As you may have heard, the Republican Party has secured the .GOP top level domain name and are in turn selling .GOP domains to the public at around $20 and up.
People are having a blast with this, of course (although in doing so, they're also helping beef up the GOP's fundraising, so I'm not sure it's wise to take part).
However, just out of curiosity, I looked up a domain which seemed appropriate for my prior claim to fame, the Republican Rape Advisory Chart. Guess what?
Huh. Imagine that.
On the plus side, it's heartening to learn that the Republican Party is now "Hip to the haps."
Poochie approves.
UPDATE: Out of curiosity, I threw in a few more Republican Rape-related searches, and found something interesting:
ToddAkin.GOP is
not available, and neither is his claim to "fame", LegitimateRape.GOP...
However, his counterpart Richard "Rape Babies are Gifts from God!" Mourdock
is available!
Unfortunately, his own infamous quote is not:
This got me to thinking: Is it possible that the reason that most of these aren't available is NOT because some third party registered them, but because the GOP itself has taken them off the market already?
And if so, how could they possibly cover every contingency? After all, if they blocked the names of every Republican who said (or might say) something stupid and offensive on the subject, they'd have to banish their entire membership directory.
And then it dawned on me:
Yup. As far as I can tell, the Republican Party has decided to block ANY .GOP domain which contains the word "RAPE" in it in any context.
Apparently they're finally starting to take
Stephen Colbert's advice seriously.
UPDATE x2: Well whaddya know? It looks like there's a possibility that if the GOP has indeed "reserved" the various "rape"-inclusive domain names, they may very well be violating the ICAAN's terms of service!
A kossack who wishes to remain anonymous sent me the following earlier today:
I dug up the .GOP ICANN agreement from 01/06/14. My read of it, especially in Article 1, Section 2.6 or in Specification 5 does not give them the authority to reserve any second-level domain names SLDs that aren't used in the operations of the registry. And any reservations must show the Registry itself as the holder of that registration in WHOIS.
I did a quick keyword search on the RSLC's search page for any use of these literal strings returned a negative result:
rape
sucks
cunt
porn
pussy
penis
vagina
The .GOP AUP appears to well-exceed the authority granted to it by ICANN as well.
Drilling into the ICANN website for their rules regarding Registries, I see a form specifically created for complaints regarding blocked SLDs.
I think they need to get an earful about it. Media contacting ICANN would be good as well I'm thinking.