You’ve reached the activism portion of today’s show. Now that you’re informed and angry, here’s what you can do about it. Today’s activism: Preserve Anonymity, Stand Up For Domain Privacy.

People prefer to be anonymous online for a number of reasons — not all of them so that they can troll and leave comments without reprisal. Groups and individuals who do the majority of their social justice organizing and fundraising don’t link their personal information — names, addresses, etc. — to their websites to prevent targeting by opposition and law enforcement.

Business like Time Warner and Walt Disney — claiming they need recourse for copyright infringement — have lobbied the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (or, ICANN) to end the proxy registration of domains that keeps people’s information private. According to Buzzfeed, the entertainment industry sees proxy registration as a way to covertly steal content while privacy advocates see identity concealment as a way to enable free speech.

The Online Abuse Prevention Initiative is particularly concerned about the way this potential rule change would affect groups like: women indie gamers who sell their products online, freelance journalists and authors, small business owners who work out of their homes, activists who take donations — especially those who live under totalitarian surveillance states, and people who crowd fund medical procedures using their personal stories to solicit donations.

The affect on marginalized groups and those without financial resources to protect themselves through the legal system or fight harassment after it’s already begun could change the landscape of online organizing and commerce as well as open up even more people to being doxed.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is, of course, leading the effort to fight the proposal. Their "Preserve Anonymity, Stand Up For Domain Privacy” petition to ICANN is up at their website, EFF.org, under the “Take Action” tab. By signing their petition, you’ll be asking for ICANN to not only reject the change, but to go further to protect people’s online privacy by creating less costly, easier ways to withhold personal identifying information from online domains.

TAKE ACTION:

SIGN: "Preserve Anonymity, Stand Up For Domain Privacy” via the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Sources/further reading:

"Icann plan to end website anonymity 'could lead to swatting attacks’” at The Guardian

"Proposed Domain Name Rule Threatens Website Owner Anonymity” at Buzzfeed

Hear the segment in context:

Episode #946 "What will it take to reverse this trend? (Privacy Rights)"

Written by BOTL social media/activism director Katie Klabusich