Dutch news magazine HP/De Tijd found out that the Dutch Ministry of the Interior has been preemptively buying domain names. Several hundreds of them. According to a Ministry spokesperson, this is to prevent abuse.
For some of the names, preventing abuse makes at least some sense, e.g., heilhitler.nl and meinkampf.nl. Others are more puzzling, such as godverdomme.nl ('goddamn.nl') and wijvertrouwenstemcomputers.nl ('wetrustvotingmachines.nl'). The latter example seems to be a response to a well-known website called wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl ('wedonottrustvotingmachines.nl') which was a key platform for the grass roots campaign that forced the Dutch government to abolish voting machines and return to paper and pencil.
Some of the registered names are outright bizarre: e.g., degeitwordtgemolken.nl ('thegoatisbeingmilked.nl'), hetbrooddesemiszuur.nl ('thesourdoughbreadissour.nl') and dezwaluwverlaathetnest.nl ('theswallowleavesthenest.nl').
The spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior could not explain why they bought the more bizarre ones. As a few of the names on the overall list are in use by the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD, there is some amusing speculation among commentators that the bizarre names may be related to intelligence work.
The ministry did claim that they are not adding new names to the list. “So if someone wants to buy hitlerwasagreatdude.nl, we are not going to prevent that. If we go down that road, there would be no end in sight.”
Such a coincedence: just now, Dutch mayors ask for a reinstatement of voting machines.
I wondered wether there is a petition I could sign to side with the Dutch Mayors and found wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl. Now it seems that the government doesn't want her citizens to join the plea of the mayors?