Thank you for your open letter and for bringing this issue to the forefront. DomainSponsor has a set of internal guidelines that determine what types of sites we will not monetize on our network. In this case, there was a technical loophole that allowed this objectionable name to redirect to our sign-up page.

Thanks to your article we identified it, and the loophole, and have blocked the domain. We have also addressed the process that allowed it to make it online.

Rob McClinton
DomainSponsor Sales & Support

As for network solutions, i think that its screwed up that they would sell trademark names like BizRate.net and .org. I think they should take responsibility for that.

As for racist names, the only way you can stop it is by not bidding on it and if trying to sell it is going to embarrass you then it should. No one can stop some jerk from registering killallthejews.com as tasteless as it may seem.

I do however think companies/entities who lead in their field, should operate ethically and morally. I did not say “shame on you”, I wrote a letter asking that the proceeds be used in a positive way.

I have received the contact information for Network Solutions public relations department, and will follow up with their response on my blog, and will update Adam as well.

Justin Allen
NameBio.com

You also know a domain like the examples above can be owned and redirected to a blank page or a site with an anti-hate message, right? Sure the traffic might leave when they don’t get whatever they want, so I suppose it would be a waste even bother trying to change the world one domain at a time.

My post was an addition to an open letter calling for the profits generated from a hateful domain sale to be turned into something positive. I think we can all strive to do something that takes a negative and turns it into a positive.

How, then, can you propose to restrict our opinion on such a matter?

Uh, Sergio…I don’t see anything in John’s post saying our opinions should be restricted. John’s history lesson showed the original NSI paid a price for preventing registrations with “bad” words”, but who else rushed to their defense that time?

NetSol, like everyone else, takes all the good and the bad alike. But they’ll be the ones to decide on their own what’s good and/or bad for them, despite others wanting to tell them how they “should” do what’s “right” and not what’s “wrong”.

And as John asked, who exactly is harmed? How exactly, too?

“Seven Words initially sought to register ten second-level domain names that were based on Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” routine. NSI refused to register the names, however, because it had a policy prohibiting registration of domain names containing certain words that it deemed “inappropriate,” including six of Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words.” As aconsequence of this policy, in March 1999, Seven Words filed its first lawsuit against NSI in federal court in the Central District
of California, Seven Words LLC v. Network Solutions, Inc., No. 99-02816-SVW (“Seven Words I”), requesting an injunction ordering registration of the disputed domain names
to Seven Words and a declaration that NSI’s policy and the refusal to register the domain names violated Seven Words’s rights under the federal and California Constitutions.

Seven Words thereafter sought registration of six additional domain names, which, like the first ten, were based on Carlin’s
“Seven Dirty Words” routine. Again, NSI refused registration. Seven Words therefore sought to amend the complaint in Seven Words I to include the six additional domain names, as well as a claim for damages, but the district court did not rule on the request. Rather, as explained below, then began Seven Words’s hopscotch litigation odyssey from California to New Hampshire and back again. Although the dates of the various rulings are not per se critical to the story, they are provided to assist in keeping the chronology in mind and to give
a flavor of how the litigation was intertwined.
_________________________________________________________________
[NSI permitted registration of one of the "dirty words"--s**t--to permit registration of innocuous words, including Japanese words ending in "shita."]

[...]

In this same time frame, the district court learned that there was a related case against NSI pending in federal court in
New Hampshire, National A-1 Advertising, Inc. v. Network Solutions, Inc., 121 F. Supp. 2d 156 (D.N.H. 2000) (“Haberstroh”). In that case, plaintiff Lynn Haberstroh, who
had no connection to Seven Words, sought a declaration that NSI’s refusal to register six domain names violated her constitutional
rights. Four of those names were identical to those sought by Seven Words, and Haberstroh, like Seven Words, argued that NSI’s policy of refusing to register the domain names violated the First Amendment.”

There is no end to what someone, somewhere is going to find offensive or suggestive of illegal activities or otherwise “shouldn’t be registered or used as a domain name.” But NSI’s historical policy preventing registration of “offensive domain names” caused them to incur substantial legal fees.

If you’d like to bring that policy back, I’m sure they will gladly accept your donation.