Canadian Domain Registry Pulls Plug on Free Speech

An anonymous reader writes "The staff of a Canadian political candidate bragged today that he had managed to shut down a website critical of his involvement in a fundraising scandal, by having the country's registrar of domains pull the DNS records for the site. Criticism from bloggers and free speech advocates has been negative, and is coming from across the political spectrum."

Comments

apparently I'm right...

[spiritraveller]

from one of the blogs:

UPDATE (supplemtary info): There's more information to the story. The deletion of the domain name was in full compliance of rules of the CIRA (just because it's a rule, doesn't make it right). Supposedly, if one registers a .ca domain name with anonymous details, the domain name can be removed under the CIRA's rules. However, one first needs to point it out (as Joe Volpe's campaign did).

This doesn't necessarily make it right, however. . .

Whatever. Everyone assumed that it was a huge abuse of power, when in reality it was just someone using a tactic that anyone can use. Complaining that someone isn't following the rules, and following an established procedure to remedy the situation.

As usual, people get all up in arms, bloggers go nuts, emails and phone calls are made... and then we find out nothing really wrong was done.

The big public relations screw up was bragging about it on a mailing list. But otherwise, he didn't do anything that ANY political campaign wouldn't have done in the same situation.

Re:apparently I'm right...

[Xshare]

Exactly. It's like calling the fire department and telling them that your competitor's store isn't following the fire code. They have to go look, and then when they find a problem, they have to shut it down. It might suck, but that's how it is.

what a *crock*

[Gorshkov]

This is not, in any way, shape or form, a free speech issue.

CIRA's rules clearly state - and have for as long as *I* can remember - that annon registrations are not acceptable. THat was, and IS, grounds to pull the DNS records.

If there is *any* story here, it should be how the hell did the site get registered in the first place, given that it didn't meet the most basic requirements.

As for Volpe? He has my congradulations ...... this is the first rule he's since since he launched his leadership campaign that he had tried to have enforced. Hopefully, it's the start of a trend.

Re:Apparently he did not even know who owned the s

[Xshare]

You are aware, aren't you, that Mike Hunt is a joke name? Like Mike Hawk, Dick Hertz, Ben Dover? Read it out loud, laugh a little, and then you can do some more snooping to see that the address and phone number are fake too.

Re:Fails to explain...

[Keebler71]

No, it is a free speech issue, or more correctly a censorship issue. The politician used a rule to have the site shut down (the site had been registered anonymously). How many other sites with incomplete or anonymous registration info did he request to have shut down? None? Just the one critical of him? That sounds like censorship to me... just because he worked within the framework of the system doesn't make it (morally) wrong.