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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Seven years jail, $150,000 fine if you donâ??t tell the world your email and home address
By Kieren McCarthy
Posted: 05/02/2004 at 22:13 GMT
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If you donâ??t tell the world your email, home address and telephone number you could face a seven-year jail sentence and a $150,000 fine under new legislation that the US Congress is trying to push past today.

Senator Lamar Smith of Texas - chairman of the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee - yesterday produced from nowhere extensions to the 1946 Trademark Act that would make giving false contact information for a domain name a civil and criminal offence.

His bill (HR 3754) was discussed today at 10am Washington time in his Subcommittee. It was live here.

No youâ??re not dreaming, this is what the Bill proposes. Mr Smithâ??s attempt to â??provide additional civil and criminal remedies for domain name fraudâ?

I wouldnt tell them to kiss my ass, I would tell them to go crawl in a hole and die.

I think it's absolutely warranted. The Harley analogy, on the other hand, is not.

Yahoo address + post office box = no problemo

lol@Lothar

It isn't warranted IMO. If you're paying for that domain name then the information provided by you should be your business and the business of the resgistrar. Most people while purchasing a domain name provide legitimate contact information anyways. The fact that this is geared towards preventing p2p file sharing is really funny to me because most p2p sharing is done directly from a persons own cpu, hence Peer-to-Peer.

That is why, try as they might, p2p filesharing will never be something that can be stopped. Not as long as people have a computer and access to the internet. Sure, they can make it harder, but theres always twice as many people out there working on means of circumventing the prevention methods and in a way that suits the everyday user.

This is what happens when politicians with absolutely no concept of technology try to get involved and do something good.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by Lothar:
I think it's absolutely warranted.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How is it warranted? Most people that register a domain give valid information anyways. However, this opens up a big ass hole for things like identity theft and spam bombardment.

Lets just say that a certain domain registration service required an e-mail address, but when you use it, they start spamming the hell out of your account. If you slap in "stfu@spammer.com", going by what the article says, you would be in violation of law and be fined. All because you didn't want to get an inbox full of spam. This is nothing more than yet another example of the government messing with something they have no knowlege of and had no business getting involved with.

Its already too late to put the identity theft genie back into the bottle.

and proper WHOIS info won't help much.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Arial" size="3">Originally posted by fliptw:
Its already too late to put the identity theft genie back into the bottle.</font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly my point. Why make it easier for them just because some jackass up in DC doesn't know what the hell he's talking about?

Another winner runs wild in the Land of the Free.

Lamar Smith is frequently casted as an outspoken supporter of the RIAA's rogue tactics and increasing government control of the Internet, as one of the drafters of the dubious Patriot Act cybercrime clauses.

Freedom-loving Texans would be wise to oust him.

My opinion about the government and the Internet has always been very simple. The government needs to get its nose out of the Internet and realize that the medium transcends laws and governmental control. Fortunately, we Internet users are a maverick bunch who understand that the system very much polices itself. It's the wild west, and I wouldn't have it any other way.