(Newser)
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The Vatican may be an expert on the heavenly domain, but apparently it's still a bit shaky when it comes to domain names. A Vatican spokesman complained yesterday that someone had bought up Vatican.xxx, presumably to commit any number of sacrileges against the Holy See. "This domain is not available because it has been acquired by someone else, but not the Vatican," said the rep on the radio, as reported by Reuters.
But Catholics need not worry, because it turns out vatican.xxx is one of many protected domain names, one that has been "reserved" by .xxx registry manager ICM Registry for nearly four months, explains England's Register. That means no one can acquire it, and the Register reviewed the ICM policies that could have made the domain off limits. For one thing, country names are banned from .xxx (and Vatican City is technically a country). Second, ICM gives government the ability block some culturally and religiously significant names from being registered, and took some out of commission itself (like muhammad.xxx). Sexy-popes.xxx, on the other hand, is apparently available for enterprising blasphemers...
