
Be aware of "morality" clauses from domain registrars - zacwest
http://zacwe.st/post/14704028321/morality-clauses-in-domain-registration
======
ceol
The last part of his blog post says he chose Gandi[0] as a registrar because
they do not have this clause, but I found a similar one in their General
Conditions[1] contract[2]:

 _> By accepting Our Contracts and using Our services, You agree to abide to
Our code of ethics which consists, in particular, of protecting and respecting
minors, human dignity, public order and good moral standards, not infringing
on the rights of third parties (private life, image, honor and reputation,
trademarks, designs and models, copyrights, etc.) or the security of persons,
property, the government, or the good working order of public institutions,
and to help in the fight against abusive and/or deviant uses of the Internet
(spamming, phishing, hacking, cracking, or attempts at hacking or cracking),
or any other infraction as cited in the Penal Code._

I don't see anything about terminating your account "in its sole discretion",
though. I personally use Gandi because they have a ton of TLDs and they've
been fast and reliable, but I wouldn't hold it against them if they stuck one
of these clauses in there.

[0]: <https://www.gandi.net/>

[1]:
[https://www.gandi.net/static/contracts/en/g2/pdf/MSA-1.0-EN....](https://www.gandi.net/static/contracts/en/g2/pdf/MSA-1.0-EN.pdf)

[2]: <https://www.gandi.net/contracts>

~~~
anamax
> the Penal Code.

Which penal code?

~~~
andyking
Presumably France, since that's where they're based.

~~~
DASD
Gandi is also incorporated in the US.

\----- Legal Notice The owner and publisher of this website is Gandi SAS, a
simplified joint-stock company registered under French law with a capital of
37,000 Euros.

Registered with the Paris RCS – French Trade Registry - under number 423 093
459. Intracommunal VAT number FR81423093459

Headquarters: 63-65 boulevard Massena, Paris (75013), France Telephone:
+33.(1)70.37.76.61 Fax: +33.(1)43.73.18.51

US office: Gandi US Inc. 124 Lakefront Drive Hunt Valley, MD 21030 Fax:
+1.410-449-4499

~~~
hub_
The US office is a subsidiary. I don't know the legal requirements, but I
believe that in the worst case scenario both US law and French law would
apply. It is my understanding that the registrar is still the French company,
therefor subject to French law.

IANAL.

~~~
einhverfr
So I cant register a domain there and sell memorabilia from Nazi Germany,
right?

------
ohashi
One thing to note, Godaddy has acted on those in the past. I've not once seen
NameCheap do it. In fact, I've seen them take the legal hit multiple times and
had lawsuits filed against them because they didn't move.

[http://domainnamewire.com/2011/05/09/namecheap-sued-over-
who...](http://domainnamewire.com/2011/05/09/namecheap-sued-over-whoisguard/)

[http://www.domainnamenews.com/up-to-the-
minute/solidhostnl-s...](http://www.domainnamenews.com/up-to-the-
minute/solidhostnl-sues-namecheap-and-enom/2070)

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/can-a-
mere-d...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/can-a-mere-domain-
name-be-defamation-glenn-beck-says-yes.ars)

These are a few instances of that, NameCheap doesn't budge on their customers
rights despite it being in the agreement.

Disclaimer: I know the owner and think he's one of the most respectable people
in the domain industry based on my interactions with him over almost a decade
now.

------
sunchild
I wish more people would push back on these kinds of open-ended vague clauses
in consumer agreements. When I represent big clients in arms-length
negotiations, I usually take the position that my client will comply with laws
– no more, no less. That leaves the definition of what is "objectionable" up
to the (in theory, objective) standards of the law.

~~~
CGamesPlay
Which laws? In Internet-related cases, this is often ambiguous.

~~~
sunchild
There isn't anything special about the Internet in this context. Lots of laws
are ambiguous. That's why, in the common law system, we have courts and
precedent.

You missed my point: either the standard is the law, or it's "we'll let you
know when we have a problem with what you're doing".

~~~
pavel_lishin
I think he may have meant, "whose laws"? If you and your client are both in
the United States, and your client only has customers in the United States,
that's clear. But that's also rare.

~~~
sunchild
Again, it doesn't really matter. Most countries have laws and respect the rule
of law. Same principle applies, except places where the rule of law doesn't
hold.

------
hechtic
Registrars have rules set by Registries (For example, Verisign is the registry
for .com, .net). I would assume these rules go back to the original issuers of
the domains.

Regardless, I think that any registrar would have to have some "we reserve the
right to shut down your domains" clause given the number of botnets and other
uncool stuff on the net which use lots of domains (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker#Payload_propagation> for example)

~~~
freejack
Yeah - mostly, sorta... :)

Registries and ICANN do require registrars to include certain clauses in their
contracts with end-users/registrants, but I'm not aware of any that include
vague morality clauses. This document -
<http://www.opensrs.com/docs/contracts/exhibita.htm> \- is an enumeration of
the terms and conditions that ICANN and the registries require us
(Hover/Tucows) to include in our contract with our customers/registrants.
These requirements aren't specific to us.

I was in the room in the late '90s when most of these clauses were negotiated
and then again in the early '00's when the new registries came online
(Afilias, Neulevel, etc.) and most of the new registries just simply absorbed
the existing T&C's in order to smooth out the approval process associated with
them launching their new TLDs. They've grown and evolved in the last ten years
and aren't as uniform as they once were, but generally, you can still see the
pattern in there.

Generally, most of the power a registrar requires to prevent the bad guys from
doing bad things comes from national laws and not all these extra clauses. We
(Hover/Tucows) find that all these extra conditions just make it harder for
our customers to do business with us and so we've left out as much as we can
and rely mostly on national laws to get what we need done.

~~~
morganw
> bad guys

know 'em when you see 'em, huh?

------
nachteilig
It seems that Tucows doesn't have a clause like that, unless I'm reading this
incorrectly.

<http://www.opensrs.com/docs/contracts/exhibita.htm>

~~~
paxswill
That's the the impression I get as well from looking over the ToS for Hover as
well.

~~~
freejack
Yup, that's correct. We can terminate your contract with us and force a
transfer out. We can also suspend DNS and email service if you use us and we
can be required by the registries or law enforcement to take specific action
based on our contract with them and you or national law, but we don't make
special carve outs to extend our rights beyond that already provided under
law.

(FYI: I'm the GM for Hover...)

------
mutagen
NearlyFreeSpeech.net appears not to have any such clause.

<https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/policies/>

As with any registrar / host operating in the US, they will be subject to
court orders.

~~~
8ig8
A little more detail on the topic:

[http://faq.nearlyfreespeech.net/section/domainregistration/d...](http://faq.nearlyfreespeech.net/section/domainregistration/difftos#difftos)

------
tnuc
Avoid .cx for this reason as well.

We all saw what happened to goatse.

------
TomGullen
I honestly don't see a problem with this, it's just a 30 days "we can get out
if we want" and/or covering their asses clause from the business providing the
service. I don't see anything sinister about it.

~~~
nachteilig
My reading of this is not the same. The clause says "after thirty (30) days",
which to me means they can cancel it any time after an initial 30 days.

~~~
eli
No, that comma before "after" is important. They're giving you a 30 days
notice.

------
alanh
Avoid BlueHost for this reason.

~~~
billpatrianakos
Avoid every company on the web for this reason...

~~~
seanp2k2
DNS is broken. Let's fix it: <http://dot-bit.org/Main_Page>

We could also establish a viable alternative DNS root zone and nameservers
that people could use if their country censors the internet. See also: Jon
Postel rolling in grave.

------
CGamesPlay
Just as a thought exercise, I wonder what kind of ramifications we would see
if a registrar shut down a major domain name like google.com or facebook.com
(beyond the obvious lawsuit; what would come of that suit?).

Lost revenue for either company would very quickly exceed the value of the
registrar.

------
LeafStorm
This is especially hypocritical from GoDaddy considering their advertising
practices.

~~~
Joakal
They believe it's good.

If the consumer doesn't, they can walk.

------
nvk
I've been using Hover for quite some time now, they are great.

------
nirvana
Unfortunately, every registrar in the USA has, essentially, a "morality"
clause imposed upon it by the US government. I'm not just talking about ICE
seizures of .com domains, but also state judges ordering that domains be
seized without regard for ICANN rules, and the federal governments widely
healed belief that they can demand people be shut down.

I'd love to find a "no bullshit" registrar that was outside the USA. In a
jurisdiction where censorship is actually forbidden.

Iceland could be a good candidate. [1]

I'm much more worried about a domain being stolen by the US government than I
am by hackers. And that's not because I'm doing anything the US government
shouldn't like... just that, with all these massive seizures, they're going to
get domains by mistake. Then try and get your domain back... ugh.

[1] [http://www.slaw.ca/2010/06/17/iceland-passes-law-to-
protect-...](http://www.slaw.ca/2010/06/17/iceland-passes-law-to-protect-
press-freedom/)

~~~
ohashi
The worry circulating around the domain industry is that they will use
VeriSign and Virginia jurisdiction at the registry level. I can't remember if
this has happened or not yet though.

~~~
freejack
The ICE seizures relied on this.

Also of worry is the nexus created by the Regional Internet Registries (ARIN,
etc.) which manage the address space and associated policy.

ARIN manages the IP address space for US, Canada, many Caribbean and North
Atlantic islands and could easily be hobbled by over-reaching legislation from
any of those national interests - with possibly a much deeper and broader
impact than anything that could be inflicted by similar legislation affecting
the domain name system.

~~~
ohashi
Ah that makes sense. I thought it was used before but I couldn't remember a
specific case; so I didn't want to just spout misinformation :)

------
billpatrianakos
Let's not piss our pants again over this language... Again. That language is
what I like to call "cover my ass" language. By that I mean a lot of companies
add in clauses that sound real bad but in reality they're just standard legal
jargon that lets them cover their ass in the event that they're forced to.
This isn't some totalitarian conspiracy and none of the companies using this
language actually want to or have any interest in canceling your domains. This
is a very insignificant thing. Let's stop getting our panties in a twist over
every little clause in every company's TOS and get back to startups and the
cool interesting stuff that used to get posted around here.

~~~
einhverfr
Forced to is a problematic term though. A company can be "forced to" because
they don't want to stand up in court for the rights of their customers. They
can be "forced to" because not doing so would subject them to bad press or
just look bad.

The problem here is that the terms can be read in a very one-sided way
(leaving aside the questions of adherence contract interpretation) and
therefore all the power in the interaction is held by the registrar.

