On Sat, 18 Mar 2006, Chris Bell wrote:

[.. Allow me first to repost the original context:

 > http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking/government-shuts-howard-spoof-site/2006/03/17/1142098638843.html

 > This sets a dangerous new precedent. Basically Melbourne IT have
 > intervened in what is essentially a civil matter. If there was any
 > dispute over the name itself that should have gone to UDRP. Phishing is
 > necessarily criminal in nature, so calling it that is really a stretch
 > of the imagination.

..]

 > Ian Smith wrote:
 > 
 > >Hardly new for Richard Neville .. remember the Oz trials?  And not the
 > >first political satirist to be denied a venue .. remember Peter Berner? 

 > No, but that's besides the point - innit?

Depends on what you find dangerous.  To me pressure on registrars to
remove satirical sites is the basic problem, not the lame excuse that
'to us it looks like a phishing site' that MelbIT reportedly supplied. 

 > > > Yet another reason not to bother dealing with Melbourne IT.
 > >
 > >Know any registrars prepared to argue the toss with the gummint?

 > They're regulated by ICANN, not the gummint.

Sure - which is controlled by another, nominally different, gummint. 
Again, tell us (and Richard Neville) the name of a registrar prepared to
tell the Prime Monster's Office to go, er, file a civil complaint.

 > >'Twas nice of the Herald to publish the URL to the, um, 179K pdf of the
 > >piece at http://www.richardneville.com/Satire/Howard_speech_150306.pdf

 > Oh fer crying out loud Ian. It's 2006 and you're complaining about a 
 > 180Kb download? I can recommend a good provider  :)

I can't see how you interpret that as a complaint.  I mentioned the size
to indicate that it was a trivial download for those vaguely interested.

 > C'mon this basically says that your registrar can pull your domains on 
 > the basis of a civil complaint. I can understand that this gets done in 
 > a criminal context, but this is really stretching the notion of contract.

If you believe that "in response to a request from the Prime Minister's
office" is similar to 'a civil complaint' then I'm afraid I can't help!

cheers, Ian