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posted by n1 on Sunday July 12 2015, @05:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the icann-do-anything dept.

Privacy advocates, public interest groups and even some celebrities are raising alarms about a proposal that could limit the ability of some website owners to disguise themselves.

The issue has caught fire over the past few months as an obscure organization that manages the Internet's domain name system was inundated with comments about a proposal that could bar commercial websites from using proxies to register their web addresses.

Advocates argue anonymity is a key feature of free speech online, and removing that protection from people who create a website for commercial purposes could open vulnerable populations up to abuse.

El Reg reports:

As it stands on the last day of the comment period – 7 July – there are over 11,000 responses and the issue may break the previous record when ICANN proposed giving the green light to internet extension '.xxx' which would be used exclusively for adult content websites (in that case there were 12,757 comments).

Get while the gettin's good, Anonymous Cowards!

[Editor's Note: The "obscure organization" being ICANN...]


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Justin Case on Sunday July 12 2015, @06:37PM

    by Justin Case (4239) on Sunday July 12 2015, @06:37PM (#208208) Journal

    > the number of people likely to be legitimately impacted by this (victim group members, etc.) is a *lot* lower than is being made out. Firstly, the proposal only applies to commercial websites

    I'm one of those people you discount. I have a dot-com DNS name* so that's "commercial" right? I use it for communication that might step on someone's pet prejudice, so I'd rather a whole world full of strangers and radical asshats not be able to track me down, at least not easily.

    If you're about to purchase something from a web site and you feel you need contact information to provide confidence in the transaction, just check to see that they have valid contact information. Maybe a phone number that is answered by a human. Whatever you think is the minimum required. They don't meet your criteria... don't send them money. Easy. No need for one-worldwide-rule-for-all.

    First they came for the commercial DNS names, and I was silent because I did not have a commercial DNS name...

    * (which is not the same thing as a web site)

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 12 2015, @11:26PM (#208263)

    I get junk mail for Comcast Business to my mail box all the time. When I moved and updated the registration information on my domain, the letters started coming there. Comcast DOES NOT give you any information to opt-out of these mailings. I know for a fact that these mailings are tied to my domain, because the address I used to register was a P.O. Box, and was not used for any other purpose. If ICANN lets this through, your mailboxes will be stuffed full of unsolicited offers.