[council] FW: RE: interesting decision on SLD terms

[Theresa Swinehart <Theresa.Swinehart@wcom.com>]

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."