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Noteworthy nonprofits, civic organizations and religious groups have embraced the domain — and so have a host of bad actors. All reaped the benefits of dot-org’s association with credibility.
Educational institutions unwittingly shape misperceptions around dot-orgs. Many colleges and universities, including Harvard and Northwestern, steer students in the wrong direction. They equate dot-orgs with nonprofit groups and issue no warning of the dangers lurking beneath the domain’s positive aura.
Dot-org is the favored designation of “astroturf” sites, groups that masquerade as grass roots efforts but are backed by corporate and political interests. One of these is the Employment Policies Institute, which claims to sponsor “nonpartisan research.” It was actually founded and run by the head of a public relations firm that represents the restaurant industry. Another dot-org, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, says it addresses major social problems through “broad-based grass roots outreach.” In reality, it was founded by the billionaire Koch brothers and many of its “grass roots” activists are paid.
There’s an even bigger risk to equating dot-org sites with do-gooders. Dozens of neo-Nazi, anti-LGBT, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant groups bear the dot-org seal. A random sample of a hundred organizations designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 49 percent carry the dot-org domain.
“Typically the domain name system is not an appropriate tool to address website content questions and speech issues,” said Shea, the Public Interest Registry spokesperson. “That said, if a site on a .org domain engages in specific threats of violence, we would not hesitate to take action on it under our Anti-Abuse Policy.”
A 2019 United Nations survey showed that citizens the world over have lost trust in the internet. Restoring it will take herculean efforts. The groups that control the internet’s domain system could lead the way by being honest about what these initials do and don’t represent.
The Public Interest Registry and Ethos Capital could channel some of the millions earned from the dot-org mirage to fund initiatives that educate the public on the domain’s shortcomings.
They can start by adding a bright red asterisk to their royal blue logo: “Dot-org implies nothing about an organization’s intent. Buyer Beware.”
Sam Wineburg (@samwineburg) is the author, most recently, of “Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone)” and the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University, where Nadav Ziv is an undergraduate majoring in international relations.
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