Saudi Arabia is voicing its opposition against a slew of new, top-level domains that will soon hit the Internet, citing many of them as “offensive.”
The country’s technology commision is opposing 13 domains including .gay, .sex, and .porn and has filed a complaint with the Internet’s governing body, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
In June, ICANN revealed nearly 2,000 new domains that companies are bidding to control (for example, Google wants to own .youtube) but before the organization permits the sale, it’s taking opposition from third parties. Saudi Arabia filed more than 160 objections.
In a complaint filed with ICANN, Saudi Arabia said the .gay domain should not be sold as “many societies and cultures consider homosexaulity to be contrary to their culture, morality or religion.” The complaint also says that a .gay address would would be “offensive to these societies and cultures.”
The country also warned that a .casino address could encourage illegal gambling, a .vodka or .wine address will glamorize the consumption of alcohol, and an .africamagic domain is linked to black magic, thus offensive to many cultures.
Saudi Arabia is also opposing .catholic, .wtf, .poker, .pub., .islam, and .baby. What’s its beef with babies? A concern that the domain could be “used in the same way as .XXX to host pornographic websites.”
If those domains also annoy you, ICANN is allowing complaint submission until Sept. 26.
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