[registrars] FOISA
SUMMARY OF U.S. HOUSE HEARING ON INTERNET DOMAIN NAME FRAUD At the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Hearing on February 4, 2003, representatives and witnesses discussed the proposed adoption of the "Fraudulent Online Identity Enforcement Act," a bill which would amend the Lanham Act (or U.S. Trademark Act) by providing for additional criminal and civil penalties for domain name fraud. Specifically, the bill contains proposed penalties for violations of the Lanham Act, and specifically for infringement, where an infringer or the person acting in concert with the infringer "knowingly provided material and misleading false contact information to a domain name registrar, domain name registry or other domain name registration authority in connection with the online location or in maintaining or renewing such registration." The bill also calls for enhanced sentencing for willful provision of false contact information in connection with an underlying criminal conviction. Testimony and Q&A centered on the issue of inaccurate WHOIS data. Testimony was offered by the International Trademark Association (INTA), the Copyright Coalition on Domain Names (CCDN), the International Anticounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) and Alice's Registry. INTA cited examples of inaccurate WHOIS data, alleged that many accredited registrars have been lax in investigating and cleaning up registrations and alleged that ICANN has not taken any concrete steps to improve WHOIS accuracy. CCDN characterized the proposed legislation as narrowly tailored since it targets only "bad actors" (take your own reading) and pointed to the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, the Truth in Domains Names Act and the CAN-SPAM Act as providing precedent for Congress to legislate against "abuse of the domain name registration system" in this instance. IACC stated that the WHOIS "problems" were the result of "inadequate obligations" on Registrars to check information and the ease of applicants to submit false information and to continue using registered domain names. Rick Wesson testified that he had proposed a service "Fraudit" to increase WHOIS data accuracy at the 2002 Shanghai ICANN meeting but was surprised that "registrars were somewhat angered to learn that someone had come up with a solution to the Whois data accuracy problem." (I wasn't at the Shanghai meeting so I don't understand the reference.) He went on to state that he realized "ICANN, gTLD registries and accredited registrars had no intention, desire or incentive to audit their registrant data" and therefore withdrew his product from the registrar WHOIS accuracy space. He then stated his support for the proposed legislation but added that the legislation has no provision barring registrars from accepting fraudulent registrant data or requiring a registrar to verify registrant data. He went on to add that with "simple regulation that registrars validate the accuracy of their Whois data, then law-enforcement can uphold the law." Testimony can be accessed at the following: http://www.house.gov/judiciary/courts.htm First, I would strongly recommend that registrars take their own counsel on the interpretation of the proposed legislation, a copy of which is attached. I also would take issue with many of the aspects of the points made in the testimony. My sense is that the proposed legislation has momentum and that it would behoove registrars to weigh in in the appropriate manner. <<smittx_057_xml.PDF>> Let me know if you have any questions. Regards, Brian Attachment:
smittx_057_xml.PDF
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