Via DomainNews.com:
“US Senator Olympia Snowe introduced S. 2661, the “Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008″? (APCPA). The bill was also cosponsored by Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Ted Stevens (R-AK).
The bill threatens to derail domain names as we know them. The bill seems to be hidden under the “Anti-Phishing”? title but contains provisions that are largely unrelated to these objectives and that radically and unnecessarily expand the rights of trademark owners to essentially provide them with monopoly rights on registered trademarks to the detriment of millions of individuals and businesses engaged in lawful and legitimate Internet commerce.
Find out more about the Snowe bill and sign the petition to stop the bill at www.SnoweBill.com.”
More about this overreaching bill here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
(Photo by AP. Image source)
The author of the bill appears to have blogged about it:
http://blog.thehill.com/2008/02/29/protect-internet-consumers-from-fraud-and-theft-sen-olympia-snowe
Everyone ALREADY agrees that Phishers and Spammers ARE the scum of the Earth, and the law ALREADY says they ARE criminals.
The IDEA of the proposed legislation is PROBABLY good, but like so many other things, it can, and WILL, be mis-used by over-zealous lawyers and mis-interpreted and mis-applied by an ill-informed and over-reaching judicial system. ( “¦ Sorry for all the hyphens “¦ )
Won’t “have to waste time in court” (??) “¦ it bothers me, that in this society built on and based in LAW, there are those that see due-process as just another obstacle to overcome.
Grandstanding politicians are always trying to pass NEW laws trying to “˜criminalize’ illegal behaviour, but correct me if I am wrong, isn’t the definition of a criminal, “one who doesn’t obey the laws”??
More of the same old feel-good but utterly useless legislation.
Try enforcing the laws you already HAVE, and when you can satisfactorily accomplish THAT, then I will give the new proposal a look.