IP: House Passes Cybersquatting Bill

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/cyber/articles/27cybersquatting.html

House Passes Cybersquatting Bill

By JERI CLAUSING 


ASHINGTON -- The House on Tuesday passed legislation to crack down on so-called cybersquatting, the practice of buying 
up popular words as Internet addresses in the hopes of reselling them to companies and trademark holders at a hefty 
profit. 
The bill was passed on a voice vote despite a grass-roots effort to slow down action on the proposal, a similar version 
of which has already passed the Senate. 
"This legislation will make cybersquatters think twice before trying to profit off the hard work of others," 
Representative J.C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma, the House Republican conference chairman, said of the bill by Representative 
James Rogan, a California Republican. "Congress acted today out of the best interests of e-commerce as well as simple 
fairness." 

Civil libertarians, however, are concerned that the proposals, which now go to House-Senate conference committee 
negotiations, will trample on free speech on the Internet. 

In an e-mail campaign over the weekend, the Association for Computing Machinery, a group of computer professionals, 
circulated a message to get Internet users to call their congressmen to vote against the bill, arguing that it would 
"grant sweeping new powers for trademark holders and undermine the rights of domain name holders, Internet users, and 
small businesses." 
The group also said the legislation would undermine 

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