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Wikileaks Calls For Global Boycott Against eNom

Posted by kdawson on Sun Mar 09, 2008 07:04 AM
from the all-their-heirs-and-assigns dept.
Censorship The Internet
souls writes "The folks at Wikileaks are calling for a boycott against eNom, Inc., one of the top internet domain registrars, which WikiLeaks claims is involved in systematic domain censoring. On Feb 28th eNom shut down wikileaks.info, one of the many Wikileaks mirrors held by a volunteer as a side-effect of the court proceedings around wikileaks.org. In addition, eNom was the registrar that shut off access to a Spanish travel agent who showed up on a US Treasury watch list. Wikileaks calls for a 'global boycott of eNom and its parent Demand Media, its owners, executives and their affiliated companies, interests and holdings, to make clear such behavior can and will not be tolerated within the boundaries of the Internet and its global community.'"
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[+] Politics: Domains Blocked By US Treasury 'Blacklist' 525 comments
yuna49 writes "Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports today about the plight of a Spanish tour operator whose domain names have been embargoed by his domain name registrar (eNom). They pulled his domains after they discovered the tour operator's name on a US Treasury blacklist. It turns out he packages tours to Cuba largely for European tourists who can legally travel there, unlike Americans. The article cites 'a press release issued in December 2004, almost three years before eNom acted. It said Mr. Marshall's company had helped Americans evade restrictions on travel to Cuba and was "a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people." It added that American companies must not only stop doing business with the company but also freeze its assets, meaning that eNom did exactly what it was legally required to do.' The only part of the operator's business in the United States is his domain name registration; all other aspects of his business lie outside the United States."
Submission: Wikileaks calls for global boycott against eNom by Anonymous Coward
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  • How About GoDaddy? (Score:5, Informative)

    by jellie (949898) on Sunday March 09 2008, @07:10AM (#22691822)
    GoDaddy is another bad registrar, and has been mentioned on Slashdot many times, including here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org]. I'm assuming Dynadot should also be boycotted.

    • Re:How About GoDaddy? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cp.tar (871488) <cp.tar.bz2@gmail.com> on Sunday March 09 2008, @07:54AM (#22691926) Journal

      What we need is a list of known good registrars and a set of instructions how to escape bad ones.

      • "What we need is a list of known good registrars..."

        Any recommendations?

        eNom.com [enom.com] is the real provider for many domain name resellers. For example, NameCheap [namecheap.com] is one of many who buy from eNom.com.

        eNom.com has been competing with its re-sellers with eNomCentral.com [enomcentral.com]. Note that eNom.com is now apparently doing what GoDaddy does. In my opinion, GoDaddy.com tries to get more money by confusing people who have little technical knowledge.

        Some of the negative stories about GoDaddy on Slashdot:

        GoDaddy [slashdot.org]
        • www.gandi.net

          Reasonable (though not the lowest) prices.
          Good customer support in English and French.
          Very nice and clean website and management tools.
          In France (outside the jurisdiction of ignorant US judges).

          • I've heard a lot of good things about Gandi too. It's a little pricy for my needs, especially considering the weakening US dollar. But I guess it will have to do. Thanks.

          • www.gandi.net (Score:4, Informative)

            by kandresen (712861) on Sunday March 09 2008, @03:06PM (#22694198)
            I would clearly recommend www.gandi.net as well. I have been using them for years exactly due to them declaring I am the owner of my domain and in charge of my domain, not them unlike most other registrars. The prices have increased over the last couple of years - they have been charging 12 Euro, which when I started clearly was among the best prices in the marked, but with the current strong Euro, you will be aware of the difference. The are now allowing payment in USD which is only $15/year now (thought the strong Euro would have cased higher dollar price). That said - I have used many registrars and I for one will select Gandi over the rest also for other reasons: I feel they are providing a much better overall experience than the rest. I once tried Godaddy as it was a bit cheaper than Gandi, and it seemed like a good provider... Not that I have ever had a problem such as this with them, but the services of Gandi are worth the difference for me, and Gandi do not spam me, or keep sending as much "renew your information" type messages and so on.

            Some of the benefits I am using:

            You are the owner of the domain name! : See https://www.gandi.net/contracts [gandi.net] Section 1
            Gandi includes DNS in its default service so you can edit directions of domains and sub domains without also paying for hosting!
            Gandi allows you without hosting to have 5 mail boxes with 1GB mailbox space - again without paying additional for hosting!
            Gandi also allow you to add wildcard mailbox aliasing og 1000 e-mail addresses, and may relay the mail to external mailboxes.
      • Good luck, domain transfers are a royal PITA. We have over 6000 domains in our Enom account, I don't even want to think about transferring them all. Not to mention that all of our internal APIs are tied into Enom's system.

        I don't really see what all the furor is about though, Enom only did what they were required to by law.

      • What we need is a list of known good registrars and a set of instructions how to escape bad ones.

        I'd say what we really need is a mechanism to get rid of bad registrars altogether. ICANN is so toothless in the matter its beyond disgusting. If you take a look at their list of registrars [internic.org], you'll see it is pages long. And there is no shortage of fly-by-nights on there that nobody has heard of. Even worse there are many registrars in there that practice bad business tactics, or willingly cooperate with criminal spamming enterprises.

        Yet good old ICANN, in their infinite wisdom, choses to leave al

      • a set of instructions how to escape bad ones./quote>

        "You can get more with a kind word and a two-by-four than you can with just a kind word." -- Marcus Cole

        though with some companies, s/a two-by-four/artillery/
    • I wouldn't put Dynadot in the same boat - they did, after all, have a court order presented to them.

      • I wouldn't put Dynadot in the same boat - they did, after all, have a court order presented to them.
        According to some reports, Dynadot agreed with the bank to shut down Wikileaks.org and the the court order was the result of that agreement, so, yes, Dynadot should be n the same category of registrars as eNom.
        • According to WHAT reports? That makes absolutely no sense, they could run into other legal issues if they were to make such a deal outside of a court order, and its just stupid business to do so. A court order is a court order, nothing they can do about it.

          Backup your bullshit or don't waste time claiming it in the first place.
          • Your apology forthwith, please [complete.org]

            The point is that the bank initiated the process, subsequently both the bank and Dynadot went to the court with an agreement to shut down wikileaks.org (if the court agreed). The court agreed and issued an order to do just that.

  • information versus action (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yakiimo (1024339) on Sunday March 09 2008, @07:23AM (#22691846)
    Perhaps it doesn't fit with what the wikileaks people intended when they started it, but I wish that wikileaks would let/encourage others to fight using their facts (however much is fact) rather than wikileaks themselves doing it. Somehow their active stance makes me more wary of the information on the site.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rucs_hack (784150)
      This kind of posturing is more likely to rebound badly on WiKileaks than anything else.

      So long as they are simply providing access to the kinds of information they normally host, they're being just what they said they were, and remain a powerful influence. If they try to stir up a boycot, and it fails (which it almot certainly will), then they will only have succeeded in demonstrating that they don't have much in the way of ability to influence others.

      Its a mistake to even go down this road. A simple docume
    • "I wish that wikileaks would let/encourage others to fight using their facts"

      Sorry, are they somehow preventing this from occurring? I don't know much about WL.

    • Re:information versus action (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zhrike (448699) <zhrike@NOsPAm.yahoo.com> on Sunday March 09 2008, @08:51AM (#22692156)
      I strongly disagree. Wikileaks is not attempting to act on information someone posted on their site; they are acting in response to something that was done to them directly.
      This has absolutely nothing to do with the information they host, aside from the fact that the information that they host was a reason for the acts by eNom et al. It also does
      not reflect on the veracity of their information, and interpreting it that way seems odd to me.

    • Re:information versus action (Score:4, Insightful)

      by siddesu (698447) on Sunday March 09 2008, @08:55AM (#22692172)
      Well, they were a victim of an unjustified shutdown, and it seems eNom was a part of this shutdown, so I suppose one could cut them some slack on that account only.

      Given the recent systematic drive to regulate the internets that's coming from virtually all quarters, it is hard to call their initiative for exposing irregular censorship entirely out of place. On the contrary, I think it is timely, and seems to me quite limited in scope, being concerned mainly with domain registrars.

      Besides, Wikileaks is an activist site by definition -- publishing as they are scandalous materials from anonymous sources. I don't quite understand why would you feel more or less uncomfortable just because they publish some more of the same.
        • Well, they have the right to make a point as they see fit, and that doesn't make the materials _other_ people upload to their site more or less trustworthy.

          It is always good to be able to find information on a domain registrar, especially when you consider putting your valuable eggs ... errr ... domain records into their database. And the more noise, the more blogs will have it and the smaller likelihood of forgetting.

          Be that as it may, I have never heard of the nom-nom-nom domain registrar before. Now I kn
          • Now I know something about them ...

            I'd say you know all that you need to know about them. Isn't that, after all, what Wikileaks is all about?
    • If they were encouraging an active stance against the Burmese government or something, I would agree with you.

      However, their job is to get information out. And when there are internet services that are actively trying to silence them, they must take a stand.

    • Somehow their active stance makes me more wary of the information on the site.
      A lot like IndyMedia. Good info, but everyone has a bias, me and you...
    • No matter who does it, no matter when, and no matter who is the victim. They are fighting the good cause, so WHO CARES if it looks a bit self-serving too?

  • other registrars? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ionix5891 (1228718) on Sunday March 09 2008, @07:29AM (#22691858)
    i have dozens of websites registered thru enom

    are there any other registrars that are not "evil"?

  • Any other course of action? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Cryophallion (1129715) on Sunday March 09 2008, @07:39AM (#22691884)
    I know the concept of the internet being non-centralized, and with no real authority to oversee it, which is one of its strengths.

    However, it stinks at times like these, when you want an authority to go to to punish actions for a registrar (an d I know some registrars have been shut down, but for more egregious actions).

    However, in a case like this, where the "people" of the internet have felt wronged because a company went against the philosophies of the internet, Is there any other course of action besides a boycott (which may or may not be effective due to the terms of registrations, and companies going with what they think is the best price, not necessarily the best price and the right philosophy).

    If there is no other course of action, what is the best way to get this out there (besides Slashdot, etc)?

    • However, it stinks at times like these, when you want an authority to go to to punish actions for a registrar (an d I know some registrars have been shut down, but for more egregious actions).


      That's a terrible idea. If such an 'authority' existed, it would be far more likely to be on eNom's side than users'. The Internet only exists in anything approaching the form we've gotten used to because there's so little centralized control, particularly over content.
      • Not really, it's proof that some people get upset when the population starts to create things without any powerful body governing what they create. Personally I didn't need to see any proof to be sure of that.

  • Howto change a registrar (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dattaway (3088) on Sunday March 09 2008, @07:47AM (#22691906) Homepage
    Anyone want to create a step by step guide, howto, or link how to "escape" from a registrar? Is it possible?
    • With any registrar worthy of existence, transfer is a really simple click button process. No "escape" is necessary.

    • Re:Howto change a registrar (Score:5, Informative)

      by JavaRob (28971) on Sunday March 09 2008, @08:09AM (#22691978) Homepage Journal
      It's not all that complicated. The horror stories you see here and there are the exception, not the rule.

      I don't have any domains registered with eNom, so I'm not sure of the specific procedures for them, but the gist of it is:
      * Sign in to your current registrar
      * Make sure your email address with them is valid (there will be confirmation steps using it!)
      * Unlock your domains (many registrars have "locking" features to prevent others from stealing your domains, plus to make it a little trickier for you to leave
      * You might as well disable automatic renewals as well (if they have them), just in case
      * Go to your new registrar and click through to "transfer" your domain, and pay for it. Normally they'll honor your existing expiration date (even if it's a couple of years away) and add your new years to the end of that.
      * Make sure you set up the domain at the new registrar with the correct nameservers for your host, and you won't have any downtime because of the switch.
      * The next steps will often take a few days -- new registrar will submit request to old registrar, who will email you for confirmation (and you'll have to click through to provide that)... possibly multiple confirmations... and then the domain will be transferred, and you're done.

      Anyone want to provide details for eNom, or add anything I forgot?

      I can also mention that most of my domains are currently hosted with GoDaddy -- who I'm not particularly fond of, but they're cheap and haven't screwed me over personally. Suggestions for alternatives are welcome... it's something I haven't researched in a while.

      • I can also mention that most of my domains are currently hosted with GoDaddy -- who I'm not particularly fond of, but they're cheap and haven't screwed me over personally. Suggestions for alternatives are welcome... it's something I haven't researched in a while.

        For what it's worth, I switched to StarGate [stargate.com] from GoDaddy. They aren't too much more expensive and I like that I'm not pandering to the company that has those awfully stupid commercials that have nothing to do with domain registration, and also I don't like that they're lapdogs to Microsoft. Plus the company's been around for a while (just not registering domains the whole time) stargate.com is like the 20th domain [jottings.com] to have been registered.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by The_DoubleU (603071)
        Try https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ [nearlyfreespeech.net]
  • They complied with a lawful court order issued as a result of due process. You don't have to agree with it, but its legal. The US is a nation of laws, not a nation driven by the whims of precocious fan-boys. What would you have them do? Throw abandon to the wind and defy it? The company might get shut down which would threaten their employees and customers. I don't see any other plausible action here. I would only hope my employer would have as much sense in such a case.
    • You must not own a domain.

    • Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)

      by Aluvus (691449) on Sunday March 09 2008, @08:49AM (#22692150) Homepage
      The court ordered that wikileaks.ORG be shut off. The Wikileaks people argue that eNom incorrectly interpreted the temporary restraining order to also apply to wikileaks.INFO. Additionally, eNom kept the domain out of commission even after the original temporary restraining order had been dissolved and the wikileaks.org domain had been restored.
    • I was wondering if anyone would get this. When a big group of people that all have guns tell you to do something, you should do it. Admittedly, just redirecting the domain to a static page saying exactly what they were required to do by law, and linking to some news articles would have met the legal requirement with a lot more style...
  • standard procedure for which to handle domain shut down requests.

    a take down request should be specific and start with a request to remove the offending material, not the whole site.

    It could be done with laws but would need to be done in any country hosting.

    Perhaps I'm wrong, but this is a hosting site issue, not a domain registry issue (or it shouldn't be a domain registry issue).
    Registry is like an ID, messing with an ID is like identity theft or other wrongful manipulation of a persons ID. There should already be laws for this.

    Anyways, there is the possibility to organize a standards group on the issue just as there is the OSI, linuxs standard base ,
    etc.. and openly rate and publish hosting policies compliance level and even registry policies if that is indeed an issue.

    There should also be recourse against those who violate. Or at least a bad mark on the open rating report.

    • Perhaps I'm wrong, but this is a hosting site issue, not a domain registry issue (or it shouldn't be a domain registry issue).

      Actually, its both. However, a domain owner has many choices for hosting - including of course doing their own. Thus hosting is really a difficult issue to go after.

      On the other hand, registration is not something with so many choices, and the vast majority of internet users have no ability to register a domain without the aid of an internet registrar.

      And while it may not be completely obvious or fool-proof, a registrar does have limited ability to shut down access to a site. If you look at the

  • Use Registrars in a Neutral Country? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aero77 (1242364) on Sunday March 09 2008, @08:34AM (#22692078)
    Rather than cry about eNOM's vulnerability to the US Justice system, Wikileaks should be protecting their domain name with the same care as they do their content.
    • I raised this issue in a posting [slashdot.org] in an earlier thread about this case. Is it possible to register in the international TLDs (com/net/org) without using an American registrar?
      • It doesn't seem like it, even if it were, ICANN is still under the Dept of Comm's thumb. Dept of Comm's thumb does seems to be much lighter than it easily could be, BS like this JB vs. wikileaks/dynadns/enom fiasco just seems to give unnecessary ammo to people who would like to change the present politico-bureaucracy with a different politico-bureaucracy. If the status Quo is going to continue, the USG and the Courts are going to have to realize that the ICANN is an international resource that they are hol

    • Wikileaks should be protecting their domain name

      That is what they are trying to do. They are going one step further also in saying that everyone else should do the same, like you are saying they should do--so you agree with them.

  • I ask this purely out of curiosity, of course... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by westlake (615356) on Sunday March 09 2008, @09:07AM (#22692200)
    But what is the difference between Geek-led boycott and a dead-end road?

    The successful Geek boycott seems to belong in the same Fantasyland where "Microsoft is dying" and "This is the Year of Linux on the desktop."

  • Should we boycott bees because they sting? For better or worse, eNom was merely complying with properly offered court orders with a valid jurisdiction. Any US-based registrar would have done the same.

    If you're going to do business in the US, you have to follow US law. That means when someone sues you have to actually show up in court. If that's a problem for you, don't do business in the US.

  • Maybe it's easy to move your domains, maybe it isn't. But why not just work, politely (so to speak), with your domain manager to convince them to drop eNom as their source? For example, I'm quite happy with the service I get from domaindirect. They answer their phones, they have a "network status" page that's pretty accurate and up to date when something happens, and all the intarwebby things JustWork.
    I'd rather join a mailing list to urge DomainDirect to switch than just apply a blanket boycott.

    • Re:WikiLeaks, you are idiots (Score:4, Informative)

      by Sique (173459) on Sunday March 09 2008, @11:37AM (#22692972) Homepage

      So ... you're boycotting a company which is following the laws of the country it is based in rather than registering your name with a registrar in a country that doesn't have these laws.

      Are they really that stupid?
      No, Wikileaks is asking to boycott a registrar that overzealously interprets a court order, which orders the shutdown of one domain. Said domain wasn't even registered with the registrar, so the court order wasn't even affecting the registrar.

      But instead of just ignoring a paper that didn't matter to them, they shut down a different domain, which wasn't mentioned in the court order at all.

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