Today I received a message from Bob Parsons, President and Founder of GoDaddy.com (where I register my domain names) that there has been a decision made by a Federal agency that takes away another one of our rights to privacy as guaranteed by the United States Constitution. The following is extracted and paraphrased from the message I received from him.
This decision was unilaterally made by the National Telecommunications and Information Association (“NTIA”) www.ntia.doc.gov without hearings that would determine the impact on those affected, and delivered without notice ‘” in short, the NTIA decision was made without due process of any kind. This is exactly how our government is not supposed to work.
The effect of this decision is to disallow private domain name registrations on .US domain names. In addition, if you already own a private .US domain name registration, you will be REQUIRED TO FORFEIT your privacy no later than January 26, 2006. By that time, you will need to choose between either making your personal information available to anyone who wants to see it, or giving up your right to that domain name even though you own it.
It seems ironic that our right to .US privacy was stripped away, without due process, by a federal government agency that should be looking out for our individual rights. For the NTIA to choose the .US extension is the ultimate slap in our face. .US is the only domain name that is specifically intended for Americans (and also those who have a physical presence in our country.) So think about this for a moment. This agency stripped away the privacy that you’re entitled to as an American, on the only domain name that says that you are an American.
Granted, I can see where the government, in its current state of paranoi’¦uh, caution, might think that some unscrupulous groups of terrorists might register as a ‘.US’ domain, fool us all into complacency, and then use the internet to attack us, fool their way into a government site, steal info, and use the site to mount an attack. After all, they could not do any of this with a .com or .biz site, right? Ok, I don’t see this at all!
If you have any opinion on the NTIA’s decision to strip away yet another constitutional right to privacy, go to http://www.TheDangerOfNoPrivacy.com and they will provide you with a petition to sign. (Only your name will be published, your address and email information will be kept private, or, at least until the NTIA gets it, and then who knows what they will require you to do with that info! 
) This Web site also provides a free and easy way to send either a fax or email expressing your views to your Congressperson and Senators.
You can also visit the site of Bob Parsons, the President and founder of GoDaddy (http://www.BobParsons.com) where there are a number of articles where you can learn more about the NTIA’s decision and what you can do to help get it reversed, if so inclined.
OK, this is not SUCH a big deal, right? It is, after all, only 1 domain class. But to use the NRA’s argument, if they start with one, they will quickly move to more and all. Remember, the NRA does not want major assault weapons banned because they fear the first ban on a weapon will eventually lead to the ban on more later. OK, using that conservative view of the government (which may just be correct,) we should block the privacy requirement on .US, because soon it will lead to the removal of privacy rights on ALL domains.
Your thoughts?
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