Spammers, scammers and child pornographers can hide easily on the Internet because regulators allow them to register under false names with stolen credit cards, lawmakers and technology experts said Thursday.
One day after U.S. attorneys charged a Miami man with using misspelled domain names to direct Web surfers to pornography sites, lawmakers said the manner in which domain-name sellers collect information about their customers is too lax.
A new law to require accurate customer data might be necessary because the U.S. Department of Commerce and other oversight bodies have not been doing their job, lawmakers on the House of Representatives intellectual-property subcommittee said.
"I'm disappointed with the failure of the marketplace and regulators to deal with this problem. A legislative solution seems necessary," said California Democratic Rep. Howard Berman.
The Commerce Department will seek to require greater accountability from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, when it renews its authority to oversee the domain-name system this fall, a Commerce Department official said.
Internet domain-name sellers require customers to submit their names, addresses, telephone numbers and other contact information into what is known as a "whois" database. But domain-name sellers, or registrars, rarely check to ensure this information is accurate, making it easier for child pornographers, identity thieves and other scam artists to operate online, witnesses said.
Often it is in the registrar's interest to turn a blind eye to whois entries to attract porn-site operators, who register thousands of domain names at a time, said Harvard University researcher Ben Edelman.
"The whois database is substantially fiction," said Edelman, noting that as many as 10 percent of the Internet's 30 million domain names may be registered under false names.
ICANN management is taking steps to tackle the problem, Commerce Department General Counsel Theodore Kassinger said.
"A lot of work needs to be done, but I think they're headed in the right direction," he said.
Subcommittee chairman Lamar Smith seemed less than convinced.
"There's not a real seriousness of intent either by ICANN or the Department of Commerce to have an accurate whois database," the Texas Republican said.
The Associated Press, Newsbytes
