If a company running a country code top-level domain refuses to agree to hand over any information or data held by it to the government, either legally, illegally or extra-legally, secretly or not, the government can simply replace the company with a government-run agency. If it refuses to shut down a website, or to redirect it elsewhere, the government can simply replace it with a government-run agency.

It is a nuclear option, but neverthless a nuclear option that didn't exist prior to July. It will also never have to be used - the threat of its use will see any company wanting to keep hold of its livelihood agree to government demands.

Of course this would never happen. Except it has already. Within months of the government-run "Association of Kazakh IT Companies" getting control of Kazakhstan's internet domain, it shut down the website of British comic Sacha Baron Cohen (best known as Ali G). The site at www.borat.kz featured another of Cohen's comic creations, Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh journalist. It was removed from the Internet.

Why? The president of the organisation said it was so the comic "can't bad-mouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name". If you want an example of government-owned and run censorship on the internet, you'll be hard pushed to find a clearer example.

My heads been under a rock the past few months. I knew some TLD shit was going down, but didn't really know what it was about until now. Damn!

Within months of the government-run "Association of Kazakh IT Companies" getting control of Kazakhstan's internet domain, it shut down the website of British comic Sacha Baron Cohen (best known as Ali G). The site at www.borat.kz featured another of Cohen's comic creations, Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh journalist. It was removed from the Internet.

Why? The president of the organisation said it was so the comic "can't bad-mouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name". If you want an example of government-owned and run censorship on the internet, you'll be hard pushed to find a clearer example.

In principal I think governments should control their ccTLDs, but this is what happens. I think Kazakhstan is in the wrong, but its to be expected.

Linked in this story is another story about Iraq's ccTLD that is interesting. The previous owners of the domain were sent to prison for selling computer parts through a broker to Lybia and Syria. They really got nailed because one of their investors was Musa Marzuq, who is connected with Hamas. The U.S. alleges that this computer company was intended as a funding source for Hamas. Google provides a thick and interesting web here. The Council on American Islamic Relations called the convictions unfair, but there seems to be a number of direct links between them and the computer company. The people running the company also seem to have been connected to charities that were funnelling money to terrorist organizations.

Check this bio of one of the company's founders. A well educated technology guy who has been in the US for decades. Someone you could imagine doing business with... And apparently his business paid someone who planned terrorist attacks in Israel!

It is amazing and troubling to ponder how deeply integrated some of these people are into our society. Did this guy know about all of the activities of the charities he helped start? Did he realize his cousin and co-investor was married to someone who was planning terrorist attacks? Did he contemplate the fact that by generating money in his business he was helping fund her husband's activities? If this guy hired you to do consulting work would you have suspected this connection and turned him down? Why would someone who spent so much of his life developing communications tools that contribute to understanding get involved in business with someone who is killing innocent people?