eWeek: Freedom of Information Act requests reveal emails suggesting that U.S. Government Officials such as Rove and religious conservative lobbyisys were active in the defeat of the .XXX top level domain name. The article suggests that such activities may have violated the USG’s Memorandum of Understanding with ICANN.
ICANN WATCH and (ICANN board member) Susan Crawford have been following this story and I await their comments.
A non-Trademark law observation occurs. This is a common problem in regulation. There is an activity that, for these purposes, we will label as a vice. Speaking broadly, the ‘left’ proposes harm-reduction procedures (clean needles, condoms, regulations) and the ‘right’ opposes any measure short of zero tolerance, because, in part, harm-reduction impliedly endorses the vice. Some times the left wins and a ‘better than nothing’ alternative is implemented. In this case, ‘nothing’ is implemented.
Thoughts?