State-owned Libya Telecom and Technology has forced the shutdown of vb.ly, a “link shortening” website run from San Francisco. It claimed that the content of the site was“against Sharia law”. Domain names with the suffix “.ly”, which are owned by Libya, have become popular recently. Other moves by the ministry could threaten another web startup, bit.ly, in which millions of dollars has been invested. In June, Tripoli announced that domain registrations with fewer than four characters were restricted for use only by those based in Libya. Andrew Cohen, the general manager of bit.ly, said in February that he foresaw no issues with using a Libyan domain name. American politician Mitt Romney has exercised caution by changing his mitt.ly shortener to mi.tt.

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Tags: internet, Libya

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