Take on law enforcement wish list for domain registrations — A registrar’s
Michele Neylon opines regarding registrar accreditation negotiations.
Earlier this month I wrote regarding what various law enforcement agencies would like you to do ahead of registering a domain. Although well intentioned, the requirements would wreak havoc on the domain name ecosystem.
Michele Neylon, who runs Irish domain registrar Blacknight, just posted a blog entry regarding what he thinks the changes would mean for domain registrants.
The title is spot on: Don’t Make Us Treat Our Clients Like Criminals!
Neylon is well versed in ICANN and the current negotiations over the contract for domain registrars. He understands the nuance of every proposal out there. So it’s worth reading his take.
He also had recent experience partnering up with Google to give modest businesses in Ireland a free web site. Most shied away from Ireland’s .ie domains since they had to jump through more hoops to register them — which is exactly what law enforcement wants to require of all domain registrants.
When you get into an arena where you’re demanding that people handover loads of data AND that they by now have working email AND working phones AND verifiable physical addresses etc., you’re immediately narrowing the field. You’re stopping some people from getting online. And these are innocent bystanders. They haven’t committed any crimes, but they’re being treated like criminals. In fact we all are and we’re being forced to play “piggy in the middle”.
