It's for real, but the impact on our privacy, our future, our grandchildren's way of life, etc etc etc, is a little oversold. OK, a lot oversold.
First off: The decision only impacts .US domain names. So if you have something like wasasister.com registered you aren't affected.
.US has been around for 20 years and was used exclusively by schools, governments and the like until a couple of years ago. In '02 the NTIA opened it for public use with the stipulation that the registrars had to be either US citizens, have a business in this country, or some other direct connection to the USA.
When NTIA allowed 3rd party registrars to start registering .US names, the contract they used apparently stipulated that the registrars were required to collect and make available accurate registration information for the name holders. NTIA is now interpreting this to mean that anonymous proxies, which are used by about 10% of the .US registrars, violate the terms of the registration; the NTIA doesn't have any way to confirm the registrant's info with the registrant directly, because they can't see the information.
Why is NTIA doing this? Maybe they think Osama is trying to buy up all the good .US second-levels. Maybe someone registered Bushsucks.US using a proxy and that was the last straw.
The privacy geeks have their knickers in a twist over this, but the only ones really affected are the .US registrants using proxy registrations, who must now either move to a non-.US domain name, give up their vitae, or fight it out in court.
Isn't it ironic that the "petition" on Godaddy's site requires petitioners to include their name, address, Email address and phone number? And that you can't sign the petition without all the above? I'll bet a mocha latte that the signees wind up on Godaddy's spam list. (Not that it would be a bad thing.. their spokesmodel has a great rack.)
A Slashdot post puts it best, I think: (spelling not corrected)
- If you are doing something that you know is going to be a lightning-rod for whacko's, depending on an Anonymous domain registration is going to get you killed. the minimum would be a registering under a DBA owned by a corpartion, owned by a DBA, owned by a corpartion formed in another state by a DBA owned by a corparation, using a mail-drop as an address, forwarding to a P.O. box, and phones answered by a staffed answering compnay, forwarding calls to an unlisted number.
The inability to hide one's identity behind a .US TLD address registration is trivial anonymity IMHO. And why go all nucular on this issue, when there are much bigger privacy fish to fry -- starting with the healthcare industry and its requirements for your Social Security # ?
The registrars like Godaddy.com are just p'd off because they promised their customers anonymity when they had no right to do so, and now they have to make up for it. It's going to cost them time, money, and hassle. Best to get out front of the issue by waving the constitution around.