Malaysia’s Domain Registry now focuses on “sensitive domain names”
Got an interesting email today announcing the Domain Registry’s Sensitive Name policy. This affects all *.my registrations. What is it defined as?
A Sensitive Name is a Domain Name which contains word or words in English, Malay and romanized Chinese (including dialects) and Indian dialects, which:
- are sensitive to the Malaysian public;
- are obscene, scandalous, indecent, offensive or contrary to Malaysian public norms or policy;
- comprise of derivatives and colloquialisms of words that are offensive; and/or
- consist of pejorative expressions in terms of denotation, connotation or association.
So no derogatory terms (yorais.my can probably be contested — so yorais.com makes more sense for example), no racial or ethnic slurs (so ahlian.my might be an issue but ahlian.com is generally ok), no religious slurs, no sexual remarks (pen15.my not good? :P), no undesirable reference towards culture/society/community (lazyfoo.my versus lazyfoo.com), and no vulgar or crude expressions that refer to the anatomy, bodily function, body-by-products and gender.
That is quite all encompassing. For arbitration, the Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration (KLRCA) has been appointed to administer complaints.
Do I like this? No, not really, as I’ve been a big proponent of .my domain space. However if you’re thinking of registering a new domain name that may be politically related, I suggest picking something from a more sensible domain registra (so a .com/.net/.org). You’ll get more latitude, with a lot less chance of it going up against arbitration and deletion.
