September 24th, 2009
Protest of Swedish domain name rules grows
Pirate Bay said it is supporting protestors to Sweden’s plans to scrutinize all domain name registrations that use “bank” in their name.
The Swedish authorities want to prevent people from being duped by phishing scams. The rules would only apply to Swedish .SE extensions but protestors say that the practice could create a precedent that other countries will follow and apply to many other names in domain registrations.
The popular Pirate Bay has become a major supporter of the protestors and is collecting signatures. The protest list was started by Binero, a domain registrar.
“To diverge from the democratic country norm of problem resolution post rather than pre registration, and to do it for a common word and name like “Bank” is dangerous. It makes it legally and logically plausible for many groups to lobby for scrutinizing an unforeseeable number of other words and names pre registration as well,” said Binero CEO Anders Aleborg.
“All countries have the same problem and lobby groups like our big banks. There is a big risk that this form of net censorship might spread if Sweden does it.”
It would seem that all Swedish banks already own their domain names so any new domain registrations with the word bank in them would probably be registered for nefarious reasons.
Phishing scams are a big problem and it would seem this is a sensible measure that would protect people from being duped. It’s not clear what other names these types of regulations could also be applied against.
Tom Foremski reports on the business and culture of Silicon Valley at the intersection of technology and media. He also writes at Silicon Valley Watcher. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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