Saudi Arabia objects to .gay, .wine and other proposed gTLDs

Saudi Arabia objected this week to a variety of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) ranging from .porn and .sexy to .wine and .bar and .bible, according to records of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The organization said in June it had received 1,930 applications for gTLD "strings", of which 911 came from North America and 675 from Europe. It has extended the period for comments on applications by 45 days to Sept. 26. Saudi Arabia's Communication and Information Technology Commission, the IT and communications regulator, has objected to the .gay string and asked ICANN to refuse the application for the new gTLD. "Many societies and cultures consider homosexuality to be contrary to their culture, morality or religion," CITC said. "The creation of a gTLD string which promotes homosexuality will be offensive to these societies and cultures," it added.