back to article Give .gay to the gays, roars exiting ombudsman

The independent ombudsman at DNS overseer ICANN has used his last day on the job to fire a broadside over the ".gay" top-level domain. In a ruling published on his own website, Chris LaHatte argues that the organization's board should reject a recommendation by its own governance committee (BGC) and should grant special …

  1. Bob Dole (tm)
    Holmes

    BGC

    Did anyone else read "BGC" as the Big Gay Committee? They must still be in the closet.

  2. Throatwobbler Mangrove

    "Amazingly, the EIU – which rarely if ever deals with anything other than economic data"

    This is simply wrong - even just reading its wiki page would have set you straight. I'm not saying they did a great job here but they've been doing stuff other than just data for decades.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I Demand .SWAMP

    Straight White Anglo Male and Proud

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I Demand .SWAMP

      Oooop! There go the heterophobes downvoting this....

  4. kain preacher

    and watch .gay be added to smut filters.

    1. jake Silver badge

      @kain

      Define "smut". But be careful when doing so, 'preacher'. Your shaman-induced ignorance and phobia are likely to get you laughed at.

      1. kain preacher

        Re: @kain

        Any thing that offends christian fundies is considered porn in the US. In the US we have people freaking out over the fact that the can not discriminate based on religiousness reasons. This has cause some states to institute religious freedom laws. Mississippi went so far as to say therapist can refuse clients based on religious reasons.

        I don't know you that I was saying this based on my religious views ?

        My religious views forbids me from shoving my region down others.

        The reason why I said what I said is just look at the republican platform is.

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: @kain

          .darwin is probably blocked already. Poor Australians.

        2. CrashMarik

          Re: @kain

          Please.

          Next you will be saying it's perfectly alright to force religious people to participate in ceremonies they find mockeries because Gay people can't find bakers or photographers in Aspen.

          You're doing nothing but letting them vent their anger against groups they don't like. Last time I looked taking retribution against non combatant populations was a war crime.

  5. Ole Juul

    just curious

    Is there a more sleazy organisation than ICANN?

    1. Mark 85
      Devil

      Re: just curious

      Congress.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: just curious

        Congress? As in "sexual congress"?

        It's funny how India has a Congress Party and a BJ Party.

        Whichever you like I guess...

  6. frank ly

    Modern times

    "... ICANN is worried about being sued by the other applicants, ..."

    This is the thing nowadays, for large and wealthy organisations. Anyway, on what grounds could they be sued; what are their legally defined responsibilities?

  7. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "the ICANN board is not obliged to follow its governance committee's recommendations"

    Well duh. The ICANN board has no obligations and, when it does, it just decides that it doesn't.

    And somehow, nobody has arrested these assholes.

  8. TRT Silver badge

    I only read this article...

    because I'm .gay curious. Or is that .bi? What about .lgbtq? Or should sexual preference / gender identity on the net reflect societal aims and be no more worthy of comment / distinction than which tennis player you follow or what flavour yoghurt you like? In fact, I demand .vanillayoghurt be a top level domain specifically for us vanilla yoghurt lovers.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: I only read this article...

      I was wondering where this so-called gay community is. Being gay simply means a person has something in common with another person who is gay. That's pretty much the end of it. What about the "community" of every other possible commonality between large and otherwise disparate groupings of people?

      Should we have a .male, .female, .fat, .skinny, .blonde, .redhead, .spectaclewearers, etc. etc. etc.?

      1. h4rm0ny

        Re: I only read this article...

        Shame to see you being modded down for what is an accurate comment. Probably about one in a hundred people is homosexual. No one group, no matter how vocal in the media, represents all those people. Or even, quite frankly, a majority of them. As you say, sexual orientation is an arbitrary thing. Why should a small affiliation of advocacy groups get to control who can and cannot register a domain under .gay. If another gay person wants to register a name, why does a group get to declare they represent him or her and decide on that because they happen to share a particular biological quirk together? And what if someone who isn't gay wants to register a domain under such a name, Why again should their not having a particular sexual orientation mean they're subject to another group's policies on that?

        You can make cases for restriction of domain selling based on clearly defined groups and meaning and ICANN does in such scenarios. But being Gay, as you point out, is not like being a registered company or a member of a political party. Nobody gets to tell you they represent you because you both fancy the same sex, nor are there absolute hard boundaries to what lets you count as one orientation or another. The only fair way to handle this is to treat .gay like any other open TLD and allow people to register what they want as they want. Not to hand it over to some non-elected group with an agenda and say "you get to decide for everyone now. All yours." I mean ICANN are a non-elected group but at least they have had some reasonable strictures and pressures applied to them during their tenure.

        What is being asked here is wrong on principle, and it's a shame to see you get voted down for pointing out that sexual orientation is an arbitrary thing that doesn't define who you are or give others the right to decide things for you.

  9. Dieter Haussmann

    Is .ws for watersports?

    1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
      Angel

      Like waterskiing, swimming, sailing etc. ?

      ;-)

  10. InisMagrath

    ICANN did something that PROVES the organization is governed by homophobic bigots. The .gay effort was LITERALLY denied because 1. they weren't gay enough and then on appeal 2. they were TOO gay.

    Seriously, the board should just be candid and come right out and say that they hate gay people. At least that would be honest.

    ICANN gay hatred makes me sick to my stomach. May they all contract Herpes. They DESERVE it.

    1. kain preacher

      How is one not gay enough ? Is that like not being black enough? White enough? Who the hell are they to deiced. Gay people come in all walks of life.

      1. P. Lee

        >How is one not gay enough ?

        You took el reg's click-bait as ICANN's reasoning.

        If I read it correctly, "not gay enough" means dotgay LLC don't have enough support within the homosexual community, and "too gay" means dotgay LLC claims to represent interests well outside the homosexual community.

        Pretty much meaning, that dotgay LLC is going for "anything but straight" which ICANN says isn't what the word "gay" means. Does gay mean "transsexual"? Not really. Does gay mean "bisexual"? Only half the time. Does "gay" mean "transvestite"? No.

        And what is the point of TLDs? Really its to create namespace. I suppose "rainbow-warrior" might be different depending on the TLD, but I'm not sure a sexual proclivity warrants a TLD. A world of weirdness lies down that path and I'm not convinced it adds much in the way of namespace. .edu and .mil don't add much but they are historical artefacts from the origins of the internet. Country names do add a lot of namespace, .com and .org add a lot of namespace. I don't think .gay is likely to add much - I don't think having it will release or prevent the uptake of many otherwise ambiguous domains from other namespaces. That is the point of a TLD, is it not? Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps its just to allow companies to profit and ICANN is just trying to apply some logic in sorting out the registration between squabbling commercial entities who want profit from owning .gay.

  11. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    "defined "gay" as covering men, women, transgender and intersex"

    But transgender/intersex isn't gay. Gay is a type of sexual attraction, transgender/intersex are a type of sexual identity.

    Yes, you could have somebody who is both gay and transgender (a man trapped in a woman's body who is attracted to other men), but that just clearly demonstrates that they are measurements on two completely different scales.

    1. kain preacher

      J.G. that is going over most peoples head. Gender identity is not the same as sexual identity. People often as if a trans women likes women why don't they just stay a man.

  12. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    It doesn't matter...

    Type this into your browser's address bar: dotgay.gay

    Guess what pops up?

    Where we're headed is that Google, since they control everything from the browser, to the search engine, to the 'feeling lucky' button, to the DNS, ...they could implement ".anything" overnight.

    Lines about to be blurred, in 3, 2, 1...

    1. Notas Badoff

      Re: It doesn't matter...

      They wanted to - "No, Google you still can't have dotless, one-word domains" - but ICANN didn't like it.

      Hmm, for improving one's reputation it can be *useful* to have ICANN around, as they seem to be "the worst", and opposing/finagling them should make your reputation rise.

  13. Adam 52 Silver badge

    Can I not have .gay for organisations that want to dance merrily in the street?

    My homophobic English teacher at school used to rant about perverts taking over perfectly good words. It would be a shame for the miserable curmudgeon to be proved correct.

  14. Suricou Raven

    This is a terrible idea.

    It'll let Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt et al very easily block the entire domain. A lot simpler than having to constantly identify new pro-gay-rights sites on .com.

  15. MatsSvensson

    www.trump.so.very.gay

    Whats the F point of the top-domains, at this point?

    Why not just dump the content of every dictionary in the world in it, and be done with it?

    Or just let people choose anything.

    www.google.giveMeAMeeeeeeeeeelionDollarsForThisDomainOrElse

    1. Suricou Raven

      Re: www.trump.so.very.gay

      There's a good point to new top domains:

      1. You have to pay ICANN an absurd amount of money for them to even consider making a new TLD, regardless of if they eventually approve it.

      2. If they do approve it, you have to pay ICANN an obscene amount of money plus renewal fees to get it.

      It's a money-spinning scheme. ICANN brings in a heap of cash, and whichever registrar manages to afford the domain then tries to make it back by selling subdomains.

  16. NanoMeter

    You can give Dot Gay to very happy people too!

    I guess some know the original meaning of "gay" as well?

  17. Jamesit

    There are three separate aspects at play here sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

    Sex is what genitals you have.

    Gender identity is how you feel, if you feel more masculine or feminine.

    Sexual orientation is whether you prefer someone of the same or opposite gender.

    A transgender person is someone whose gender and sex don't match.

    For example a trans-man has the external appearance of a female and internally identifies as male and a trans-woman has the external appearance of a male and internally identifies as female.

    A gay person is someone that is attracted to a person with the same gender identity.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    I'm just asking....

    ...but why?

    Why do people feel they need tld for a type of sexual attraction? I don't give a stuff if people are straight, bi or gay, but I just don't see the point, other than being yet another cash cow, of this domain.

    1. Bucky 2

      Re: I'm just asking....

      Because we are, in a real sense, permanent outsiders even in best-case scenarios.

      Think of it this way: Ex-pats will often seek other ex-pats even if they absolutely adore their host country. It's not wrong of them to want to do this from time to time. Also, native-born people shouldn't feel offended or rejected.

  19. Keith Glass
    Trollface

    So. . .

    . . . can Furries get .yiff ?

    . . . can Lena Dunham get .manatee ??

    1. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: So. . .

      . . . can Furries get .yiff ?

      Only the fursuiters.

      . . . can Lena Dunham get .manatee ??

      Oy! While she may not be Twiggy, she's not that bad.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    While we are on TLDs, why do most American companies see the need to use .COM instead of .US?

  21. kain preacher

    Because in the early days of the Net. Nothing to stop any one from using .com.

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