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

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*.

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.

----

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.

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)

.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.

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.