Week 5 EOC: Legal Issues Surrounding The Internet

There are many issues surrounding the invention of the internet we have to be aware of after its invention, and now, explosive expansion. The legal issues I have decided to discuss are domain name issues, free speech, and spam.

As far as domain name issues are concerned, many issues arise from something called cybersquatting.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization or WIPO (http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/studies/publications/domain_names.htm), “...which involves the per-emptive registration of trademarks by third parties as domain names. Cybersquatters exploit the first-come, first-served nature of the domain name registration system to register names of trademarks, famous people or businesses with which they have no connection.... As the holders of these registrations, cybersquatters often then put the domain names up for auction, or offer them for sale directly to the company or person involved, at prices far beyond the cost of registration. Alternatively, they often keep the registration and use the good name of the person or business associated with that domain name to attract business for their own sites.” This is deemed an unfair practice, and there have been many disputes over this. That is why WIPO created the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, which permits complainants to file a case with a resolution service provider.

The issue of free speech has been brought up a few times in class. The most prominent example that sticks out in my mind being “First Monday In October.” But that had to do with porn on a film basis. This example has to do with it on the internet. The first case addressing the issue was Reno vs. American Civil Liberties Union. This attempt by Janet Reno to go against the ACLU in an attempt to protect minors from pornographic material. On a website for Berkeley Students (http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i206/f97/GroupH/privacy.html), it states that, “The Supreme Court found the Communications Decency Act to be unconstitutional because the expressions "

'transmissions' and 'patently offensive display' were so vague as to abridge First Amendment freedom of speech guarantees. Striking about the decision is the fact that the entire court found the statute unconstitutional; only O'Connor and Rhenquist did not join the majority opinion, yet wrote a concurring opinion. The Court did not agree with the Justice Department's argument that the Communications Decency Act was needed in order to attract more people to the Internet (and thereby enhance Internet commerce) because there is no indication that pornography on the Internet is driving away potential users.” It was struck down by the Supreme Court, but resulted in Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to effect the internet.

And for the last issue, spam. Everyone hates spam. But some people do actually purchase items from spam, which motivates the spammers to keep at it. As stated on the website for the Washington State Office of the Attorney General (http://www.atg.wa.gov/internetsafety/spam.aspx#.UnW58vlJOAg), “The Federal Trade Commission, the agency with jurisdiction to receive and investigate spam email complaints, reports receiving over 130,000 complaints a day. Almost 45 percent of all email is now spam and that number is growing each year. Nearly three trillion spam messages are sent each year — 13 times the total snail mail delivered by the U.S. Postal service. The average wired American is hit with nearly 2,200 spam messages annually — this after most ISPs have filtered 80-90 percent of the junk messages. Some reports indicate that these numbers could increase by five times in the near future. Junk email is an issue not only reserved for individuals — it is estimated that spam costs legitimate businesses $9 billion dollars a year.” It looks as if spam is here to stay, because it is too difficult to attempt to catch and regulate all illegal spam. The best way to protect yourself is to do things like use your spam filter, don't put your email address out on a public site, and just plain ignoring spam and not replying to it.