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Comment by reedlaw | Hacker News Reader

What about your claim:

  ...while we contest that there was NO pornography or adult material on vb.ly...

Next to their claim:

  ...the domain’s purpose (proclaimed by its registrants themselves) was to serve as a ‘sex friendly URL shortener’, mainly for adult uses...

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Sure,

So when we were finally able to email directly with NIC.ly (post deletion) they said that the domain was removed because they didn't like the 'scantily clad' lady on the front page (and only page) of the site (which was Violet, in this photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotben/3674835644/)

They're essentially now changing their tune for PR reasons.

The site's purpose was NOT to shorten pornographic urls, it was described as a "sex positive" url shortener in line with Violet's work as a best-selling author and academic in this space. being "sex positive" is not the same as saying "shorten your porn here".

However the wider issue, as I've stated at http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/our-response-to-nic-lys-... is why is a domain registry asserting editorial control over a website that uses its domain. People should be very concerned about that.

The site's purpose was NOT to shorten pornographic urls, it was described as a "sex positive" url shortener

One man's art is another man's pornography.

Which is why everyone should be allowed to post what they want, and why everyone should be allowed to not visit sites that offend them.

Hell, my company blocks "offensive sites". Buy that software, install it on your desktop, and then you won't have to see anything on the Internet other than LGF.

Domain registries regularly do so including all the major ones. Particularly common are pulling domains used for scams, controlling viruses, illegal pornography and of course famously the pulling of wikileaks domains for leaking documents.

As I said in the first thread; I think there is just a cultural misunderstanding over what is pornographic, obscene or overtly sexual.

It is very hard for our extremely liberal modern society (especially the subset of it that uses the internet extensively) to understand a radically different culture.

So while that image and the wording seems entirely innocent to us in such cultures it is a very uncomfortable thing (a combination of uncomfortable things in fact).

I'm not saying I entirely believe this is the reason for the domains removal, but if it is then the complaint seems reasonable to me.

What does "sex positive" mean?

I was going to say "google it" but then realized that may not be work-safe :)

Anyway here's wikipedia's description of the movement: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_positive

Is it fair to say that "sex positive" is equivalent to "sex friendly" ?

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