WhiteHouse.xxx

A recent ruling has blocked the valiant would-be founder of the .xxx domain from obtaining documents he believes will show the Bush administration clamping down on the domain due to pressure from conservative groups:

By way of background, ICM Registry had proposed the porn-friendly .xxx domain in 2004 to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, four years after ICANN rejected the idea the first time. In June 2005, ICANN approved .xxx--but the Bush administration objected two months later, and ICANN's board subsequently reversed itself by a 9-5 vote.

ICM Registry's Stuart Lawley, an indefatigable entrepreneur who made his fortune by founding a U.K. Internet service provider, didn't give up. He filed a FOIA request to learn how conservative groups pressured the Bush administration, and he released the first round of documents in May 2006. But the State Department and Commerce Department withheld others--claiming they were part of an internal "deliberative process"--and those are the documents at issue in the current lawsuit.

The world may yet get a .xxx domain. According to CNET.com, the lawyer representing ICM (and the truly lazy porn-seekers of the world) "said a lawsuit against ICANN for denying the .xxx top-level domain is now possible."

reason "In Praise of Porn" here, and on porn in Palestine here.