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Google says it will ban neo-Nazi site after domain name switch

Google says it will ban neo-Nazi site after domain name switch

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Just hours after being dropped by GoDaddy, prominent white nationalist publication The Daily Stormer attempted to find a home at Google. As of press time, the site’s registration info pointed to domains.google.com, indicating the web giant had taken over services as registrar.

Shortly after the switch was noticed, Google announced plans to drop the site. “We are cancelling Daily Stormer’s registration with Google Domains for violating our terms of service,” the company said in a statement. Later in the day, Google also banned The Daily Stormer from YouTube, according to Bloomberg.

It’s not clear when Google itself became aware of the shifted registration. Google’s domain-management system is available to anyone with a Gmail account, and it’s likely the registration was shifted automatically after the relevant information was entered. Previous registration data indicates Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin is a Gmail user.

It’s still unclear which policy in the Terms of Service was violated. Unlike GoDaddy, the Google Domains’ Terms of Service does not currently include any provisions forbidding users from making violent threats. Google’s contact privacy agreement does include provisions against using WhoIS privacy settings to “to conceal involvement with activities that are... bigoted based on racial, ethnic... or political grounds.” However, the current registration does not seem to invoke any of those privacy provisions, and it’s unclear if the language would apply.

Update August 14th, 8:00PM ET: Google has also removed The Daily Stormer’s YouTube page.