We know the bill is properly known as The Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act of 2008, but to the extent that creates civil and criminal offenses for owning domains having nothing to do with Phishing scams, we are calling it the Domain Stealing Bill.

To this end Mr. Larry Fischer, a brilliant guy and good friend, blogged on the issue yesterday, pointing out cnet.com objection to the bill.

In an article cited by directnavigation.com, cnet.com objected to the bill based on the fact that other legislation already makes Phishing activity illegal, and that the new law therefore did not add any protection to the public.

On the other hand parts of the Domain Stealing Bill make privacy protection basically illegal.

In part, the cnet.com article stated:

“Congress, which, in the spirit of creating a department of redundancy department, is considering new anti phishing legislation that appears to serve no useful purpose.

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Republicans Olympia Snowe (Wash.) and Ted Stevens (Alaska) introduced a bill this week called the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act. It contains 31 pages of new regulations that could raise the cost of doing business for legitimate companies–but will do little to stop the malcontents behind phishing attacks.

Remember, phishing is already a crime. “

“If their bill merely duplicated existing criminal laws, it would be more redundant than worrisome. Except that one section is actively harmful to the privacy of Americans who own domain names and want to protect their privacy. The bill says:

It is unlawful for the registrant of a domain name used in any commercial activity to register such domain name in any Whois database with false or misleading identifying information, including the registrant’s name, physical address, telephone number, facsimile number, or electronic mail address…

It is unlawful for a domain name registrar…to shield, mask, block or otherwise restrict access to, any domain name registrant’s name, physical address, telephone number, facsimile number, or electronic mail address, or other identifying information in any Whois database…if such registrar…has received written notice, including via facsimile or electronic mail at such entity’s facsimile number or electronic mail address of record, that the use of such domain name is in any violation of any provision of this Act.

So let’s get this right. Those folks who, reasonably, prefer not to give their actual physical address and telephone number when registering a domain name for themselves or their family are now going to be violating federal law. “

A great point by cnet.com and Larry.

The point of the bill is to stop phishing. There are already laws on the books that make this activity illegal. It is fraud and theft and clearly violates many state and federal laws.

We know that enforcement is a problem because almost all of the phishing sites are hosted outside of the United States and run by people who are not US citizens. Many of these sites use, country codes such as .ru rather than .com names.

On the other hand, the law sets up many civil and criminal penalties for domain owners who are not engaged in any phishing activities or trademark violations.

Thanks to Larry for finding and noting the article.

The whole cnet.com article can be viewed at:

http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9879859-38.html?tag=nefd.top