Senators Wyden & Rubio Ask Google And Amazon To Bring Back Domain Fronting

from the it's-important dept

Earlier this year we wrote about the bad decisions by both Google and Amazon to end domain fronting. Domain fronting was a (somewhat accidental) way in which services could effectively hide certain traffic to make it quite difficult for, say, authoritarian regimes in Iran or China to block the traffic. For that reason, domain fronting was an important tool in keeping services like Signal's encrypted communications platform working for activists and dissidents in such places.

Amazon and Google claimed that they never intended to allow domain fronting, and that while it helped those services work in such places it might also lead to much broader blocks by those countries trying to get at the fronted communications. Now, in an interesting move, Senators Ron Wyden and Marco Rubio have sent both companies a letter asking them to reconsider.

Both your companies have benefited enormously from the free and open internet protected by the United States and its allies. Indeed, your previous role in facilitating these internet freedom tools by permitting domain fronting was neither a mistake nor a secret. Senior Google officials have publicly referenced traffic obfuscation with admiration and support. Moreover Google even contributed financial resources to advance research in the field. This technology was a central part of an internet freedom agenda that your companies (and the technology industry more broadly) promoted as a part of its public image.

Regrettably, your recent decision to ban the practice of domain fronting will prevents millions of people in some of the most repressive environments including China, Iran, Russia and Egypt from accessing a free and open internet. Dissidents, pro-democracy activists, and protesters living under authoritarian regimes need access to secure communications enabled by domain fronting techniques to stay safe and organize.

Governments with anti?democratic agendas may put signi?cant pressures on technology companies to help enable their censorship and surveillance of the internet. American technology companies, which have ?ourished in our free and open society, must join in the effort to resist such pressure. While this may seem like a reasonable business decision in the short term, it will ultimately do far more harm to your companies and the network of which you have been a core part.

The letter then presents two specific questions the Senators would like the companies to respond to:

1. What steps did your companies take, prior to prohibiting domain fronting, to determine whether it was possible to prohibit its use by malicious actors, while still permitting positive uses, including US. government-supported internet freedom tools?

2. After deciding to take action to limit the use of domain fronting, what efforts, if any, did your companies take to minimize the disruption to US. government-supported internet freedom tools and platforms relied on by human rights activists, journalists, members of faith communities and civil society groups? What steps have your companies taken, or do you plan to take, to mitigate the effect that your decision to end domain fronting has had on internet anti-censorship tools and platforms?

It's good to see these Senators speak out against both Google and Amazon on this move. Hopefully it leads both companies to reconsider their decision on this one.

Filed Under: activists, authoritarian regimes, censorship, communications, domain fronting, marco rubio, ron wyden
Companies: amazon, google, signal