youthforvolpe.ca update
Looks like this story actually had a bit of legs over the w/end.
According to Stephen Taylor (OK, if a guy calls himself a Conservative Party pundit, he's not exactly an impartial source), the registrant of the youthforvolpe.ca domain name (previously anonymous) forwarded him an email which suggested that the domain was put into suspension, not because the registrant info couldn't be confirmed, but because the domain was registered for the purpose of defaming somebody.
The name and hence the web site is back online with the registrant info of Andrew Lefoley, as of Sunday. The previous registrant of the name was the clearly fake and relatively unhumourous homage to Porky's: Mike Hunt.
This actually brings up some fairly relevant questions (setting aside the question about whether the email Taylor has posted is genuine):
- Did the Volpe campaign threaten the registrar? It seems pretty likely to me (if they cited the defamation provision as a justification for pulling the name). Someone at the registrar made a decision to pull the name and I seriously doubt they got a legal opinion about the defamatory nature of the site. More likely is that they got a threat that they would be named in a defamation suit unless they took the site down by invalidating the registration.
- Why is this provision in the CIRA rules if it can be so arbitrarily interpreted? CIRA is claiming they took no action, but these clauses seem to indicate that they COULD do something if, in their judgement, a .ca domain name was registered for the purposes of defamation. I'm no lawyer, but this site is parody and is pretty clearly protected, no? I for one am not too comfortable with having registrars and CIRA make these decisions.
