Libya Seizes URL Shortener Vb.ly

After owning the popular URL-shortening site vb.ly for a year, Violet Blue and Ben Metcalfe paid the $75 annual fee to renew the domain this August. About a month later, the site was yanked from the Web unexpectedly. The "Internet's first and only sex-positive URL shortener" was registered through Libyan hosting company Nic.ly, which said the content was in violation of the country's law.

"Pornography and adult material aren't allowed under Libyan Law," Alaeddin S. ElSharif, a spokesperson for Libya telecom and the country's Web service Department told Blue. "Therefore, we removed the domain."

In short, ElSharif felt that vb.ly was in direct violation of the tenets of Islamic Sharia law. Vb.ly was a site that was friendly to NSFW material, but it wasn't exclusive to this type of content. According to Metcalfe, there was no pornography or adult material on vb.ly, as it was just a one-page shortener, and it was removed arbitrarily.

"We felt that the Nic.ly registry was claiming it has deleted our domain for infringements that do not actually form any part of their regulations," Metcalfe said on his blog.

Officials took issue with a picture of Blue in a sleeveless shirt drinking a beer with the words "sex-positive" written behind her. "The issue of offensive imagery is quite subjective, as what I may deem as offensive you might not," ElSharif told Blue in an e-mail correspondence.

Now Metcalfe and Blue believe that other sites with a .ly domain like bit.ly and owl.ly are in danger. Metcalfe said he thinks the real reason for his domain's seizure is economic, not moral or religious. Sites that are removed are open for sale to Libyan nationals, but may not be registered to foreigners any longer. "Anyone running a business or relying on a website with a one, two, or three letter .ly domain should be incredibly cautious," Metcalfe said.