California Community College Threatens Massive Legal Actions Over Private Domains and E-Mail Addresses

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: May 8, 2009 6:05:10 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: California Community College Threatens Massive Legal Actions  
Over Private Domains and E-Mail Addresses



            California Community College Threatens Massive Legal
             Actions Over Private Domains and E-Mail Addresses

                http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000561.html


Greetings.  It's fascinating how when it comes to the Internet, some
bureaucrats develop delusions of grandeur.

Officials associated with Santa Rosa Junior College, located a bit to
the north of San Francisco, have unleashed a barrage of legal threats
against their students and faculty, demanding the relinquishment of
all domain names and e-mail addresses containing the school's "SRJC"
initials.

This nonsense came to my attention today courtesy of Sean Kirkpatrick,
an adjunct faculty member in Computer Studies at SRJC for around 15
years.  Early this week, Sean and apparently hundreds of other SRJC
"family" members received a threatening e-mail from the Director of
Computing Services for the Sonoma County Junior College District,
demanding that all references that could be construed as referring to
Santa Rosa Junior College in private domain and e-mail addresses
immediately cease.  In subsequent statements ( http://bit.ly/x18bF ),
school officials have even threatened to try order the releasing of
identity information from e-mail service providers such as Google and
Yahoo, to uncover the users of "offending" addresses.

The justification cited for these demands was California Education
Code section 72000(b)(4), regarding use of schools' names or
abbreviations of their names.

A couple of problems immediately spring into view.  First, it isn't at
all clear that this statute supersedes the rights of individuals to
create private e-mail addresses and domain names, the latter in
particular generally controlled by ICANN rules and regulations.

Even worse, it is not obvious how the statute in question would even
apply to individuals in any case, since it appears to be directed
mainly at organizations that might act in ways as to confuse
themselves with the schools in question.

Sean tells me that he had the domain "SRJC.US" for around five
years, and in a knee-jerk reaction closed it when he received the SRJC
threats (he's now reconsidered, and is taking steps to retain the
domain).  Sean has been using SRJC.US simply as the focal point for
teaching his classes -- spending his own money to set this up due to
continuing dissatisfaction with the quality of academic support
provided by SRJC's own computing services.

While there are no doubt a range of different scenarios relating to
various faculty members and students, it appears obvious that SRJC and
associated officials are Overreaching with a Capital "O" -- and need
to sit quietly, gulp down a few stress pills, and then spend more time
thinking about what they legally can actually do, what they should
actually be doing, and what it means to be good citizens of the
Internet community, rather than boarish bullies.

In the meantime, I invite other members of the educational ecosystems
to contact me with any similar stories.

Feel free to write me at my usual address of:

  lauren () vortex com

But for info regarding this particular case, you can alternatively use
my brand new "Special Resources for Journalistic Computing"
addresses:

  SRJC.Loonies () gmail com

or:

  SRJC-Lunatics () vortex com


Be seeing you!

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
  - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
  - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
  for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein





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