a woman isn’t allowed to show her arms and to hold a bottle of alcohol is a perversion of basic human rights, if not basic human rationality.

It does not matter the countries out of which said contention is born – what matters is that said contention is born out of rational principles. Sharia Law as a legal code is merely an expression of oppression, ideological dogma, and non-rational thinking.

Your legal code (and I’m being very generous in calling it that) is nothing but a perversion of basic human sensibilities, and runs contrary to all rationality and logic. Don’t believe me? Justify Sharia Law in an intelligible way without committing a logical fallacy. Exactly. You can’t.

Unfortunately, Sharia Law, which is equivalent to other tribal legal systems (important for social organization based on basic survival; but ill-suited for any civil society), has been artificially elevated to a position of real authority in the Arabic world, mostly due to the economic circumstances under which the Arabic world has come to “flourish.” Furthermore, it has been artificially juxtaposed (by those who benefit from its widespread adoption, i.e. men of institutions) as the counterpoint to “Western” expression. This is not true; rather, I would argue that Sharia Law is juxtaposed to rationality proper. Because it violates nearly every rational human principle, it can’t merely be in opposition to Western ideals; rather, it must naturally be in opposition to Human ideals (as most religious-based legal/ethical codes are, unfortunately).

Granted, anyone who buys a .ly domain should be subject to the laws of the country of origin of that TLD; however, when those laws expressly violate basic human rights as well as the principles of the open internet, every individual who supports either contention (or both contentions) has an absolute obligation to stand in defiance of said oppression (expressed by law). In other words, wether this particular TLD was designed to be a political statement is irrelevant. It’s ownership was representative of something far greater; it was representative of basic human liberties (“Western” contentions aside).

Oh, and on a final note: do you know what is so wonderful about the internet? Unlike your country, I am afforded basic freedoms of expression, which means I have no trouble in sincerely saying “fuck you and your backward ass, sexually oppressive, sickly dogmatic, and fundamentally fucked religion.”

From last year’s post, though:
“I worry that you are being excessively optimistic about what a heavily religious government will decide that they can and shouldn’t do.”

Called it… :(

let me say this sux

it’ll hurt peeps in Libya [an maybe labia] but naught in CHINA unless they aren’t telling

the inet is subversive and we need to support the hacks who can keep the controlers at bay . . . .

Just because these are links not content does not mean anything. Remember these people are not rational, they believe they have Right on their side and don’t need to be rational.

Besides, we all know that Obama and Pelosi want to impose Sharia Law on God Bless The You Ess Aye. Glenn Beck told me so.

You’re getting into dangerous territory. As positive as your message is to your audience, there’s something of the “ugly American” in your complaint. You were doing business in another country; you were a guest.

All I can do in the meantime is wish that I had the ‘shop skills to put a santa hat on you in that picture ;)

Let us all try and get the word out about to the free international press about this atavistic reversion to the Dark Ages.