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

Follow the money

[jfarnold]

Only the person with the most money will be able to hold the domain in any legal kerfuffle. Look at what happened to etoys.com.

Re:Follow the money

[DigitumDei]

I tend to disagree, free speech says you are free to voice your opinion. Does it state you are free to disguise it, or trick people into hearing/reading it?

I agree this is VERY arguable, which is why I called it dubious rather than wrong in my previous post. I just think that to draw an analogy, this would be like an 19th century politician disguising himself as the opposition, getting up onto a soapbox and totally destroying the oppositions reputation and then ripping off the disguise at the end and say, "hey, by the way, its me, not him".

Okay, maybe a bit extreme, but it is similar. :)

Freedom of speech should be the freedom to express your views as you, not as your opponent. And putting a disclaimer on the site (which he has done) is not good enough in my opinion. He has already lead the person to the site under false pretences.

A lack of class

[laetus]

Personally, I think the cybersquatting shows a lack of class. I voted against Van Hollen in the last election, but I don't condone what his opponent is doing for one reason, in that you shouldn't work to silence your opponent in a political election in a republic.

Floyd is wrong on this one, big time. By attempting to suppress Van Hollen's website and ideas, he's tarnishing his own reputation.

Re:Should have linked....

[beaverfever]

This site has a lot of vague accusations without real facts and/or background to back them up. I'm not saying any of the content on this site is correct or incorrect, but you'd have to be pretty gullible to believe any of it presented as it is.

Just by scanning it quickly I suspect some of it may be misleading. For example, saying he is anti-business could mean he has voted in favour of some environmental control (which by the standard of many is 'anti-business'). Also, the section listing items he has voted for doesn't mention that these vague, nasty sounding votes could have been for bigger, worthy bills with silly amendments buried in them, as happens all the time.

The content of this site reminds me that in modern US politics candidates for office can say just about anything they want about an opponent and the onus of clarification or disproving any misleading or false accusations is on the accused.

I can't say whether or not the practice of using the URL is valid or not, but I would consider the content of the site to be piss-poor at best, misleading at worst. Actually, the worst would be bald-faced lies, but I'm not going to start checking facts. Regardless, there is no shame in US politics today.

Re:The anti-Van Hollen site is junk

[Shakrai]

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

Too bad they usually win anyway. This is where I start to get disillusioned with American politics -- not when third parties are excluded from the debates. But when idiots like Karl Rove can run an advertisement accusing somebody like John McCain (five + years in the Hanoi Hilton) or Max Cleland (lost three limbs in Vietnam) of being unpatriotic... and it fucking works!

Bah! It's sickening.