The group which manages Web site addresses worldwide may end rules which allow users in some countries to register local addresses with little or no public details. The issues was discussed at an Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) meeting today, which also confirmed former U.S. cybersecurity chief Rod Beckstrom as the group’s new chief executive.

People registering .com addresses are required to give full contact details which are made viewable through publicly searchable databases. However, the rules are inconsistent among country-specific domains. For example, owners of Britain’s .co.uk addresses are allowed to hide their contact details as long as they are not running a business.

ICANN today agreed to launch a working party to investigate whether to standardize the rules. The group will have to decide what is more important: maintaining the privacy of people who run sites, or ensuring that authorities can trace website owners if they need to take legal action over the content of the sites.

The agency also discussed the idea of banning domain operators running automatic redirection services if and when it launches new domain systems. (This could be introducing domains written with non-English alphabets or simply allowing any word to be used for the top level domain – that is, as the last part of the address.)

The ban would stop a repetition of a scheme briefly run by .com operator Verisign in 2003 which saw anyone typing a non-existent domain name being redirected to a Verisign webpage. While the organization billed it as helping people who mistyped addresses, critics saw it as a potential way to cash in with advertising.

As a conclusion to several days of meetings in Sydney, ICANN approved the appointment of Rod Beckstrom as its new head. Beckstrom was director of the US National Cybersecurity Agency until March when he quit in a bureaucratic row, claiming he was under excessive control by the National Security Agency.

Beckstrom says he is not a particular expert on the issue of domain names, but argues his role will be more about diplomacy in bringing together the various individuals and organizations that deal with the subject.

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Entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 2:23 pm under Internet, Politics.

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