Stephane Van Gelder - Registrars

Free speech of basic survival instincts?

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:19:59 +0100

I was initially only going to write about this story in French, mainly because I didn't really want to repeat in English the opinions I'd already voiced in a French-language post on the subject.

But an eCommerceTimes article I read since writing that post has infuriated me enough to get me going on this subject again…

Just for you non-French speakers out there, this is all about the new storm brewing around Network Solutions. This time, it's over Netsol's decision to suspend the website of controversial far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders. His site was used to promote an upcoming film about the man's obsession: showing that the Koran is a racist book and getting it banned in Holland.

Netsol suspended the website and put the message used as this post's illustration up instead. The company has explained that the domain name hasn't been locked and that Wilders can do what he wants with it. Netsol is apparently just not comfortable with hosting content which might possibly spark the similar kind of racial tensions seen around the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed

I've since read many articles critical of this decision to suspend the site, but none quite so one-sided as the eCommerceTimes. Under the heading "Domain Name Registrars: The Weakest Link in Online Free Speech", the writer of this piece argues that for people who want to take down offending content, the easiest way nowadays isn't to go after the site's publisher, but the registrar behind the website. These "usually anonymous Internet players will fold like a tent in the face of an impending storm" says ECT's Erika Morphy.

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Striving to improve: auth codes coming to .EU

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:58:56 +0100

Registrar and registry representatives sit on EURid's innovative Requirements Panel, which held its 3rd meeting at EURid's Brussels HQ last week.

I was in Brussels (Belgium) last week for EURid's third "requirements panel" (RP) meeting. The RP is an initiative launched by EURid to work more closely with its registrars. Reacting to criticism that it hadn't done so during the .EU launch, last year EURid invited a few registrars to take an active role in this project.

Seven registrars, including INDOM, were chosen to sit on the panel as representatives of the accredited .EU registrar community.

About once a quarter, the RP meets to discuss those requirements, generally of a technical nature, that would make life easier for .EU registrars. Representatives of EURid's legal, technical and admin departments are there to ensure that the requests made by the registrars; do not go against the rules set for EURid by the European Commission; can fit into, and are not redundant with, the registry's own development programme; are technically feasible for the registry.

At each meeting, based on their own day-to-day experiences with .EU and input from the registrar community, each registrar brings new requirements for consideration. These will then be voted upon by the RP as a whole and given a priority ranking to see which gets looked at first.

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Loch Ness monster found!

stephane.vangelder@indom.com (Stephane Van Gelder) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:24:35 +0100

Some weeks ago, ICANN published information about a practice called "Domain Name Front Running". We covered the subject in Domaines.Info.

What is DN Front Running? Simply put, it's the notion that when a prospective domain name registrant does an availability search on a domain name without actually registering it, a third party is able to somehow intercept the search and register the name for itself.

This has been the naming industry's Loch Ness monster for years. An urban legend that no-one's actually ever been able to prove.

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