Did China Just ban 12,000 words from the internet

An report has appeared that China has successfully managed to ban 12,000 words it finds politically offensive from use around the world.

The global ban applies to words used in domain names registered through Los Angeles-based registry XYZ.com with suffixes of .xyz, .college, .rent, .protection and .security.

According to Wall Street Journal, XYZ.com said China had given it 12,000 words to ban from its web addresses and it had supported the Chinese government’s implementation of the censorship by filing a request with ICANN. With approximately 300,000 of XYZ.com domains believed to be owned by customers based in China, it is understandable from a business point-of-view why it would want to help the Chinese government, but there are clearly moral ramifications of a global ban on certain words.

The full list of banned words hasn’t been disclosed but the application added that China would continue to update to the blacklist.

The US government could still step in to stop the ban, before it cedes control of the top level of the internet to the domain name overseer, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Who know what more governments will do given the fact that more governments are seeking n opportunity to influence policy through the ICANN GAC?

Read more from ibtimes.co.uk