❊ The Proper Way To Regulate Lebanon’s Internet ?

Mazen Hayek:

The matter of documenting Lebanese websites is simple and can be solved by issuing a modern law which grants exclusive domain name registration rights to either the ministry of economy or the ministry of telecommunications. The law would mandate competitive registration fees, record keeping methods, copy-rights protection, and jurisdiction under the Lebanese law for dispute resolution.

Most importantly, the law would make clear that the authorities shall never block, suppress or stop Internet and communication services, infringe on the freedoms of publishing and accessing information, or accessing the “treasure trove” of personal user data without a legal warrant.

This is indeed how most modern countries go about it. But there is one big catch: This can only apply to websites with the .lb top level domain of Lebanon.

The trick is to convince website owners to register .com.lb domains and use them. This is a tall order because it requires you to trust the government with your website’s records. There is a good reason why we visit annahar.com , lebanonfiles.com and beirutspring.com , as opposed to annahar.com.lb , lebanonfiles.com.lb or beirutspring.com.lb . Registering our domains with online, foreign registrars keeps our data safe from prying official eyes.

Another reason why we prefer online registration is because we get better prices. Competition among registrars guarantees that I will pay only 8$ per year or less on registering beirutspring.com. If a government monopoly becomes my registrar, I’m pretty sure I’ll be paying much more than that. Just think of the current prices and speed of the Internet in Lebanon.

So why then register .lb domains? The main attraction to content producers like newspapers and TV websites would be copyright protection and dispute resolution under the Lebanese legal system. Indeed, both MTV and LBC have .com.lb domain names, which perhaps makes them more comfortable in publishing their content online. Political protection is also touted as an advantage of registering your website with the government, but that is just rubbish.

But convincing bloggers and websites who can potentially be troublesome of putting their eggs in the government’s basket remains a very difficult task. No amount of legal text can change that, and unfortunately, I can’t imagine a scenario where we will trust the government with our data.