Political Cybersquatting Or Free Speech?

Although plenty of people have purchased politically linked domain names as a form of protest in the past, now they're being used as part of organized campaigns. In Maryland's 8th district Congressional race, Republican candidate Charles R. Floyd purchased three domain names (VanHollen2004.com/net/org) that one might think would represent Democrat incumbent Rep. Chris Van Hollen. Instead, these sites carry criticism and a bit of mockery. Floyd says Van Hollen should've registered these domain names himself, and previously used the same tactic in the primary. Is this cybersquatting, or is it a fair expression of political speech?

Comments

Should have linked....

[julesh]

The site in question

I think people should look at this before commenting.

UK too...

[REBloomfield]

This was recently done in the UK, when the Labour Party purchased three URL's, involving the name of the leader of the Conservative party.

Story

Personally, I think our Government should be given a slap and made to hand the domains over. They've obviously done it as a form of political canvassing, and it's plain wrong.

The anti-Van Hollen site is junk

[TrentL]

Any politician who claims that his opponent "votes for terrorists" instantly loses any credibility with me.

This isn't the first time

[Colonel Cholling]

Karl Rove once spent a lot of time and money buying up anti-Bush domain names, then redirecting them to the Bush webpage.

Cybersquatting Double Standard

[Mstrgeek]

This site has some good poins to ne made about Cybersquatting and how it can viewd as a double standard

http://unquietmind.com/cybersquat.html

What is your take on this sites view of the issue?

Re:It's free speech.

[dapyx]

That site was not made, nor approved by Kerry.

Cybersquatting and possibly libel

[aussie_a]

In Australia we don't have the right to free speech. Instead we have what we aren't allowed to do defined by laws, and anything else we're free to do. So Australia's libel laws may be a lot harsher then America's. But in Australia this would definitely be libel (in some states of Australia he could get away with it as it isn't libel if it's true, but this isn't the case in all states).

As for cybersquatting, yes this definitely sounds like it. WIPO has the following criteria in determining if someone is cybersquatting.

1. Is the domain name identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which Complainant has rights?
2. Does Respondent have no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name?
3. Was the domain name registered and used in bad faith?
4. Has the Complainant engaged in reverse domain name hijacking?

I think the main point in this is #3. A quote from a similiar issue talking about issue 3 is...

Complainant presented clear evidence that Respondent's activities fall under Paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy, namely that by using the domain name, Respondent has intentionally intended to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to its website by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation or endorsement of Respondent's website.

The uncontroverted evidence shows that prior to notice of this dispute, Respondent's domain name resolved to a website referring solely to Complainant's competitor Shutterfly, and containing links to Shutterfly's website. That Respondent's website was directed toward Complainant's customers, and not generally to those seeking "free opinions" about high technology products, was clear from Respondent's prominent use of the phrase "Already have an Ofoto account? Give Shutterfly a try...". Respondent's website was devoid of any mention of an "Online Forum Of Free Opinions" until after Complainant contacted Respondent.

(From here)

Not exactly the same, but I think it has the same feel as this situation. I'd personally not be completely against this except for the quote "loyd says Van Hollen should've registered these domain names himself" that just makes me angry and (imo) is ridiculous. I use the same forum name on many forums (except this one) should I be forced to register it to stop someone from one day creating a hate-site about me?

Re:Hard to say.

[scrm]

More than that, there is even a disclaimer on the bottom left of the page, with a link to the real site:

This is not the official site of Congessman Chris Van Hollen, just in case you can't tell. His official site can be found at: www.house.gov/vanhollen.

There's nothing wrong with this site. Registering the domain was a cheap tactic, but it shouldn't sway most educated people who will always search for both sides of the argument.

Not just intent to sell back...

[crashnbur]

I keep reading a bunch of "definitions" of cybersquatting relying solely on the intent to sell a domain name back to its intended owner, but there's more to it than that according to US law:

According to the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, cybersquatting is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.

Yes, intent to profit has a lot to do with it, but bad-faith intent is all that's necessary for such activity to be considered cyber-squatting. Punishments are only much worse for those intending to profit from it. Besides, since when is profit limited to money? The additional attention via registering your political opponent's namesake domain name allows extra persuasion of voters, and that's a profit... or else, what is your definition of profit?

Re:Mhm?

[gclef]

No, we're a fairly liberal bunch, actually (Maryland's pretty left-wing compared to much of the US)....it's just our reps (or candidates for the job) are occasionally asshats. I'm sure you can sympathise.

I'm a candidate

[gCGBD]

I am a candidate for State Representative (Green Party) and the first thing I did when I decided to run was to register a bunch of domains to minimize chances of this happening to me.

Unfortunately it is impossible to think of all the possibilities, and the more you think of the more it costs.

There is some sort of tradeoff and risks you have to take in this sort of battle. The campaign doesn't really have a lot of time to worry about shutting these things down (with election deadlines looming), and certainly as a third party candidate we don't have any money.

Also, web sites are still not terribly effective ways to market to most voters. For example, in the district I'm running in, there are 110,000 voters (plus who knows how many new ones?).

My website draws maybe 100 hits on a good day.

Even if I got that hit rate for an entire year, and even if we assumed they were all hits from people in my district, that would still leave over 95% of the voters who didn't bother to check it out.

An even smaller percentage might hit anti-me campaign sites....

Precedent

[michaelmalak]

In another Maryland case involving Robin Ficker, a federal judge ruled in favor of the cybersquatter. This is in contrast to the Falwell case, where Falwell was successful against a cybersquatter merely because he had a trademark on his name. As I pointed out in my post, this amounts to trademarking a religion, and thereby quashing speech critical of that religion.

The courts have ruled: you may mock politicians, but not televangelists.

Re:Precedent

[Mr. No Skills]

Is "Apple.com" protected because it is a trademark? Maybe the answer is for all of us to trademark our names to give some more legal strength.

I was really surprised Floyd did this after the experience with Ficker in the primary. He can't have thought he came out of that looking good. Legal? Yes. The right thing to do? Probably not. Its the kind of trick done by someone that doesn't have much positive to run on. Of course, a Republican in Montgomery County Maryland doesn't stand much of a chance anyway.

squatting?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we are redefining squatting?
registering disney.com back in 88 in the hopes that later, when disney became aware of the internet they would want the name is squatting.

Seeing that hillary might be a contender and registering hillary2008.com for the purpose of expressing ones disagreement with her platform is NOT squatting. She is perfectly free to register hillary08.com, hillary.com, hillaryusa.com, votehillary.com and hundreds of other domains.

Maybe if one were to register a significant portion of these domain names, thus preventing someone else from coming up with an easy to remember alternative there would be reasonable grounds for complaint. Such tactics could backfire as well, in a political campaign.

A countrary opinion or political opponent shouldn be allowed to have it's own 'catchy' URL. It's a sword that cuts both ways and these days, doesn't a candidate and hs campaign show a lack of savvy if they don't exploit this. One might construe a similar lack of savvy in other areas.

That said, some creative work and bennie.com will show up on the first 50 pages of anyone looking for info on schwartz, even if he has registered schwartz.com

World Intellectual Property Organization

[bigtangringo]

http://wipo.int/ is typically who you go through to resolve probelms with domains, however someone's name isn't really "intellectual property"

It also costs upwards of $2000 to start a dispute, which really isn't a problem for a Dem. or Rep. party member, however they would have a hard time proving a name is intellectual property.

As long as it's not libel (printed slander, aka lies) the domain owner should be fine, even if he does need a lawyer.

Someone ready the EFF batphone!

Re:Not that extreme.

[techsoldaten]

The tactics you mention are part of a broader set of activities known as voter suppression and they are standard fare for winning elections. Besides telling people to vote on the wrong date or implying there will be negative consequences to voting, parties use (sometimes) very strongarm tactics to reduce the turnout of their opponent's constituency.

In Florida in 2000, the Republican-controlled state registrar's office 'purged' the voter rolls of ineligible voters. This has been shown to include as many as 8,000 eligible voters who simply had the same name as a felon. While voter roll purges were done on a county-by-county basis, the overwhelming majority of people striken from the list were from counties more likely to vote Deomcratic.

Redistricting can be another form of voter suppression. Look at a district map of Texas and you will notice some bizarre gerrymandered shapes. The purpose here is to split constituencies into smaller groups where the value of their vote will be diluted.

M