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Censorship The Internet Your Rights Online

Wikileaks Calls For Global Boycott Against eNom 137

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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Wikileaks Calls For Global Boycott Against eNom

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  • by Cryophallion ( 1129715 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @08:39AM (#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)?
  • by dattaway ( 3088 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @08:47AM (#22691906) Homepage Journal
    Anyone want to create a step by step guide, howto, or link how to "escape" from a registrar? Is it possible?
  • by cp.tar ( 871488 ) <cp.tar.bz2@gmail.com> on Sunday March 09, 2008 @08:54AM (#22691926) Journal

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

  • by rucs_hack ( 784150 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @08:55AM (#22691932)
    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 document on a web page can be more powerful then any number of boycots and angry marches.

  • I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)

    by softwaredoug ( 1075439 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @09:10AM (#22691980)
    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.
  • by 3seas ( 184403 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @09:18AM (#22692010) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • by Aero77 ( 1242364 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @09:34AM (#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.
  • by zhrike ( 448699 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @09:51AM (#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.
  • by siddesu ( 698447 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @09:55AM (#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.
  • by westlake ( 615356 ) on Sunday March 09, 2008 @10:07AM (#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."

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09, 2008 @10:29AM (#22692286)
    project CHANOLOGY /b/tards!=geeks?
  • by cellocgw ( 617879 ) <cellocgw@gmail . c om> on Sunday March 09, 2008 @01:51PM (#22693420) Journal
    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.

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