events Petition to remove all restrictions from .US

[Shea]

I have created a petition to remove all restrictions from the .US domain name.
In order for the White House to review the petition it must reach 100,000.00 signatures in 30 days.
If this is met, according to the US Government, "Get an official update from the White House within 60 days".

There is no way I can get 100,000 signatures unless some serious mass platforms get a hold of this, and share it. So I'm absolutely reliant on everyone of interest, to help me share this. Thanks.. And as of right now, I got 99,999 signatures as of today, October 27

Link to sign below

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-us-domain-registration-requirements




The White House States the follow, copy and paste from there page


"With We the People, you can easily create a petition online, share it, and collect signatures. If you gather 100,000 signature in 30 days, we’ll review your petition, make sure it gets in front of the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.

Petitioning has the potential to enact real change, but it’s also your fundamental right as an American citizen, and an opportunity to connect with a community of like-minded people who are invested in making a change. Ideally, running a petition on We the People is just the start of something bigger — a long-term, robust form of civic engagement."

Also, if you have any suggestions on who I might contact to help me push this, please respond with name, website, or email.

 

[frank-germany]

.co.uk never had any restrictions up until 2014. And since then all you need to do is give a UK address (the registrars) and you are good.

Same with .de: "Denic, the .DE Registry, requires that all .DE domains have a German address for the administrative contact." You use your registrar.

Almost same with .fr: "administrative contact must reside in the European Union." You use your registrar.

All these mean that there are no real restrictions.

the admin c is the one who is in charge of the name
he can sell it for example or delete it

not sure if you really want your registrar to be entitled to do so.

 

[frank-germany]

https://www.123-reg.co.uk/support/a...mains/who-can-register-a-us-domain-name-4313/

A foreign entity or organisation with a bona fide presence within the United States
or any of its possessions or territories.


This means that a foreign business or entity can register the domain,
as long as they maintain an office or similar property within the United States,
or regularly engage in lawful activities within the United States.

- registering a .us may be enough ?
- hosting for sure is , or?

For example, this includes the sales of goods or services within the United States.
-- like selling domains to us citizen?

In cases such as these, the applicant must state their country of citizenship.

 

[xynames]

123-reg.co.uk is overreaching, probably because it is a UK entity and wants to encourage foreigners to register the .us domains with them.

A more correct restriction is described by GoDaddy:
https://www.godaddy.com/help/about-us-domains-5856

Registration requirements

The U.S. Nexus Requirement ensures that only individuals or organizations that have a substantive connection to the United States can register .us domain names. To qualify for a .us domain name, you must be meet one of the 3 below requirements :

• A natural person (i) who is a citizen or permanent resident of the United States of America or any of its possessions or territories, or (ii) whose primary place of domicile is in the United States of America or any of its possessions.
• An entity or organization that is (i) incorporated within one of the fifty (50) U.S. states, the District of Columbia, or any of the United States possessions or territories or (ii) organized or otherwise constituted under the laws of a state of the United States of America, the District of Columbia, or any of its possessions or territories.
• An entity or organization (including a federal, state, or local government of the United States, or a political subdivision thereof) that has a bona fide presence in the United States.

---

Merely selling some goods across the internet including to U.S. residents is not enough. Otherwise any foreign company that purports to sell goods and ship to the .us could have a .us - that would not be a "substantive connection."

If you really want to get to the heart of the matter, consider the concept of personal jurisdiction. If your foreign company sufficiently avails itself of sales to the U.S. that you may be sued in a U.S. court of law, then perhaps you begin to have sufficient presence to justify a .us domain.

 

[apri01]

.CA is also protected eh? :P

Yeah, must meet the Canadian Presence Requirements.

 

[mr-x]

How ? Whois records are not even verified, unless there is a complaint. There is no active vetting of applicants.

I know that other ccTLDs like .fr or .uk try at least to match the registrant address against public databases, also the company registration number if there is one. If you have a made-up or inconsistent record they may contact you to fix it. There is a minimum effort to check the accuracy of the records.
Then you have some ccTLDs that are even stricter: all requests are screened by human beings and supporting documents (certificate of incorporation, TM etc) may be required before the domain is delegated to you.

I don't see a lot of spam or phishing in .us but it's because the TLD is downright unpopular.
It is also funny that the US champions free trade but doesn't open its ccTLD.
Would it hurt to open it to the rest of the world ?
Many of the most successful TLDs are unrestricted and still trusted as a whole.

I think the average person expects to find a US person or company using a .us. If I'm not mistaken, foreign own businesses are allowed to register .us.

 

[Dynadot]

I've followed these types of petitions in other situations.

The nature of those types of petitions is that the response is very generic. I don't believe you'll get the result you want out of it. They will likely just affirm the right of the business to set it's own guidelines/restrictions. Though I wish you luck.

Samuel L Dotson

 

[xynames]

I think the average person expects to find a US person or company using a .us. If I'm not mistaken, foreign own businesses are allowed to register .us.

A foreign owned business with sufficient minimum contacts with the US, "a bona fide presence" in the U.S., may register a .us Being a foreign owned business has nothing to do, per se, one way or another, with getting a .us

 

[GoKaizen]

Yup, and Neustar is currently doing this with .US.

All the .US domains from the Unireg 10 cent deal are expiring this week.

Low pricing causes problems for a TLD. The obvious one is that low pricing cannot last and it is generally pitched as a discounted first year registration with the second year being at full fee. This causes a boom and bust registration cycle with a spike in new registrations followed by a drop about a year later as most of these registrations are not renewed.

After the massive registration spike from the Unireg deal, .US was appearing on the Spamhaus Top 10 Abused TLD list. Two Uni extensions, .click and .link, are regularly on there.

The other aspect with low registration fees is that it attracts the wrong kind of registrant (spammer/phisher and other dubious types) and this causes long-term damage to the credibility of a TLD. Too many of this kind of registration and a TLD effectively collapses because no natural development of websites and businesses takes place and any sites that were using the TLD quickly migrate to more reputable TLDs.

You need a marketing push to go along with it. Neustar doesn't seem to care to do that.

Used sparingly and correctly, discounted registrations can help build a TLD. Overuse turns a TLD into a zombie TLD.

Regards...jmcc

Nice explanation John.

A ccTLD is not like a gTLD in that it has a well defined geographical market. It is not just domainers who form that market. Domaining exists as part of a complex ecology. There is also a level of usage and development in that ecology that should be larger than the domainer part. If a TLD has no significant natural development (like some of the new gTLDs), there is often a problem with the domainer part of the market being larger than the end user part of the market. The .US ccTLD just isn't at the stage where restrictions should be relaxed. If it can manage to get that level of usage and natural development up, then it might be time to consider relaxing the restrictions in a few years. If there's little or no development in a TLD, then speculative registrations are a waste of money because they will probably have to renewed for five or ten years before the TLD begins to develop.

Regards...jmcc

Why do they care Konstantinos? They make money on .us and .biz regardless.

Didn't the registry contract with .nyc state they had to do marketing?

Neustar is to blame for both .us and .biz and now .nyc.
They just sit there and wait for the money to come in since 2002. Ridiculous.