Flawed Anti-Phishing Bill Confuses

Reported by The Electronic Frontier Foundation;

A Free Speech Double Whammy: Flawed Anti-Phishing Bill Would Dilute Trademark Fair Use and Anonymity Protections

“Congress is contemplating a so-called “Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act” (APCPA) that takes an odd view of consumer protection. In the name of stopping phishing schemes, Senator Olympia Snowe has introduced S. 2661, a bill that would expand trademark law, limit consumer access to information about competitive products, and eviscerate key protections for anonymous speech.”

Sounds worthy enough at first glance but – “Co-sponsors are Senators Bill Nelson and Ted Stevens (yes, THAT Ted Stevens).” More on that in a moment…

The bill begins by proposing the illegality of something that is already illegal, prohibiting the use of false information to solicit identifying data from a computer. (Got that?)

It continues to propose the illegality of another already illegal use of domain names by forbidding the use of brand names in domain names, and the use of another’s domain name in emails, on websites, or in web ads which is already actionable under trademark law. Worse, it lowers the threshold by doing little to protect noncommercial and comparative advertising uses of trademarks.

“Unlike current federal trademark law, the APCPA does little to protect noncommercial and comparative advertising uses of trademarks. For example, U.S. trademark dilution law excludes noncommercial, parodic and comparative uses. Under the APCPA, however, noncommercial use is merely a factor to be “considered,” not a clear exclusion, and comparative use is not explicitly protected at all. Given that trademark law simply doesn’t apply to noncommercial uses of marks, such meager “protection” for noncommercial use is unacceptable.”

One last item that ought to seriously irritate many – this bill proposes to force the privacy of the registration information on a domain name to be abandoned. How? All anyone would have to do is send an email alleging some violation of this new law and the registrar would be required to provide a customer’s personal identifying information.

Mind you, this is co-sponsored by THAT Ted Stevens! For those who might not know;