PROPAGANDA on Sat, 8 Jan 2000 09:37:50 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> [0100101110101101.ORG] The Domain Name Crackdown |
The Domain Name Crackdown: 0100101110101101.ORG loses 'vaticano.org' For a whole year 'vaticano.org' was one of the (un)official organs of information of the Holy See. A huge site, aesthetically identical to the 'real' one but with 'slightly' modified contents, result of the collaboration between 0100101110101101.ORG and Luther Blissett. The detournement of the holy texts involved tens of Blissett from the whole country, who were about to add German, Spanish and English language sections to the main, Italian one. For 12 months thousands of people visited 'vaticano.org', and nobody realised that the contents of the site had been 're-touched '. Dozens of texts in which one could find everything: 'heretical' proclamations, invented words, unpardonable errors and songs by 883 [an Italian teeny-bopper band], perfectly put in a 'plausible' context. From the site it was possible to address letters directly to the Pope. Strange instructions 'hijacked' pilgrims in the most remote places. A 'Free Spirit Jubilee'. At the expiring of the first year of contract , Network Solutions (the company that sells Internet Domain Names), prevented 0100101110101101.ORG from renewing the contract of "vaticano.org", which had been regularly bought. Network Solutions refused all the attempts of payment and, at the expiring of the contract, sold the domain name to a catholic association in Rome, right away. > From: Domain Registration Role Account domreg@internic.net > Subject: Re: MODIFY DOMAIN vaticano.org > > Your request for MODIFY DOMAIN vaticano.org. could not be automatically > processed. > > Your request has been queued for manual processing. This request will be > processed in accordance with established procedures. At the moment the domain hosts a site under construction that will contain stuff on the Jubilee. This case of repression is not definitely the first on the Net. For some time many corporations have been trying to preserve their name's 'respectability' by taking legal action (e.g. the case 'etoys vs etoy'). For the first time, we are witnessing an operation of 'cleansing' of the Net, through the monopoly of domain name administration. This is the higher, maybe the only one, form of centralised control on the Internet. More money means better lawyers, and better lawyers own 'truth'. As to the horizontality of the Net and freedom of expression, fuck it. Now the Vatican owns the 90% of similar domains (vatican.va, vatican.net, giubileo.va...) and, so far, the only one out of its monopoly was precisely 'vaticano.org', an island of Free Spirit in a sea of shit. Thanks to the indulgence of Network Solutions the Holy See has laid its hands on 'vaticano.org'. At the end of the day, 'good people' always win. Despite the loss of the domain name, the web site (unfortunately only in Italian), is still on line at the url: http://www.0100101110101101.ORG/vaticano.org http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG http://www.0100101110101101.ORG # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net