Illegal Whois Records may be against the law

February 9th, 2004
By Staff

A proposed new law, The Fraudulent Online Identity Sanctions Act, designed to combat identity theft, will bring down harsher penalties on perpetrators of domain name fraud, according to a report published last week by Medill News Service.

The new law targets people who provide false domain name contact information, increasing prison sentences by up to seven years.

The law reportedly seeks to increase the accuracy of the Whois system, a searchable database maintained by registries and registrars that contains contact information about domain name registrants.

Names, addresses, phone numbers, and credit card numbers are among the information required for the purchase of domain names.

Domain name fraud is often associated with cybersquatting, copyright or trade infringement on the Internet. Publishers of objectionable material are also motivated to provide false domain name information.

The law was proposed by Texas congressman Lamar Smith.