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lodged a protest against
the legislation proposed by Republican Senator
Olympia Snowe of Maine. A post by EFF Staff
Attorney Corynne McSherry on the EFF
website said "The bill starts off
relatively inoffensively by prohibiting the use of false
information to solicit identifying data from a computer
(this was already illegal, but we’ll let that
go for now). But then it goes on to forbid the use of
brand names in domain names, and the use of another’s
domain name in emails, on websites, or in web ads. This
prohibition is unnecessary: if the use of a |
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation
has come out against the Snowe Bill S-2661 |
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brand name in a domain name
is confusing, it is already actionable under
trademark law. And it is dangerous because,
unlike current federal trademark law, the APCPA
does little to protect noncommercial and comparative
advertising uses of trademarks."
McSherry added "To
make matters worse, another provision allows any Tom,
Dick or Harry to force domain name registrars to reveal
a customer’s personally identifying information by simply
sending an email alleging that the customer has
violated the new law. No need to comply with the
traditional legal niceties of, say, an actual filed
lawsuit or a subpoena that might permit the customer to
go to court to protect her anonymity. A mere
allegation is enough. Sure, phishing is a problem.
But you don’t solve it by rewriting trademark law
and depriving lawful speakers of the chance to keep
their identities private. This ill-conceived
legislation should be stopped in its tracks."
We agree whole heartedly with Ms. McSherry.
(Posted
March 12, 2008) |
