The government of Saudi Arabia, it would seem, has nothing better to do than send letters of complaint to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). So far the count has topped 160!
The crusade concerns ICANN's intention to issue hundreds of new Top-Level Domains (TLD). The TLD is the suffix at the end of the Domain address such as .com, .net or .co.uk.
Some of Saudi Arabia's objections make sense. It objects to the Vatican's intention to use .catholic, for instance, because it points out that the meaning of catholic is much wider than that used by the Catholic Church. It has also objected to .islam for similar reasons. Still, whether or not we put a dot before Islam or Catholic, people will always find ways of misappropriating those terms. God is perhaps one of the most usurped words of all (although I am not aware of .god being on the table as yet). If Saudi Arabia thinks that avoiding these suffixes will limit confusion and abuse, its point is valid enough, but attacking so many others, borders on the puritanical and the ridiculous.
Top-Level Domains in the firing line include: .pub, .gay and .tattoo. I am a vegetarian, so let us ban .sausage, .milk for all the vegans and of course .anything for all the nihilists. This sort of mentality will result in reducing everything to a naked full stop.
I personally think that the use of TLDs are important because they help compartmentalise web content. Whilst some of the concerns with regards to TLDs such as .islam, .catholic etc are understandable, their use wouldn't necessarily change things for the worse. The whole point ought to be that of freedom of speech on any given topic irrespective of what type of suffix the websites end with. Furthermore, using appropriate suffixes will help to keep the content homogeneous, which is not a bad thing at all.
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