Nominet says that if you receive any compensation from your site, you're classed as a business and must have your home address made public

Since Tuesday, running a personal website has become a privacy minefield for people using .uk domain names. A recent rule change by Nominet, the company which manages the .uk registry, means that domain name owners whose home addresses were previously kept private may now be publicly visible in online searches. People setting up domain names through Nominet must now also show their full legal personal or business name on the public registration database.



Nominet was previously liberal in allowing individuals who had registered domain names to opt out of having their postal addresses shown in WHOIS search, but now a new broader policy is being strictly enforced. It reads, in part:



Only domain name holders who are "non-trading individuals" can opt out of having their address details published on the WHOIS. In other words, if the registrant is not a business or organisation and – in the case of domain names registered to individuals – you do not use or plan to use your domain name for business, trade (such as pay-per-click advertising, etc.) or professional transactions, you may opt out of having your address display

Andrew Norton, who blogs about politics and statistics on his website at ktetch.co.uk, fell foul of this new policy in May. Nominet raised its concerns with Norton about the content of his site - he includes the email discussion on his site - and shortly afterwards revealed his home address in the public WHOIS search while the matter was still being investigated.

Norton rented a PO Box address to use as his public address while Nominet wouldn't let him keep his details private; but the organisation has now recanted, and hidden them, presumably accepting that his site is - as he said all along - non-commercial.

Nominet’s treatment of Norton suggests that its definition of commercial and professional activity is broad and includes activities where no contracts are made or money changes hands between the website owner and their visitors.



In Norton’s case, Nominet was concerned that he included a link to Amazon for a book he’d written, a pay-per-click banner and a free email list subscription widget on his site. None of these involved Norton entering into contracts with his website visitors, nor directly receiving money from them. It’s very hard to see how any visitor to Norton’s site would be reassured to buy a book from Amazon, click a banner or sign up for a free newsletter by being able to obtain his home postal address.



Norton has made a complaint to the information commissioner over Nominet’s release of his private information.



As many internet businesses are strengthening their customers’ privacy features in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations it’s surprising to see Nominet moving in the other direction. But one clue might be in its use of language. In an email to Andrew Norton, a Nominet representative wrote:



To opt out, you must be a ‘consumer’ i.e. an individual who has registered and is using the domain name for a purpose unconnected with any business, trade (this includes the registration of domain names for monetisation purposes, e.g. pay per click advertising etc) or profession.

This unusual use of the word “consumer” suggests a binary view of the world: website owners are either businesses, or they’re customers. They’re either selling, or (potentially) buying. It’s either all business and professional content, or none at all.



But many people, Andrew Norton included, don’t fall neatly into one category or another. Many bloggers include affiliate links to related products or web hosting on their sites to try to offset their running costs but they’re not set up to be businesses or to turn a profit. And there are many professional people in full time employment who write about their profession or industry, sometimes pseudonymously. Would Nominet insist that the teacher or police officer who blogs on their own .uk domain must reveal their home address to the world?



On Twitter, the organisation has indicated that it won't be absolute.

Nominet (@Nominet) @adrianshort @jimmy_wales @ktetch 1/2 it is not our intention to apply policy over zealously & undermine privacy.

Nominet (@Nominet) @adrianshort @jimmy_wales @ktetch 2/2 We'll reconsider marginal cases & update approach

"It is not our intention to apply policy over zealously & undermine privacy," Nominet's official Twitter account tweeted on 6 June. "We'll reconsider marginal cases and update [our] approach."

In a statement to the Guardian, Nominet said:

"The WHOIS opt-out exists to protect consumer privacy when using UK domain names for your website and it is widely used. In fact over 2m of our 10.5m registrations have successfully opted out, so it is incorrect to draw the conclusion that our rules are prohibitively tight. You have to be an individual to qualify to opt out. Individuals can chose to opt out unless they are trading. "However, we have always felt that when you traded with a website, you have a right to know who the proprietor is. Ensuring these registrants are “opted in” gives recourse in cases of fraud, missed delivery, etc., - and other things you’d expect of trading organisations – any consumer can look up the registrant of a website in the WHOIS and contact them if necessary."

It added:

"Our policy on WHOIS opt-out has not changed in several years. However, we totally appreciate that since these rules were drawn up, the nature of trading online has changed – and there are some grey areas- such as affiliate marketing, pay-per-click etc. In many cases, the definition of what constitutes trading, and what a reasonable threshold is not absolute. We will review our guidelines and policy around privacy opt-outs, as we want a sensible approach that is sensitive to those who rightly wish to keep their details private, and fair to consumers who expect to know who they are dealing with. We will implement any changes we consider necessary."

Even so, independent web publishers struggle to maintain their privacy and freedom of speech online and Nominet’s new rules could make .uk a hostile environment for them. Imagine that you want to run a site or blog that could be controversial. You’re not doing anything illegal, but you have perfectly good reasons to want to keep this activity separate from your professional or family life. You can choose to use a blogging network like WordPress.com or Blogger, or perhaps a social media site like Facebook or Tumblr. But then you’ll be bound by the complex and ever-shifting content and behaviour rules of those platforms. A more reliable approach, if you want to keep your site free from interference and maintain your privacy, would be to go IndieWeb style: register your own domain name and host your site somewhere that permits any legal content.



Take Brooke Magnanti, the writer who made her (pseudo) name with the sex work blog Belle de Jour.



Magnanti hosted (and still hosts) her site on Google-owned Blogger. But imagine if she’d decided to keep more control of her content by registering a .uk domain name and setting up her own web hosting. Under Nominet’s new rules this would be almost impossible. While Magnanti was careful to protect her legal identity and her working pseudonym, arguably a blog about her sex work experiences would itself be classed as commercial. Even if it weren’t, what would happen once she’d got her book deal and linked to the Amazon page for her pseudonymous book? If she were treated like Andrew Norton she’d not just be outed with her real name but her home address too. Is there room in .uk for current and future Belles du Jour?



In a hamfisted attempt to make .uk a safe space for businesses and their customers, Nominet is squeezing out the rich diversity of social, political, cultural and creative independent web publishers. Nominet insists that domain registrants use their legal names and now verifies registrations against the electoral roll – so forget about whistleblowers, critical insiders, dissidents and radical activists setting up on .uk. Yet it's a proviso that's only being applied online. In the UK there’s no general legal requirement to use your legal name or to stick to a single name, even when doing business and making contracts. Provided you’re not defrauding anyone, you could use a different pseudonym for every day of the week. Yet at the slightest whiff of anything Nominet considers to be commercial or professional - which with rules as broad and as vague as Nominet’s could be almost anything - your home address could be revealed to the world, even, as with Andrew Norton, while you’re appealing against their decision.

Of course it doesn’t need to be like this. Nominet could limit its strict rules on legal names and public addresses to websites that literally sell off the page. If I’ve got a link to Amazon, I’m not doing that, but Amazon is. A site that uses banner ads isn’t taking any cash from its visitors. At the same time, .uk could be a genuine haven for independent web publishers with something to say who’d like to take advantage of the UK’s relatively liberal laws on freedom of expression without having to sacrifice their privacy in the process.

Instead, Nominet has made .uk a virtual emirate: open for business, closed for anonymous dissent and diversity if it links to anywhere commercial. We know that anonymity and privacy are often prerequisites for genuine free speech. How dismal that UK citizens who want to speak freely online without being outed now have to virtually emigrate to an overseas jurisdiction such as the US-based .org registry.

As Nominet moves away from being a neutral registry and becomes effectively a regulator, it’s time to consider bringing it under statutory control, making its rules clear, its policymaking democratic and its actions transparent and accountable. Unless and until wiser heads prevail, if you value your privacy, stay away from .uk.

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