Thursday, March 6, 2008

Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008

The major search engines, browser companies, e-mail providers and client software companies have all been making 'reasonable progress' in protecting consumers from phishing schemes and malware-ridden websites.

In the past few days, I've literally been bombarded with e-mails over a recently introduced piece of legislation in the US Senate.

Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) with support of Senator, Bill Nelson (D-Florida) and Senator, Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) have introduced a bill entitled the 'Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008'.

The act, on the surface, appears to be aimed at (1) protecting consumers that still aren't entirely Internet savvy from dangerous websites and e-mail, and (2) to protect Trademark holders from individuals who register websites with their names for the sole sake of profit.

I would guess that the bill will effect a small (possibly large?) percentage of our readers, and that is the reason for this post.

I am going to provide a few links to other articles and perspectives below.

As for me, I'll stay naive and say it's a shame we can't police ourselves. I'm not big on regulations of any kind.

It will also be interesting to see how the larger registrars respond to this bill.

Maybe pose the question at the next YouTube presidential debate ?? :)

Other voices:
From Circle D: John Levine
LexText: Bret Fausett
Coalition of Domain Name Abuse
Internet Commerce Association