Congress Passes Bill On Domains
 

The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday passed by voice vote a bill that would boost prison time for scammers who register Web sites under false pretenses. Sponsored by Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) and now heading to the Senate, would up jail time by seven years for identity thieves who "knowingly falsely register a domain name."

Online investigators have found a potpourri of clearly fraudulent information entered in Web site registration records, ranging from bogus 555-555-5555 phone numbers to street addresses that rival "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" in adolescent-level humor.

According to Smith, up to ten percent of the Internet's 30 million domain names may be registered under false identities.

What will happen to registrars offering WHOIS privacy? :helpme

seems kinda harsh to me.

why throw them in jail? just fine them

How dumb.

I can just see the conversation inside the prison walls:

"What choo in for?"

"Rape"

"What about you homey?"

"False info on the whois."

"Damn dude, watch your back"

wasn't that topic covered in the Truth in Domains Act passed quite a while ago?

or now are they saying merely having false whois info, in and of itself, is a CRIME?

This bill is focused on increasing the jail time to 7 years.

Wow. This is pathetic.

good news.

After Senate/House debate that will be increased to life for porn sites. Oh, death if it's a real bad porn site. This will apply to anyone in any country as the sites will be available to Internet users in the US.

Thinkk about putting 10% of those who have registered domain names in jail. Do we have enough space?

Idea? After due process, take the name away instead.

No shit, you know your living in a Fascist state when you can go to jail for something this fucking stupid.

You can only get a speeding ticket for endangering lives by driving like a bat out of hell and in most states get a ticket for weed possession, but god forbid you give false information on your Whois.

All of those people are a TRUE danger to society as we know it. :1orglaugh

I bet the person who first started pushing this has a buddy who owns a registrar offering private WHOIS services!

:1orglaugh

I believe that the bill adds 7 years to anyone who was already committing a crime with the website. IE: obscentiy, fraud, etc.

You can get less time for selling coke for christ sakes

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh Yeah.. how silly

Good old republican answer....

just more bullshit for the congress to waste tax dollars on. As far as the whois info, if your afraid to put down the real info, then pay the extra fee (if any) for private reg

exactly

I think you're right...and you forgot to throw on 'copyright' infringement in the mix....I think that was a major push, esp by those RIAA loving dudes ie; Orin Hatch & company...

pretty fucked up that this will make the average time served by a web criminal more than a common day murder. Not that I'm against putting the rules into effect, but 7 years is a bit excessive IMO.

who cares about this. If you are smart you will put "N/A" for all the domain infos. That way the info isnt false, its jut not avilable. :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

this was my interpretation as well. I don't believe you're commiting a crime by simply having false whois, even though you risk losing your domain by doing so... but false whois will increase any penalties if you're caught using the domain, etc for fraud. have to run it by my lawyers tomorrow though.

If someone won't put their real info 99% of the time its because they are doing something illegal with the domain.

Why else would you hide it with fake ownership?

Doing something illegal or not..

Seven years is to fucking long.


That should be a fine and probation or something.


They don't need to be sending people to prision over whois info.

First thing that comes to my mind is hiding from all the gfy morons and scammers.
Also avoiding those 3am crank calls that some idiots will make when you just duked it out in a thread here lol.....
Then again what the fuck do i know.

My info is real.. Maybe they should make it a fine or something. Man you could do less time for an ACTUAL crime, and thats not right..

Use your business address/number.

You guys in the US have a great goverment. Really internet friendly.

Guess they know they can't have a full control of US webmasters so they are going to make it as much difficult as they can so you can comply with Big Brothers demands.

Seriously after all happened this year, Who the fuck in our industry would want to live in the stats.

Mind you ALL my domains are under my or my companies name for I have nothing to hide.

Sad, really Sad.

But it isn't complete... :2 cents:

Why should i post my phone number to every looser ?
Thats the reason.
Second case: i've changed my phone number and i own 1200 domains - now i need to spend my time to update the info .
The same with business address .
It's called privacy i think.

few years ago in US was no Bush, no terrorism, and was privacy and free speach, now they use any excluse to take from you your
privacy - that's what i think personally.

some people work from home

true, except some people prefer not to get thousands of catalogs and junkmail. :) one of the big catalog companies sent me over 1,000 catalogs once (1 per domain name). how did they not realize every single one was going to the same address? sad. waste of my time having to dispose of them. not to mention all the junk mail from hosting, registrars, etc...

:)

election day is close... get ready for more senseless laws passed to gain votes. They are going to try to hit internet hard since it is the biggest target they have.

Still it is kind of stupid what are they going to do with the 97034895702895702398750293487502 domains that are registered outside USA??????????

Can't your North American Polititians realize that there is more non USA people than there is USA??

:2 cents:

Good question !

What constitutes a "scammer" under this law?

If it is that someone uploads the front end of some bank and tries to procure stuff like personal info from the public - such as card numbers blah, - then, yea, there is a point to all this.

HOWEVER! As usual, this has most likely nada to do with "real scamming" and is just one of these "we need to know" bullshit things from the US government.

First, irrespective of what dribble the US govt may utter, - it is not a criminal offense to state incorrect information on any form unless there is an intention to decieve or commit some fraud. The fact that the US may have passed some laws like this has nothing to do with the rest of the world.

Second, fortunately the US government is not the "manager" of the internet, much as tho it may like to be.

Third, it is a pity the US has such a foul load of legislators that they apparently pass stupid laws in that country. The quote that "The law is an ass" has never been more appropriate.

Finally, It has absolutely nothing to do with the US government what I put, or don't put, on some domain registration form. I never did come under the laws of the US and never will.

All my domains are mainly in corporate names and located across the globe. Not one of these corporates will divulge *any* information about either domain names, biz activitites or contacts of the owners. It is a criminal offense within these countries to disclose such info.

Stuff all that naive stupidity :) It's all for sheep that want to listen to it.

I have the feeling the US Gov. has too much free time......or just too much income from people who pay every fucking day taxes...taxes, for free time that they can discust about such a bullshit !!!
THE US has no other problems ??? I don´t think so !!! ...

That would go against everything that conservative American politics stands for.

To even recognize the importance of the Internation community is to HATE AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!

-p

You're kidding, right?

How about the good old right to privacy for privacy's sake???!!

Why should the whole world know what you're up to via reverse whois searches and the like? Why should companies have a right to call me or send me junk shit or data mine or everything else that erodes your right to live a private life.

Yea, I got the phone forwarder, the address in Antigua, all the rest, but what about the poor shmuck who puts his home address in because he was told it's the right thing to do, and gets bombarded with shit just because he regged his little website.

Not right. This is the most absurd thing I have ever seen.

If you want privacy you can use corporations obviously. But at the end of the day if you want to operate into a public arean which the Internet is, you shouldn't be allowed to do so completely invisible.

That just opens all sorts of opportunities for criminals.

A fake whois opens up opportunities for scammers?? You don't think a scammer is going to have a PO box and a cell phone no. expressly created for the whois?? So you end up obliging people to give up their privacy TO THE WORLD because of some false notion that an accurate whois prevents scammers? Ha, that's a good one.

KRL, get out of the office for a moment. Not everyone is using their web address for commerce, lol. People have personal sites, hobby stuff, nothing to do with business. Should they set up corporations simply to run their stamp site or Miles Davis fansite?

I'm always amazed how easily people become sheep, ready to give up their privacy for a few scammers.