10 Democrats ask NTIA to add Whois privacy to .us domain names.
While Whois records in most top level domains are now private, .us remains an outlier: the U.S. government specifically forbids Whois privacy on .us domain registrations.
It has enforced a no-privacy policy since 2005, much to the chagrin of registrars.
A group of Democrats in Washington D.C. wants to change that.
Yesterday, 10 members of Congress sent a letter (pdf) to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) asking it to implement privacy on all .us domains.
The group wrote:
…The automatic public disclosure of users’ personal information puts them at enhanced risk for becoming victims of identity theft, spamming, spoofing, doxxing, online harassment, and even physical harm. .US should be a model of the United States’ values with regard to online privacy and expression. In addition to putting users at risk of abuse of their information, the current lack of privacy protections chills vibrant expression and important speech online. Anonymity is a necessary component of the American right to free speech.
The letter requests that privacy be included automatically on domains and to protect the disclosure of the underlying registrant’s data.
Appropriate measures to correct for NTIA’s decades of inaction to protect privacy in .US include offering privacy to users free of charge and automatically upon registration. In addition, any transfers to third parties, including public disclosure, should require a user’s affirmative, informed consent. Further, NTIA should require governments, including our own, to seek a warrant or other appropriate legal process when requesting access to .US user data. And users should receive notice whenever possible that governments–especially adversaries like Russia and China–have sought access to their information.
There won’t be any argument from domain name registrars or GoDaddy Registry Services, which currently maintains the .us namespace. I’ve heard grumblings from all parties that they wish Whois privacy was available on .us domains. In fact, the usTLD Stakeholder Council has recommended adding privacy (pdf).
Currently, the registry runs an algorithm to detect private registration data.
The argument against Whois privacy will come from intellectual property interests. Anticipating this argument, the letter states:
Further, there is little evidence that the continued public disclosure of this information makes the global internet any less safe or secure. In fact, despite the domain industry increasing privacy protections for users over the last several years, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has recently observed that the number of domains responsible for phishing, malware, spam, and botnets has declined. What is more, some of the largest domain registrars—handling tens of millions of domain registrations—receive on average fewer than 200 requests annually for previously-public registrant data from global law enforcement each year. This figure implies that public safety would not be significantly impacted by protecting the privacy of .US users.
Signatories include three people who also wrote to oppose a private equity takeover of .org. Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, Anna Eshoo, Brian Schatz, Ted Lieu, Sara Jacobs, Zoe Lofgren, Ro Khanna, Tom Malinowski, and Stephen Lynch signed the letter.
Translation:
The US gov had the choice, and continues to exercise the choice, to reject GDPR if it wants to. Yet it chose not to for the rest of us.
But, wait a minute, haven’t the IP folks been saying for years that if they don’t get public WHOIS data, they’ll go to Congress and force it on ICANN?
If they *really* want to address people breaking the rule, then they can look at every single .US domain registered here:
Safenames
So far all I have seen is that Safenames is a “safe haven” for circumventing and nullifying the rule against privacy. And I would guess some big name companies are the registrants behind that. You know, rules for thee…
It’s good to see some Congress people doing this – if they really mean it and it’s not just for show. It’s sad to see no Republicans among them. Both parties are evil, wicked, and rotten to the core in their ways, which often do overlap, and both have presided over this travesty all these years. But for some reason a bunch of Democrats is at least doing this right now. I wonder why.
The risks of deliberately refusing to allow American citizens and businesses the option of .US privacy since the beginning in 2002, not just 2005, are a no-brainer the size of the moon. That also demonstrates in a way as blatantly at least as big as the moon just how deliberate it has been.
Anyone not living in the Matrix for even just the past few years alone since covid and especially now knows and can see why “they,” as in the “powers that be” did this and have continued to do it from Day 1 until right this moment since April 2002. Both parties. Both “sides of the aisle.” Both wings of the same bird.
I could (and have) certainly say much more and make this comment longer than it already is, but there should be no need by now.
How ironic – the way in which .US was released for public use has been nothing less than part of a never ending war on America, the American people, and what America stands for, at least “on paper,” from within. It remains and has been nothing less than evil, and un-American and anti-American no less. By both “sides” in their own way, some worse than the other depending on the time period underway.
If one thinks about it even for a moment, especially if one was fully grown and alive in America then, you only need to contemplate the very time and circumstance under which .US was even released in April 2002 to begin with to see just how beyond insane and appalling it was to not allow whois privacy from the very start. Shame on them, though they of course had no shame, and it was by design to begin with as well.
Well I could say more as mentioned above. It remains to be seen whether the ones addressing this even really mean it now and whether anything will come of it. The whole saga and ongoing status quo is nothing but sad, and harmful, for over 20 years now.