Cybersquatting bill would harm legitimate communication and small business. June 28, 1999 - Herndon, Virginia The Domain Name Rights Coalition (DNRC) is calling for revamping of the "Anti Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act" to protect vital free speech and small business interests. "The bill, as it stands, criminalizes many activities protected by the first amendment," said Mikki Barry, president of DNRC. "Parody, criticism, or even worse, using your child's name in a domain name could send you to jail." The bill, introduced by Senator Abraham (R-Michigan) allows for civil and criminal penalties for use of an Internet domain name that also happens to be trademarked. The Internet is the greatest form of communication ever invented. Protection for big business without taking consumers and small businesses into consideration will stifle the very communication that makes the Internet desirable as a medium of commerce. Trademark law allows businesses to reserve words or phrases so that other businesses in similar fields can't use them. The goal is to protect the consumer from confusion regarding the source of a product or a service. "This bill would make perfect sense if the Internet was categorized into separate areas for cat food and separate areas for automobiles. In the real world, use of Cadillac for cat food and Cadillac for automobiles is permitted. Yet on the Internet, that type of use could make you a criminal under this bill." Recent domain name disputes further illustrate DNRC's fears. Veronica.org is a domain name used to identify a website devoted to a baby girl named Veronica. Veronica is also a trademark or Archie comics. Pokey.org is a website by a 12 year old boy. It is also a trademark of a toy company. Ballysucks.com was used to give consumers information against the Bally fitness organization. "In most of these cases, the innocent users of an Internet domain name could have been charged criminally for innocent speech protected under the first amendment," said Bret Fausett, an attorney with the Boston law firm of Fausett, Gaeta & Lund. "Few of these uses would have constituted trademark infringement, yet they now could become illegal under the new bill. Perfectly legitimate non-commercial speech could be made criminal." Even commercial speech would be adversely affected under this bill. "The large Internet company juno.com may have been criminally liable under this bill. So would amazon.com, yahoo.com, and others who registered domain names in good faith when there happened to be tradmarks in completely unrelated fields," said Michael Doughney, DNRC board member and co-founder of Digex, an Internet Service provider. "If someone had previously trademarked "Digex," even in a non Internet field, we would have been out of business and the board members may have been criminally liable under this bill. " Other Internet start up companies would also have been criminalized under this bill. "InterCon Systems Corporation began using intercon.com in 1989. It was trademarked in another field. This bill could have killed InterCon, the first commercial Internet software provider on the Macintosh platform," said Barry, co-founder of InterCon. "Cybersquatters" is a term used to refer to those who register a domain name with no intent to use it, but instead to offer it for sale. "The very term is perjorative as it pre-judges the outcome. You call someone a cybersquatter,you have already decided that what they did is wrong. That's for a court to decide. There is simply no reason to make criminals out of people who are merely trying to show baby pictures or express displeasure with a company. The court system already does an excellent job of eliminating the real problem." said Dan Steinberg of Synthesis: Law & Technology. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Domain Name Rights Coalition defends the rights of individual and small business domain name holders. For more information, please contact Mikki Barry, President of DNRC at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Voice: 703.925.0282. �
