<nettime> US Bill against "Cybersquatting" passed

[Felix Stalder <stalder@fis.utoronto.ca>]

This is vintage politics.  A major issue is buried in a bill that has
nothing to do with it but is unlikely to be vetoed because then the whole
bill would have to be vetoed.  This case it's the a piece of legislation
lobbied by the Motion Pictures Association that gives trademark holders
more right to sue alleged "cybersquatters". And the vehicle in which this
law was passed was the "Satellite Viewers Act" which nominally regulates
cable vs. satellite TV issues.  The has just passed the Senate and now
goes on to the House.

Trademark holders will be able to take the cybersquatters to court in the
country where the domain name was registered (= all .com, .org, .net in
the US). They can seek up to $100,000 in damages against people who
registered the name with the intent of reselling it, infringing on the
trademark or confusing consumers about who is running the Web site. This
$100,000 in damages makes even the thread of a law suit very powerful and
is likely to force small domain name holders into giving in before the law
suit even started. 

Note the above definition of "cybersquatting" as, among others, "confusing
consumers about who is running the web site." This is confusing and
clearly favours major trademark holders and their high-powered legal
departments.

This bill covers one of the main reasons why ICANN has been set up: to
solve problems related to domain name registration.

How does that affect ICANN now? Any comments? 

[Sources: 
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/11/cyber/articles/10domain.html
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2310370,00.html?chkpt=zdnnsmsa]


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  Les faits sont faits.
  http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/~stalder




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