[FYI] German registrar bans Web site

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-984248.html

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German registrar bans Web site  

By Declan McCullagh  

Staff Writer, CNET News.com  

February 11, 2003, 5:54 PM PT  

update A domain name registrar in Germany has deleted the 
registration for a gruesome U.S.-based online photo gallery that 
featured stomach-wrenching images from autopsies and medical 
procedures.  

Computer Service Langenbach, which operates the Joker.com registrar 
in Dusseldorf, Germany, yanked the Ogrish.com domain name from its 
database this week in response to a request from a German prosecutor, 
said the hosting service and the owner of the site Tuesday.  

"I've never heard of a case where a registrar can disable a domain 
over content," said Ted Hickman, who runs Virginia-based 
ProHosters.com. "I certainly won't be registering any domains at 
Joker.com...We'll host anything that's legal in the U.S. It's not our 
job to determine whether content is acceptable to others."  

Neither Computer Service Langenbach nor the German embassy in 
Washington responded to inquiries. A search on the domain Ogrish.com 
in the Whois database lists it as "disabled by government."  

Hickman provided a copy of the e-mail from Joker.com that said that 
domain was taken offline "by order of Staatsanwaltschaft Dusseldorf," 
the public prosecutor's office.  

If a German government office did order the domain removed, this 
would be another case of the global Internet running up against 
national laws, which in Germany can be unusually restrictive. In 
October 2001, the Dusseldorf government ordered local Internet 
providers to block access to four U.S. Web sites, including shock 
site Rotten.com.  

[...]   

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