The First Amendment
Having just read this on Wired:
The U.S. Commerce Department has ordered companies that administer internet addresses to stop allowing customers to register .us domain names anonymously using proxy services. The move does not affect owners of .com and .net domains. But it means website owners with .us domains will no longer be able to shield their name and contact information from public eyes.I thought I’d look up the First Amendment, since I have read the American Constitution and didn’t recall anything on anonymous free speech being protected. Here’s the text of the First Amendment:
The Electronic Privacy Information Center said the move violates First Amendment rights to anonymous free speech… [my emphasis]
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.I don’t see anything there about anonymous free speech, nor did I notice anything in this summary of case law. So perhaps the Electronic Privacy Information Center is stretching a point… rather a lot?
And should the registration of domains, any domain world wide, be allowed anonymously? Well, given the number of scams and illegal activities dodgy operaters on the web get up to, I think that complete anonymity is a bad thing, although some protection to prevent stalking of domain owners should be available – for example, by only making the domain-owner information available via a court application, if the owner requests her name is not published. I personally don’t have any problem with publishing my name and address for my domain registration, in fact it is also available on this site as well.