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.

IV 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, intel- lectual 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; VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:12 Feb 28, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR875.IH HR875 2 •HRES 875 IH Whereas law enforcement, public interest groups, and the pri- vate sector use WHOIS information to help identify those individuals behind websites engaged in illegal and mali- cious activity; Whereas law enforcement, public interest groups, and the pri- vate 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 pri- vate sector use WHOIS information to aid consumer pro- tection on the internet, protect privacy, combat illegal on- line 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 reg- istrars managing the United States top-level domain ‘‘maintain publicly accessible accurate WHOIS’’; and Whereas the NTIA identified WHOIS information as a ‘‘crit- ical tool’’ in its April 2019 letter to the Internet Corpora- tion for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and en- couraged the swift creation of a system that allows for continued access to WHOIS data for parties with legiti- mate interests, like law enforcement, public interest groups, intellectual property rights holders, and cyberse- curity researchers: Now, therefore, be it VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:12 Feb 28, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR875.IH HR875 3 •HRES 875 IH Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep- 1 resentatives that the domain name registration informa- 2 tion, referred to as ‘‘WHOIS’’ information, is critical to 3 the protection of the United States national and economic 4 security, intellectual property rights enforcement, cyberse- 5 curity, as well as the health, safety, and privacy of its citi- 6 zens, and should remain open and accessible. 7 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:12 Feb 28, 2020 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\HR875.IH HR875