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I guess my concern, and as a simple question: Right now domains like wikileaks.org and thepiratebay.se exist. Will they continue to exist in the same manner go

• danarmak 10y ago
  Non-top-level names are subject to the rules established by their TLD manager. This is iiS for .se domains, and PIR (the Public Internet Registry) for .org. Each such managing organizations is more or less free to establish its own rules and to give and revoke DNS names (or delegate to registrars). The history of the The Pirate Bay's many domain names (thepiratebay.xx has been registered at some point for almost any value of xx) clearly shows that different TLDs have different policies. Many revoked thepiratebay.xx on request, but some (like .se and .org) haven't. I don't know what it would mean for ICANN to apply pressure to a TLD manager to change their rules or make an exception in order to revoke or transfer a name. But it would be a form of political pressure; there is no contractual obligation by TLDs to do whatever ICANN tells them to, and there is no technological mechanism in DNS itself to do so. Naively, ICANN seems to present less danger in this regard than the US Government did. Of course that doesn't mean the danger was or is small in absolute terms: the US Government is very good at political pressure!