Doug’s Mouthpiece – Droug.co.uk

Domain speculating is about to die?

Stupid Domain Things written by Doug Scott

There are always a few scare stories floating around the Domain world, but this one looks as though it could be the real deal:

http://www.internetcommerce.org/Snowe_Bill_Threatens_Domain_Name_Registrants

At first glance, and going by the consumer-friendly “Anti-Phishing” law title you’d think this was nothing to worry about, but the proposed laws extend way beyond Phishing. Many people are concerned that in effect this legislation will add a whole new level of trademark infringement/UDRP legislation which has nothing to do with Phishing/Scam prevention but EVERYTHING to do with enabling big business to grab any domain they want from existing owners, on the most spurious of grounds and with the threat of massive financial penalties to back them up. Is this the end of this:

Various people on Forums have argued that this just an extra measure to rid the world of typo-squatters/cybersquatters, which is generally no bad thing BUT this doesn’t appear to be the case. What the Bill appears to allow is the wholesale trademarking of generic/dictionary terms which in turn then allows the TM holder to grab pre-existing domains that superficially resemble the TM term, even if the domain was registered before the tm. Unless you are prepared to and able to TM all your domains (at $350USD a time) then you could be heading for big trouble (with potential $6 million fines). Federal, State and Local authorities could also use the legislation in this way to obtain domains that they want.

If this is the case, this would allow corporations to circumvent existing trademark/UDRP processes and use this “Hammer” instead to pursue domain names that may only have limited relevance to them. Don’t think that just because you live outside the U.S. that you are not going to be affected by this. The central registrars of .com and .net domains are US-based, will be subject to this law and could therefore take your domains from you if requested to as a result of enforcement of this Act. However, living outside of the U.S. you will have little to no ability to affect the enactment of this Law.

If things are as bad as people are saying (and there a lot of serious domainers and industry bodies getting worried and involved so there may be something in it), then this could dramatically affect the domain name market – at the least it may make people very nervous and subdue purchases/prices.

It seems to be another example of ‘nasty’ legislation being snuck in under the guise of a ‘friendly’ law: We all want to stop/prevent Phishing and Fraud but the parts of the Act that we are talking about here have nothing to do with that. It could be that there’s an element if hype in all the furore so far, but if you have any interest in the domaining market then I urge you to find out more for yourself by using the link above and looking on the various Forums to see what the feedback is.

If you are U.S. based then you also have the opportunity to raise matters with your Senator and/or join petitions. It may be being beaten up a bit, but you don’t want to wait until it’s been enacted into Law before you find out for sure…do you?

Doug

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