By CARL BIALIK
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
September 30, 2004; Page A1

The number of anonymous sites on the World Wide Web is surging, influencing political contests, raising concerns about criminal activity and spurring debate about privacy on the largely unregulated Internet.

Of the 42.2 million Web sites whose addresses end in common suffixes -- com, biz, net, org, info and us -- only about 1% of them protect the identity of operators.

But of new registrants, nearly 5% are seeking to shield their names and contact information -- known to users as "whois info" -- according to Name Intelligence Inc., a Bellevue, Wash., company that tracks the industry. There have been 6.3 million new registrations overall so far this year.

A host of new services has sprung up in recent years offering to shield whois info for a small fee, making it easier for hundreds of thousands of Web-site owners to hide their identities. Typically, Web-site owners can buy privacy guards for an extra $9 or so per year, from the same companies that sell domain names.

Customers must provide their real contact information to these companies, known as registrars. But some registrars offer add-on services, such as Domains by Proxy and ID Protect, which hide the name of a Web-site owner and instead show generic contact information. The registrars also screen phone calls and filter e-mails for these customers.

Legal issues surrounding the services remain unsettled, since they are new and largely untested. But people who feel wronged by anonymous sites do have some recourse. Registrars say they share contact info with law enforcement, and sometimes will remove privacy shields when they receive complaints or subpoenas. Some companies have successfully sued to get registrars to turn over contact information of their customers. But people without the means or inclination to sue generally can't find out who's behind the Web sites.

To critics, including some lawmakers, the privacy services are making the Internet harder to regulate -- and create opportunities for mischief. "They're like a pawn shop that doesn't keep good records," says Vernon Schryver, a software consultant and antispam activist in Boulder, Colo. Adds Dennis Soper, a systems administrator at the University of Oregon, "The Internet is supposed to be open. Too many people have been hiding."

But privacy advocates argue that Web-site owners, particularly those who don't operate businesses, shouldn't be required to publish their addresses and telephone numbers in public databases. They point out that whois info is a ripe target for spammers and identity thieves, and that some Web-site owners want to hide their contact information for legitimate reasons.

"People should have the option to hide their personal data from a casual observer, particularly when it comes to issues of free speech," says Annalee Newitz, policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-rights organization in San Francisco.

With their growth this year, anonymous, and often little-known, Web sites have figured into several election-year controversies. Little Green Footballs, an unaffiliated political Web log that uses privacy shields, was an early and influential critic of the disputed CBS News report on President Bush's National Guard service, which the network later was forced to admit relied in part on forged documents. Another site, RNCDelegates.com, published the names of delegates to the Republican convention and the addresses of their New York hotels, as an aid to protesters.

Often such sites can quickly attract readers by following -- or sometimes creating -- big news stories, thanks to links from other Web logs, which can produce prominent rankings when using search engines such as those of Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. WinterSoldier.com, a site that gathers information questioning Sen. John Kerry's war record, ranks in the top 10 of searches for "soldier Kerry" on both Google and Yahoo.

Scott Swett, who says he is WinterSoldier.com's owner and registrant, says he uses a privacy service to avoid angry phone calls about the site. "I've received a tremendous amount of hate mail and a few threats" at the e-mail addresses published on the site, Mr. Swett says. "I figured there was no particular reason to have my personal information on my site."

Whois info played a prominent role in another recent political controversy in Eugene, Ore. There, several Web sites were set up to encourage voters to back departing Mayor Tim Torrey, who had decided not to run for re-election, as a write-in candidate against primary winner Kitty Piercy this November. She is the only candidate for the office.

Supporters of Ms. Piercy ran whois searches on the sites -- RunJimRun.org and TruthAboutKitty.org -- and found that their owners were using a service to mask their identities. But they also learned that the sites had been registered within a minute of each other and appeared to be hosted on the same computer network. To them that indicated the sites were operating in concert as a political action committee and thus needed to register with the state.

In an e-mail, Mr. Torrey wrote that he "had nothing to do with either of these Web sites." He didn't respond to a follow-up e-mail and phone call.

After the controversy, Mr. Torrey decided not to run. RunJimRun eventually registered as a PAC, but no one has come forward to claim ownership of the other site. Elections officials are investigating.

"It's new ground," says Jennifer Hertel, a compliance specialist on the campaign-finance team at Oregon's election division. "It makes it extremely difficult. If we can't ascertain who's behind a particular Web site, how can we proceed with any of our regulatory procedures?"

Other officials are concerned that privacy shields provide a new opportunity for criminal activity on the Web, already a growing law-enforcement concern. Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission, worries that more securities fraudsters will use the services to stay anonymous, though so far he says it's been just a blip for regulators. He urges registrars to confirm contact information before providing the privacy services. "I would hope responsible companies who provide the service for legitimate use provide some screening in line with their social responsibility," Mr. Borg says.

Christine Jones, general counsel for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Go Daddy Software Inc., the fast-growing registrar that pioneered the idea of privacy shields two years ago through its subsidiary Domains by Proxy, dismisses concerns about criminal activity. "The vast, vast majority of people who use this service use it for privacy reasons," she says. She adds that Go Daddy, a closely held company, turns over whois info when it receives what it considers legitimate complaints and cooperates with law-enforcement agencies.

Go Daddy also will forcibly remove identity guards from sites, sometimes without warning, that violate its terms and conditions, she says. The company did just that last year with a site called SchoolScum.com on which high-school students were anonymously insulting each other.

Whois info has never been sacrosanct. Because of loose regulations, many Web-site owners invent fictional identities, like Mickey Mouse, and bogus phone numbers like 555-5555. But registrars field complaints about false information and are supposed to fix it or boot the offending Web site from their system. With the privacy guards, by contrast, the general public has no way to find out who is behind a site.

In some cases, computer-systems administrators have complained that Web sites with privacy guards have unintentionally launched attacks after being hijacked by spammers or identity thieves. But, they say, when they have tried to contact such sites through their proxy services, it can take much longer to get a response.

Registrars say they generally pass important queries on to their customers within a few hours or days, and that it's possible Web sites that choose to cloak their identity are less likely to respond.

Rep. Howard Berman has led efforts in Washington to improve whois data accuracy, but with little success. Earlier this year, the California Democrat co-sponsored a bill that would have placed some liability on registrars to ensure the quality of their whois info. But vigorous opposition led to a bill merely raising the penalty for certain felonies if fraudulent whois data are involved. It remains legal to lie in Web-site registrations.