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Friday, February 06, 2004

U.S.: Draconian Penalties for supplying wrong WHOIS Data?

Kieren McCarthy wrote in

The Register:

"[...] Senator Lamar Smith of Texas - chairman of the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee - yesterday produced from nowhere extensions to the 1946 Trademark Act that would make giving false contact information for a domain name a civil and criminal offence. [...] The extensions to the Trademark Act would make the provision of misleading contact details when registering a domain an offence. Not only that but a 'willful' offence - which in American law means three-times normal payout. Also, anyone 'acting in concert with the violator' or 'maintaining or renewing such registration' would also be guilty. In the case of a trademark infringement on the domain 'the maximum imprisonment otherwise provided by law for a felony offense shall be increased by 7 years'. The intention for this legislation is clearly peer-to-peer sharing networks, but by making the provision so wide, it is pulling in millions of normal Internet users and businesses. Not to mention registrars. [...]"

The text of the Bill can be

fetched from the GPO.

The whole measure seems to me somewhat excessive. BTW, would a non-US domain holder e.g. of a .COM domain be imprisoned at the occasion of his next visit to the U.S. if he has forgotten to indicate his recent move to another location to the domain registrar?

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