(Above: Elliot Silver)
Via Elliot Silver’s blog:
Approved by Gov. Eliot Spitzer Aug, 1, the law will prohibit a person or entity from registering a domain name that consists of the name of another living person, or a name substantially and confusingly similar thereto, without that person’s or entity’s consent if there is specific intent to profit from such name by selling the domain name for financial gain to that person or any third party.
The law does not punish those who accidentally register a name that is or could be confused with another living person’s name.
Violations are punishable by a civil penalty of up to $1,000 for each day the violation occurs.
(direct source: The Adirondack Daily)
Just earlier today I went to the local vet to drop Dixie and I overheard the person next to me telling the secretary to look up his file. He said, “my name is Richard King, can you look it up?” and a moment later the secretary said “I have three “Richard King” here, where do you live?”. this illustrates perfectly the point of multiple people who have same names. Who should get the name then? And why shouldn’t I be able to register anything I want? And how far does this go anyways? I mean, I can rename myself “Elvis”, so should I be entitled to “elvis.com“? And how about first names only, or last names only? Too many holes in this concept.
I really thought New York had enough dumb laws already? I guess not.
ur direct source link is not working!
(http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/articles.asp?articleID=8132)
—-ANSWER——
Fixed.. thanks!
Caution. Democrats at work.
That’s what happens when politicians start making laws about things they don’t understand.
I believe this will be difficult to enforce to say the least. Ordinarily I would think there would be some resistance to this law, but I don’t know who is going to stand up and fight it.
Regarding the “Democrats at work” comment, I think Geoffgo needs to re-read the article: “The law, sponsored by state Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury…”
Ridiculous..
actually geoffgo this is a Republican that created this bill. . . but in reality it’s stupid politicians at work because every NY state senator who voted for this is a moron. It’s one of those “looks good to me (because I don’t know enough about it to bother to figure it out) so I’ll vote for it” laws.
Here’s a hypothetical case, one that could be real. Expecting parents believe they are going to have a girl and her name will be Jane DOe, thus they register janedoe.com, and for 5 years. When their bundle of joy comes into the world, its a boy, and they name it John, and they run out and get johndoe.com.
As this is the only child they want, they decide to sell janedoe.com. There are other Jane Does in the State of New York… so can they sue? Or with a $1K daily fine, is it cheaper for the parents to adopt a boy?
This law is as clear as mud… I pity the first few cases that come about.
mp/m
Approved by the same governor who UDRP’ed his namesakes:
http://domains.adrforum.com/domains/decisions/919828.htm
No wonder there was enthusiasm in getting this passed.
Looks like Register.com and Misk.com are gonna have to move…
I have a feeling that this will be up against the same issues that the state of Utah had when they tried to rule on the competitive use of keyword bidding. It’s going to take a federal law to seal the deal for this type of a law.