Title: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that domain name registration information, referred to as "WHOIS" information, is critical to the protection of the United States national and economic security, intellectual property rights enforcement, cybersecurity, as well as the health, safety, and privacy of its citizens, and should remain readily accessible.
Policy area: Commerce

Summary:
This resolution expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that domain name registration information, referred to as WHOIS information, is critical to the protection of U.S. national and economic security, intellectual property rights enforcement, and cybersecurity, as well as to the health, safety, and privacy of its citizens, and should remain open and accessible.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 875 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 875

 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that domain name 
  registration information, referred to as ``WHOIS'' information, is 
 critical to the protection of the United States national and economic 
 security, intellectual property rights enforcement, cybersecurity, as 
  well as the health, safety, and privacy of its citizens, and should 
                       remain readily accessible.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 27, 2020

Mr. Latta submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that domain name 
  registration information, referred to as ``WHOIS'' information, is 
 critical to the protection of the United States national and economic 
 security, intellectual property rights enforcement, cybersecurity, as 
  well as the health, safety, and privacy of its citizens, and should 
                       remain readily accessible.

Whereas WHOIS information is the information regarding who is behind a domain 
        name registration;
Whereas WHOIS information has been widely available since before the dawn of the 
        commercial internet;
Whereas law enforcement, public interest groups, and the private sector use 
        WHOIS information to help identify those individuals behind websites 
        engaged in illegal and malicious activity;
Whereas law enforcement, public interest groups, and the private sector use 
        WHOIS information to make connections among websites that have similar 
        or identical registration information to help identify patterns of 
        illicit activity and prevent additional harm;
Whereas law enforcement, public interest groups, and the private sector use 
        WHOIS information to aid consumer protection on the internet, protect 
        privacy, combat illegal online drug sales, enforce intellectual property 
        laws, identify and stop human, sex, and animal trafficking, as well as 
        in the defense of homeland and national security;
Whereas the multistakeholder community continues to work diligently to create a 
        service that both provides access to domain registrant information for 
        legitimate, lawful needs and complies with privacy laws;
Whereas the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) 
        requires that registries and registrars managing the United States top-
        level domain ``maintain publicly accessible accurate WHOIS''; and
Whereas the NTIA identified WHOIS information as a ``critical tool'' in its 
        April 2019 letter to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 
        Numbers (ICANN) and encouraged the swift creation of a system that 
        allows for continued access to WHOIS data for parties with legitimate 
        interests, like law enforcement, public interest groups, intellectual 
        property rights holders, and cybersecurity researchers: Now, therefore, 
        be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the domain name registration information, referred to as ``WHOIS'' 
information, is critical to the protection of the United States 
national and economic security, intellectual property rights 
enforcement, cybersecurity, as well as the health, safety, and privacy 
of its citizens, and should remain open and accessible.
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