A Little Bit.ly Sharia? Tech Business Builds on Libya Domain « Creeping Sharia

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Al-Qaeda
alqaeda

 ...he is using .ly - a Libyan domain. stupid

A Little Bit.ly Sharia? Tech Business Builds on Libya Domain

By creeping

In other words, as Gawker titled their story: Muammar Qaddafi More or Less Owns Your Links. Astute reporting below from a blog entitled Workbench:

Bit.ly Builds Business on Libya Domain

The URL shortening service Bit.ly just secured $2 million in financing from investors including O’Reilly’s AlphaTech Ventures. Though URL shorteners have been around for years, Bit.ly believes there’s money in offering Twitter-friendly short links along with web analytics to track how the links are used. The company reports that its links were clicked 20 million times last month.
So far, the news coverage I’ve read about Bit.ly has neglected an unusual aspect of the startup: It’s one of the only prominent online ventures using a domain name in the .LY namespace, which is controlled by Libya.
There are two issues that arise from this relationship.
First, of course, is the appearance of an American company doing business with Libya, a country that the U.S. considered a state sponsor of terror from 1979 through 2006. On Dec. 21, 1988, Libyan intelligence agents planted a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 that blew up 31,000 feet over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people onboard.
Bit.ly’s only doing a trivial amount of business with Libya — the domains sell for $75 per year from the registrar Libyan Spider Network — but its use of .LY domain is helping to popularize and legitimize the top-level domain for general use on the Internet. It’s only a matter of time before a reporter decides to ask the families of Lockerbie victims what they think of the arrangement. I can’t imagine that story going well for the company.
Even without that PR hit, there’s another potential concern for Bit.ly and any other venture that builds its business on an .LY domain. These domains are governed by Libyan law, as it states on the Libyan Spider Network site:

Any .LY domain names may be registered, except domains containing obscene and indecent names/phrases, including words of a sexual nature; furthermore domain names may not contain words/phrases or abbreviations insulting religion or politics, or be related to gambling and lottery industry or be contrary to Libyan law or Islamic morality.

So the names must conform to Islamic morality, and it’s possible that the use of the domains could fall under the same rules. What are the odds that some of those 20 million clicks on a Bit.ly-shortened URL end up at sites that would be considered blasphemous or otherwise offensive in an Islamic nation? Bit.ly conveniently provides search pages for such topics as Islam, sharia, gambling and sex, any of which contain links that could spark another controversy.
Bit.ly’s building a business atop a domain that could be taken away at any time, and the company’s only recourse would be to seek redress in the Libyan court system. Take a look at Section 11 of the regulations for .LY owners:

The Arabic language is the language of interpretation, correspondence and the construction of the Regulation or anything related to it. … In case of conflict between the Arabic and the English versions the Arabic version shall prevail.

I hope Bit.ly’s attorneys are brushing up on their Arabic. ~end

via creepingsharia.wordpress.com

it gets to be burdensome because any twitter, facebook or friendfeed user is already catering to Libyan interests by defaulting url shortening to bit.ly. people were shocked when I said social media was biased against Israel. Would this not be the icing on the cake of an unethical culture?

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Creative Black Book

http://facebook.com/CreativeBlackBook

Dubai's Economy about to fall even with oil profits

Thu Nov 26, 9:16 AM ET

Rising high among the towers in Business Bay, Burj Dubai, the world tallest tower, which is still under construction, is scheduled to be open in January 2010 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009. In a brief statement Wednesday, Dubai's government said its main development engine, Dubai World, would ask creditors for a 'standstill', and to delay maturity of its $60 billion debt until at least May 2010.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Just a year after the global downturn derailed Dubai's explosive growth, the city is now so swamped in debt that it's asking for a six-month reprieve on paying its bills — causing a drop on world markets Thursday and raising questions about Dubai's reputation as a magnet for international investment.

The fallout came swiftly and was felt globally after Wednesday statement that Dubai's main development engine, Dubai World, would ask creditors for a "standstill" on paying back its $60 billion debt until at least May. The company's real estate arm, Nakheel — whose projects include the palm-shaped island in the Gulf — shoulders the bulk of money due to banks, investment houses and outside development contractors.

In total, the state-backed networks nicknamed Dubai Inc. are $80 billion in the red and the emirate needed a bailout earlier this year from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, had continually dismissed concerns over the city-state's liquidity and claims it overreached during the good times.

When asked about the debt, he confidently assured reporters in a rare meeting two months ago that "we are all right" and "we are not worried," leaving details of a recovery plan — if such a plan exists — to everyone's guess.

Then, earlier this month, he told Dubai's critics to "shut up."

via news.yahoo.com

Daniel Pearl

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flashback on the BAGELS and Chicken Soup

Danny Ayalon: Today's UN wouldn't vote to create Israel | Israel | Jerusalem Post

In his speech, Ayalon declared that in the coming weeks, in response to the increasing international diplomatic pressure, the Foreign Ministry would be unveiling a national and global campaign to change negative public opinion.

Ayalon estimated that 60-65 percent of today's UN member nations are "dictatorial" countries that would vote against Israel were the establishment of the Jewish State put to the UN now.

via jpost.com

in 1945, "to become a member state of the UN, you had to declare war on one of the axis parties, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. As a result, most of the founding members of the United Nations were allies, most of which were democratic. And they mostly shared a common ethos. Even those countries that were authoritarian or totalitarian like Saudi Arabia or the Soviet Union acquiesced to the values of the democratic majority, for example, in abstaining and not voting against the declaration of human rights. That was the environment in which Resolution 181 of the General Assembly was adopted on November 29, 1947."

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Israel Matzav: Petition to close Temple Mount to Muslims until Shalit released

Petition to close Temple Mount to Muslims until Shalit released

There's a petition on the Internet to close the Temple Mount to Muslims until Gilad Shalit is released by Hamas.

It's a nice idea, but of course, it will never happen. Perhaps that's why the organizers have set a modest goal of 10,000 signatures.

I'm amused at the thought of what the Security Council debate about such a closure might sound like. There would be a lot of whining about 'collective punishment.'

In any event, the petition story is here

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous