
Issue No 46		17 March 2000

News

Campaigners Seek Dissident Web Domains

Consumer activist Ralph Nader is proposing a new class of domain names for community activists like: dot sucks, dot.union, dot. ecology and dot.complaints.

Wired magazine's online news service reports that under the Nader plan critics, malcontents, and disgruntled employees would be able to register domain names like microsoft.sucks and mcdonalds.sucks.

Nader has sought permission for a service that would provide 10 new top-level domains, including .union, .sucks, .ecology, and .complaints.

The idea, according to Jamie Love of the Consumer Project on Technology, is to create non-corporate discussion and organizing areas "to enable citizens to improve civil society."

Currently a wealth of company-criticism sites exist, from AOL Watch and McSpotlight to scores of Bill-Gates-is-the-Antichrist Web pages. There's even, appropriately, an ICANN Watch site.

But companies frequently purchase obviously critical domain names; for instance, Bell Atlantic owns bellatlanticsucks.com.

To prevent that sort of practice from spilling over into the new top-level domains, Love says organisations should be barred from owning the .sucks version of their name.

So far, ICANN has not set up any formal procedures to decide what new top level domains to approve.

That's the task of its so-called Domain Name Supporting Organisation, which will be presenting its views at an ICANN meeting in Cairo next week.

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  Issue 46 contents

Interview: Bob Carr�s Awful Truth
The NSW Premier on Laborism, factions and why the Cabinet Office isn't running the state.

Unions: The Stellar Experiment
The agenda for the future job-shedding program by Telstra has been revealed via it's bastard child, Stellar.

Technology: Roboboss is Watching You
Behind the hype of the information age is a sinister side where workplace surveillance robs employees of all privacy and dignity. Sometimes, though, it provides welcome security.

International: Kiwi Reforms To Spark Union Revival
The head of the New Zealand trade union movement is optimistic that workers will come back to unions once a fair industrial relations framework is put in place.

Politics: Ethical Politics and the Clinton Affair
The vote by the US House of Representatives in December, 1998 on whether to impeach President Bill Clinton could be regarded as a debate about the acceptability of dirty-handed politics.

History: Living Library
Sydney�s Mitchell Library archives house some of the most extensive records of our political heritage.

Satire: Reconciliation, Aussie Style
The majority of Austrlaians want Aboriginals to adopt �our� values: �Why can�t they be ignorant racists too?�

Review: Casino Oz
Laurie Aarons' new book puts the spotlight on the growing gap being the rich and the poor.

» Carr Vows to Move on Casuals

» NSW Government in Hot Seat Over Individual Contracts

» Telstra Troubleshooter Bombs Stellar

» Illegal immigrants Working Next Door to PM

» Education Department Hit By Massive Fine

» Victims Comp Changes Exclude Traumatised Worker

» SOCOG Agrees: Ceremonies Not an Eisteddfod

» Senate Guts 'Ships from Hell' Bill

» Campaigners Seek Dissident Web Domains

» The Soapbox

» The Locker Room

» Trades Hall

» Tool Shed

» The Real Big Fella

» That's It For Labor

» Join Australia's Gas Out

» Tribute to Jennie

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