Senate Intel Chair Pushes Domain Firms on Russian Influence

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., called on a small group of U.S.-based web domain registrars to take action with regard to alleged abuse of their industry this election cycle by Russian influence campaigns.

On Thursday, Warner wrote to the companies listed in a Justice Department affidavit last month, including Namecheap, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, NewFold Digital, NameSilo and Verisign.

“Information included in the affidavit supporting recent seizure of a number of these domains provides further indication of your industry’s apparent inattention to abuses by foreign actors engaged in covert influence,” Warner wrote in a letter obtained by The Hill.

The Virginia Democrat said the web registrars had provided service to the Russian influence operation known as “Doppelganger,” which created sites that mimic American news outlets — albeit with slightly different web addresses — and pushed pro-Russian perspectives.

The Russian initiative also created other media brands to disseminate Russian content, the affidavit said.

Warner’s call for the companies to address the alleged abuse comes after the Department of Justice seized 32 web domains that Russia has used as part of its scheme to sway the Nov. 5 general election.

In September, the Biden administration denounced Russian efforts to meddle in the U.S. election, which is now less than two weeks away, and announced a plan to thwart disinformation with sanctions and indictments, in addition to web domain seizures.

“In the context of the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election, the prospect of foreign actors impersonating state and local government websites — and seeding narratives related to election outcomes or electoral processes — is especially dire,” Warner wrote in the letter.

He pressed the web registrars to take immediate action to counter the Russian campaign.

“In the interim, your company must take immediate steps to address the continued abuse of your services for foreign covert influence — particularly in the days preceding, and weeks immediately following, Election Day,” Warner said.

“With the prospect of a close election — and declassified intelligence demonstrating the past practice of foreign adversaries in spreading narratives that undermine confidence in election processes — Americans will be particularly reliant on media organizations and state and local government websites to provide authoritative and accurate election information,” he wrote.

Warner did not rule out the possibility that Congress “may need to evaluate legislative remedies that promote greater diligence across the global domain name ecosystem” to address the problem.