The SMH tech section has picked up on an ongoing debate about the whois service & what it should contain.  ICANN was accepting submissions on a new set of proposals on how the whois database should work up until 00:00 UTC 30th Oct 2007 (that w…

1) I simply do not understand why anybody would need to have a domain name in order to disseminate speech (anonymous or otherwise). One need not own a domain in order to speak (and it’s not as if there are plenty of channels left for one to speak without owning a domain — this comment on somebody else’s blog being just one example). In fact, owning a domain name obviously leads to one running a web site, which is an even less likely way to maintain one’s anonymity. This thought that the inability to anonymously register for a domain leads to less free speech just does not compute for me.

2) Domains are a public resource, and a provably scarce one at that (or we wouldn’t be having fights over them, would we?). There’s plenty of history that suggests that scarce commodity public resources should be subject to public registration. Since the domainers (who, let’s be honest, are really the ones driving this debate, not the free speechers) have frequently brought up the analogy that speculating in domains is no different than speculating in land, it should be easy to see the connection to real property registration systems and the like that require one to actually register one’s claim to the land in order to enforce it.

And, just to knock one other straw man down — If ICANN was demanding that I put my social security number up online in order to register a domain, I’d be a bit more sympathetic to these arguments. But, they are not doing anything of the sort, this is simple contact information. So, any attempt to equate this issue with the much more relevant concerns about public records that do reveal damaging information like SSNs (a concern I certainly share) are not on target.

One makes a rational choice to register a domain, and need not do it if one doesn’t want to pay the costs. The costs are obviously more then the $8 charged by the registrar — They include some degree of uncloaking one’s privacy. In the end, unless somebody can show me why my inability to get a truly anonymously-registered domain seriously undermines my constitutional rights, I don’t see why that isn’t a fair balance.