New GOP Domain Name Violates RFC 2146

Macki writes "Citing the poor quality of republican websites, Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts has started a project called 'GOP.gov' to help improve their websites. This is all well and good, except GOP.gov isn't just their name, it's also their domain. This is a pretty clear violation of RFC 2146." (Please click below for more.)

The domain is registered to 'US House of Representatives Republican Conference' and should rightfully be GOP.HOUSE.GOV.

Excerpt from RFC 2146:

C) Subsidiary, non-autonomous components of top-level or other entities are not eligible for separate registration. International organizations listed in this document are NOT eligible for registration under .GOV. Subsidiary components should register as third-level domains under their parent organization. Other Federal entities may apply to the FED.US domain."

Comment from Roblimo: Well, that's Mackie's opinion. I disagree, at least in part. I believe a political organization - and that's what a political party is; it's certainly not a government agency - should be an ".org", not a ".gov". BTW, I don't see this as a Republican vs. Democrat thing, either, but as evidence of general Congressional cluelessness. Anyone else care to weigh in on this?

Comments

Re:Should be .org.

[Anonymous Coward]

But they are the only parties in the House (with the exception of Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont). They have both been around for at least 150 years. No other party has sustained members in Congress since the Civil War.

I'm gonna go off topic here but, that doesn't make it right, ya know? With only two parties to chose from, it's a safe bet that most candidates follow the party line nearly to the letter. If your vote goes to a Rep., you get a less taxes (maybe), but you'll probably get shafted with ridiculous censorship attempts in the name of the children. If you vote Dem., sure, you'll sleep better knowing that you're helping the less fortunate, but more than likely you'll have to face the fact that if you make more than 50g's a year, you're going to hell. Personally I hate the government and don't trust them with anything. That's why I vote Libertarian [note the .org :)]. And don't even tell me that I'm throwing away my vote. It's because of that philosophy that we have congressmen/senators with 40 year incumbancies(sp?) making policy about things that they have no knowledge of... E-mail tax, gimmie a f***ing break. Screw the Post Office....whoops, did I say that out loud?... sorry. Anyway...

The lack of diversity of parties, on the other hand, is in my opinion a good thing, since it keeps flakey parties from getting elected with a plurality (instead of a majority) -sometimes of only 20 or 30 percent. For example, Hitler came to power with only a third of the vote - but there were too many uncooperating parties spltting the non-moron vote. Ergo the ass won.

Maybe you should change that to "The lack of a Hitler is a good thing." Cause that's what you meant. That was an entirely different system. Congress does NOT elect our chief executive. Even if the ENTIRE congress supported David Duke for Pres, the people are not that stupid (hopefully). The only thing that a two party system accomplishes is stiffling out change in the interest of campaign supporters. Period.

--MessiahXI
messiah11@mindless.com

Read the RFC

[ajs]

From the RFC:

The registrar will use this RFC as guidance and will not grant the ".GOV" to any new entity which is not listed in the FIPS 95-1 or the US Government Manual or which has not been granted an exception status by the FNC Executive Committee.

This clearly makes a policy for exceptions. The FNC Executive Committee is allowed to make exceptions to the policy at their discression.

Is GOP.GOV a reasonable use of the .GOV space? Perhaps not. Is it in compliance with the RFC? Yes.

gop.org

[Lord_Byron]

It should definately be gop.org. They are not a government agency, and it's time that people started realizing that the Republic and Democratic parties are just two of *many*.

Re:gop.org

[dattaway]

Yes, gop."gov" is more of an organization, not a government body, such as noaa.gov, nasa.gov, or nist.gov.

There should be a line drawn between special interests bodies and official government services.

Political parties and government

[el_chicano]

Comment from Roblimo: ... I believe a political orgaization - and that's what political party is; it's certainly not a government agency - should be an ".org", not a ".gov".

In a two-party system like ours, a political party's role depends on whether it is in power or out of power. In power it is the government, out of power it is an organization wanting power. But it should not be two hard to check on whether a party is acting as a government entity (i.e., when it is looking out for the public interest) and when it is acting as a private organization (e.g., when it is looking out for its own interests).

In theory that is; in practice it is not often easy to tell which is which...

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Re:Political parties and government

[el_chicano]

Ok, first off, we Americans do NOT have a two party system. We have always had multiple parties. It's just that most TV brained people can't keep up with more than two. It's thankfully changing though.

I hate to tell you this but this tendency towards a two-party system predates TV. You are partially right when you say that there have always been multiple parties, but the system is set up to encourage two main parties.

Other parties are formed when the two "official" parties lose touch due to the rise of a new political reality. They are usually small, single-issue parties and very often disappear. Sometimes they grow and become one of the two dominant political parties (like the GOP did circa the Civil War when the other parties became paralyzed by the foremost issue of the day: slavery).

If you would like to learn more about the political party system in the U.S., be sure to read Dynamics of the Party System : Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States by James L. Sundquist. It illustrates how political parties must remain relevant or they will either die out or be absorbed by another party.

And yes, I studied Political Science and History in college... :-)

--

Low quality of advice

[Yarn]

At some level, a person advising the republicans has ignored the RFC. I'd expect this has happened at a fairly high level, and I agree it should be a .org, something like gop.republicans.org. (although republicans.org is probably taken by someone for some stupid irc vanity host.)

Should be .org.

[andyschm]

The fact that the democratic and republican parties are commonly associated as a 'subdivision' of the house is really just a sad result of the lack of political diversity in USG. No single party should ever be able to claim that it is an integral part of the government. .gov domains should be reserved exclusively for the offices and branches of the government... a party is just a private interest group of people.

Re:.org != non-profit

[mattdm]

for their isp stuff, maybe. for the rest of it, no.

--

Uh...

[jperret]

I'm certainly missing something here.
Macki says GOP.gov is a violation of the RFC and shouldn't be allowed.
Then Roblimo says (roughly) "I don't agree with Macki's opinion, it should be GOP.org and not GOP.gov".
Don't you two agree then ?

Confused,
--Jonathan

Re:No, this isn't a mistake, perhaps NOPE

[Jburkholder]

...CAIS.COM, the nameservice provider for GOP.GOV, has a banner image of a major city skyline being destroyed in massive, flaming explosion.

Really! What the hell is that about? It's part of their "Join the risk-free Revolution" logo? WTF kind of company slogan/logo is that supposed to be? Someone please explain because I _really_ would like to know.

Misunderstanding

[MattXVI]

I'm sure it's just a simple misunderstanding. These people have better things to do than keep up with domain-name rules. No doubt it'll be fixed.

(By the way, it's Congressman J.C. Watts, Not J.C. Watt)

Australian Chaos

[Anonymous Coward]

I am in a position to know about some of the internal working in australias capital - Canberra - damn chaotic...

We dont have a .mil.au - instead we have .defence.gov.au. For example our defence web site is http://www.raaf.defence.gov.au/ - not exactly imaginative, but then neither are our websites.

The website i am involved in kicks most of our Gov'ts websites - http://www.airtc.defence.gov.au/

The whole reason this isnt http://www.airtc.mil.au/ is because one lame duck on a desk 'doesnt like it'.

sorta gives you an idea of what goes in in government, doesnt it?



[sorry about Anon Coward - email me on scorpion@australia.airforce.net - btw thats an american company, not our own domain!]

Teo.

well, the rfc sez...

[Lx]

"This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind."

I suppose it doesn't really matter. Seems pretty inconsequential to me, since naming standards are pretty routinely violated.

-lx

Re:No, this isn't a mistake, perhaps NOPE

[johnhebert]

The choice of GOP.GOV does not lead to one thinking that this is the domain name of a standing committee of the House.

This relationship would be better described as RobLimo suggested; GOP.HOUSE.GOV. This is what is intended in RFC 2146.

An interesting experiment would be, as you suggested, to have the Democrats register DEMOCRATS.GOV, or better yet, INDEPENDENTS.GOV, and see what kind of stink that would raise.

Now what I find even more interesting is that CAIS.COM, the nameservice provider for GOP.GOV, has a banner image of a major city skyline being destroyed in massive, flaming explosion. Coming on the heels of the Senate voting down participation in the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, my paranoid conspiracy theory engine purrs...

Cited RFC is not a standard

[trance9]

It says clearly, right at the top, that it is "informational only" and "does not specify an Internet standard of any kind". You cannot violate a non-binding RFC.

RFC's are just requests for comments. They are not necessarily standards. Some of them wind up getting approved through the standardization process, but apparently this is not one of them.

It's interesting that they have the gop.gov domain, but it's not interesting that they violated a non-binding, non-standard RFC.

Re:All these "new" domains are not new

[Jburkholder]

I guess I agree, partly. At one point, I would think a conceptually pure TLD scheme would be in everybody's best interest. But, since its all meaningless at this point, I've given in to the dark side and gone along with the madness...

Tonga, or rather the hey.to domain, has been bastardized fully to my own purposes.

So who gets to register .gov domains now?

[Mr. Slippery]

Can Micro$oft register "microsoft.gov" now, bringing the old joke about MS acquiring the US one step closer to reality?

Can the Reform, Green, Libertarian, and Communist parties get .govs? Or hey, how about an anarchist "no.gov"? Or a Lenny Bruce "fuckthe.gov"? ("If you can't say `Fuck,' you can't say, `Fuck the government.")

Most importantly, can I register EmperorNorton.gov to commemorate the first and only Emperor of the United States?

The Republican and Democratic parties are private entities with no more special legal standing than other parties, or the Church of SubGenius for that matter. If a group of them in the House want a domain, the house.gov admin can give them gop.house.gov. If the party can get a .gov, anyone should be able to.

It probably is

[Gleef]

If it's going to be site of the House Republican Conference, it is not in violation of the RFC, but it's still poorly located. It should be "hrc.house.gov", not "gop.gov", same way the House Committee on Veterans Affairs has "veterans.house.gov".

Their use of GOP instead of HRC makes me particularly suspicious that the intent of the site is for party business, not HRC business. They are using the HRC's government status to get access to an address they would otherwise not have access to. A political party should never masquerade as a government entity, we are not the Soviet Union (nor is Russia anymore).

In fact, I question the need to give the HRC (and whatever the Democrats' counterpart is, the HDC?) official house committee standing. The fact that members of Congress share a party should not be something to form a committee over, it should be an unofficial caucus at best.

----

Re:It probably is

[MattXVI]

In fact, I question the need to give the HRC (and whatever the Democrats' counterpart is, the HDC?) official house committee standing. The fact that members of Congress share a party should not be something to form a committee over, it should be an unofficial caucus at best.

Then you truly, truly, don't know how Congress works on a day-to-day basis. The member runs around all day meeting constituents, attending to lots of committee meetings, occasionally making speeches, going to hearings, and voting in the full House. They have only a small amount of time for learning about legislation, or party work. The Conference Committees keep members from duplicating tons and tons of effort. Most of the bills Congress votes on are incredibly complicated and non-controversial. The Conference Committees are essential to sorting all of this mess out. They are a vital organizing element of Congress.

Re:It probably is

[SEE]

In fact, I question the need to give the HRC (and whatever the Democrats' counterpart is, the HDC?) official house committee standing. The fact that members of Congress share a party should not be something to form a committee over, it should be an unofficial caucus at best.

I agree that it's questionable whether or not it should be an official part of the government; but the fact is that the HRC (like its Democratic counterpart) is provided for in the House rules (established in accordance with Article I Section 5 of the Constitution).

Re:It probably is

[Gleef]

First off, I did a little more research. The HRC already has a server at http://hillsource.house.gov. Their equivalent for the Democrats is the House Democrat Caucus, and they have a website at http://dcaucusweb.house.gov. Since the HRC already has a server at a meaningful location, why would they need another at a misleading location?

Secondly, if the purpose of these groups is to handle all the complicated technical details, preventing duplication of effort on non-controversial issues, then why are they separated by party? Every technical committee is bipartisan, these are not technical committees. My understanding is that their purpose is to make it easier for those congressmen who want to be loyal party members to see which bills they are supposed to be voting for or against.

Sure enough, a quick look at these websites show them both to be sharply partisan. The HRC opens with bright red text saying "STOP THE RAID", referring to the GOP's stand on recent social security debates. The HDC hides it a little better, but the partisan sentiment is at least as strong on their site.

Again, these are clearly extensions of the political parties, why do they have official government standing? Secondly, why does the HRC, who already have a website, need another one; particularly one whose name carries the implication that the Republican Party is a core government agency?!?

----

All these "new" domains are not new

[ufdraco]

I wish you were right. From http://www.uninett.no/navn/domreg.html:

• .nu - Niue
• .to - Tonga

Both of these domains quite verifiably belong to those countries--and if you notice, the global TLDs section ONLY has .com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net, and .org. Everything else is a country.

/me expresses his disgust at the abuse of the domain name system.

The time to complain about domain names and TLD

[mr]

is long past.

Years ago, non network entites registered .net and non orgs registered .org. In fact, back in the dawn of time before the earth cooled, (the mid to late 80's) you would be steered to the proper TLD.
But as soon as you had to pay for the domain, as long as you had the money, you were able to register what you want.

The time to complain was back when the first non .net and .org registrations happened.

My personal favorite is wildwildwest.net - a domain to promote a movie has exactly WHAT to do with offering network services? Warner Brothers didn't answer my e-mail asking that question, and the InterNIC's e-mail was like "So what".

If they allow GOP.gov, then .edu and .gov are fair game.

What it comes down to.

[cswiii]

The GOP is a political organisation, but not part of the government, nor any governing body. No political parties are written into the constitution; not even a two-party system is suggested. Furthermore, efforts have been made to consider political parties somewhat "privatised" - any donations made to a political party are not tax deductible, for example.

The evolution of the American political process has led people to equate the parties with government, but the fact remains that the Republican and Democratic parties are not part of the government.

To me, the GOP's efforts to secure a .gov, is a brash, overt attempt to usurp some sort of political power, for a private group. Such domains should be reserved for just that -- governmental bodies, lest groups with outside motives use them for political gain.

dot com

[nicksand]

These chaps should definately be under a dot com address, since you buy yourself a senator for about a hundred grand or so.

Hmmm. eSenator.com -> buy yourself an ear in American politics. Methinks I have a new startup idea.

The Evil Empire sets the rules

[RonVNX]

Never mind RFCs. The days of reason are long past. The Evil Empire of the Internet (Network Solutions) has deemed that .com, .net, and .org are all equal, and meaningless in distinction. .org is no longer for non-profits. In fact, Network Solutions encourages everyone to register a name in all three TLDs. (obviously to increase their revenue)

Re:.org != non-profit

[mattdm]

It might now. It didn't originally.

And, actually, it doesn't really fit within the original plan for .com -- Slashdot isn't a company (I don't think). Andover is the company. Under the original plan, they should be slashdot.andover.com. So it's all pretty unclear anyway.

It'd be better if we had a more complicated hierarchical structure (a la usenet) from the beginning -- slashdot.tech.news, or something. But it's probably too late for that.

--

Re:Isn't .gov itself a violation of good sense

[laura20]

Because it was designed (and paid for for many years) under the aegis of a US Government Agency, DARPA (actually ARPA at the time.)

No one made the rest of the world adopt the protocols and RFCs of ARPAnet/Internet; you could have all standardized on JANET's wierd reverse protocol, or stuck with UUCP, or made up something new. But Internet was the biggest and best, and so with that came the inheritance of .gov and .mil as privileged US domains. Ya move into someone else's house, it's rude to lecture them about the layout.

I'll note that no one is stopping other countries from setting up their own nameservers that don't pay attention to .mil and instead only take requests for *.mil.us to reach those sites, if dealing with the heritage really gets up your nose.

Laura

Re:What about Slashdot?

[AndyB]

Check your RFCs. ORG was never for "non-profits" only. It was deemed as the miscellaneous category for people who didn't fit into INT, EDU, GOV, MIL, NET, or COM.

Here's the snippet from RFC 1591, written by Jon Postel himself:

"ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else. Some non-government organizations may fit here."

.org != non-profit

[mattdm]

"ORG" was NEVER meant to be restricted to non-commercial entities, despite the widesspread misconception. Check out RFC 1591:

ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else. Some non-government organizations may fit here.

--

No, this isn't a mistake, perhaps

[MattXVI]

Now that I read this more carefully, I see why they are using a .GOV domain. This group that Congressman Watts is registering is an officially organized committee of the US House of Reps. It is the House Republican Conference. This is just like if, say, the Commerce Committee of the House, or the Appropriations committee of the Senate wanted a domain name. They would also use .GOV Any standing committee of either branch could do this.

I think the source of the misunderstanding here is that you guys think this is something coming out of the RNC (Republican Nat'l Committee) Headquarters-this is totally different. The Party Conference is an official standing sommittee of the US House, and exists as long as there are Republicans on the Hill. The Democrats could do the same thing. Any party could.

Re:What about USPS?

[Surak]

The USPS is only privatized to the point that it is the only government program that is entirely self sufficient. Its still a government agency, and is not a contractor...if it were truly privatized, then other companies like UPS or Federal Express would be to bid for the contract.

What about Slashdot?

[AntEater]

Maybe I'm missing something here but how is Slashdot a non-profit and why does it have an .org domain? If I remember correctly it is owned by a "for profit" type company. It seems to me like the same type of abuse of the TLD's.

Re:usps.com

[Mr. Slippery]

The overall service record of UPS versus USPS is very very one-sided, though, in favor of UPS...They also offer online tracking.

Ever have to deal with their customer service after they damage your shipment? It's horrible, and everyone I've talked to who had to deal with their customer service reps had similar stories.

I need online tracking like I need a hole in my head - I don't care what route my package takes, I just want it delivered quickly and undamaged. And if they can't do that (and they can't), I want a quick resolution, not to have to make eight phone calls to finally have someone come out to look at a computer with its case bashed in, shrug, and say, "Sorry 'bout your luck."

Sorry if I'm ranting, but UPS has managed to make my Permanent Shit List.

Re:usps.com

[Mr. Slippery]

First, a private corporation could deliver the mail at a lower cost and with greater reliability

The USPS gets it monopoly on first-class mail in return for guarnteed universal service at a single price. Doesn't matter if your correspondent is right next door to a major post office, or living in a shack on top of a mountain at the end of a twenty mile dirt road; your stamp will get your letter to them. FedEx, UPS, etcetera, are free to say, "We don't deliver to such-and-such areas," or "we charge a 2000 percent surcharge to anyone not living within twenty miles of a major city."

Is postal mail important enough to warrant government intervention to ensure universal one-price service? I dunno. Most of mine goes right to the recycling bin. (And I mean "right to" - I have a small trash can right underneath my mailbox, don't even bother bringing the junk into the house anymore.)

I tell you this, though: after my experience with UPS's abysmal customer service when they damaged two packages of mine, USPS looks a whole lot better than it used to! Their "Priority Mail" service is a pretty good deal.

EXACTLY

[Chris Johnson]

That is EXACTLY the point. FedEx, UPS, etcetera, are free to say, "We don't deliver to such-and-such areas," or "we charge a 2000 percent surcharge to anyone not living within twenty miles of a major city." And they will, and they especially will if you hao other options. I recently had a FedEx guy refuse to _climb_ _stairs_ to knock on my door- to him, if my (useless) doorbell wasn't working, I didn't deserve 'express package delivery'. (Bugger was carrying my O'Reilly books too!)
The price is almost irrelevant. The real issue is that if it was a private corporation, they would instantly disenfranchise anybody living in that shack at the top of a mountain- thus getting the lower price. Well, other countries may feel differently (socialist ones may actually understand this even better than we do!) but the USA was founded on the concept that _everyone_ counts, and that the government looks after everybody's interests, as best it can- very likely unimpressively, but you have to give it points just for being willing to try. The mail system is a perfect example- it is in fact pretty competitive on price with the private corporations (though you can pay extra to a private corporation whose representative then refuses to bother to knock on your door and squanders the time savings you thought you were buying), but the real issue is what the private corporations will refuse to do because it's a money sink- who they'll put the screws to in order to make better offers to the majority.
Damn right it's socialist thinking. This nation was founded on little carefully chosen bits of socialist thinking. It's a problem when that is lightly brushed aside. Why yes, let's disband the post office! Hell, let's disband the judicial system, and law enforcement, and people can take their gripes and concerns, for instance about fraud practiced by big corporations, or negligence resulting in loss of life, to efficient for-pay courts paid for by the mysteriously immune-from-guilt defendants! Then they can be informed of the loss of their suit through a for-pay mail system that refuses to deliver to an address that won't co-pay (or something- now wouldn't that be profitable: pay to get your mail!). Most efficiently of all, we could have the for-pay law enforcement take notice of these miserable plebian worthless drags on the country, and go out and shoot them in the head, whereby the whole nation can be made to run more efficiently and profitably!

If anybody thinks that isn't sarcasm, go see a doctor...

Re:What about USPS?

[Surak]

For that matter, what the Post Office? Sure, we've got usps.gov, but its also usps.com. Surely the USPS part of the government and not allowed to be a .com.

IRS.Gov? MyName.Gov?

[SEWilco]

There was a recent announcement that the IRS was moving to IRS.Gov, where it used to be at IRS.Treas.Gov. A similar violation of the RFC.

As I've been politically active, I asked NIC.Gov if I can register my name under .Gov also. I wonder how large a staff they'll need to monitor when political clubs drop below the registration requirements and get de-registered.

But I am surprised that AlGore didn't already get GOP.Gov registered to the GOvernment Printing office...