A 'whois' search of registrations shows that the three URLs - www.michaelhowardmp.org, www.michaelhowardmp.net and www.michaelhowardmp.org.uk - were registered by The Labour Party
with its address being its headquarters in Westminster. The contact name of the registrant is also given as someone who is known to work at the Labour Party HQ.
Cyber-squatting - the practise of registering a URL in someone else's name or business - has been condemned but remains a grey area as people cyber-squat for financial gain or other motives.
Dirty tricks
Michael Fabricant, Shadow Minister for Industry and Technology, who discovered the sites said: "I do not believe the Labour Party have registered these websites in Mr Howard's name in order to sell them back to him. That would be bad enough. I believe the plan was to launch a dirty tricks campaign. How desperate have they now become.
"By having three websites compared to the genuine one, search engines like Google, would be far more likely to hit on the fake website rather than the genuine one. What was the Labour Party going to put onto the website?"
'Bad faith'
Mr Fabricant, MP for Lichfield, said that this "cyber-squatting" was also in direct contravention of Government policy. "It exposes Labour as cyber-hypocrites," he said.
Last year he asked Michael O'Brien, a Department of Trade and Industry Minister, a Parliamentary Question about cyber-squatting. The Minister replied: "The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) defines cybersquatting as the pre-emptive, bad faith registration of trademarks as domain names by third parties who do not possess rights in such names.
"Cyber squatters exploit the first come first served nature of the domain name registration system to register as domain names third parties' trademarks or business names of famous people as well as variations thereof. A common motive for cybersquatting is the intention to sell the domain name back to the trademark owner or to attract web traffic to unrelated commercial offers.
"The Government support the development of affordable alternative dispute resolution procedures by domain name registries."
Electoral Commission
The Electoral Commission’s report on online political campaigning, it criticised the activity. It said: "Cyber-squatting might be defined as the malicious registration of internet domain names for financial or, in some cases, political gain... The practice of cyber-squatting is potentially a more damaging trend for political campaigners and, indeed, for electors seeking legitimate campaign information... it is clearly important that voters can identify genuine campaign material from parties or candidates, and be assured that it is legitimate"> (Electoral Commission, Online election campaigns: report and recommendations, 3 June 2003).
Disputes
Cyber-squatting disputes can be referred to ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). While personal names are not automatically protected, there is a procedure for address the issue. The complainant would have to show:
- the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and
- the registrant has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
- the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
To demonstrate the third point, evidence of registration and use in bad faith, the UDRP cites the following circumstances as examples:
- circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or
- you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or
- you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or
- by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.
Nominet, the registry for .uk names, operates a URL dispute resolution service. A non-exhaustive list of evidence of abusive registrations include:
- Circumstances indicating that the Respondent has registered or otherwise acquired the Domain Name primarily:
a) for the purposes of selling, renting or otherwise transferring the Domain Name to the Complainant or to a competitor of the Complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of the Respondent's documented out-of-pocket costs directly associated with acquiring or using the Domain Name;
b) as a blocking registration against a name or mark in which the Complainant has Rights; or
c) for the purpose of unfairly disrupting the business of the Complainant.
- Circumstances indicating that the Respondent is using the Domain Name in a way which has confused people or businesses into believing that the Domain Name is registered to, operated or authorised by, or otherwise connected with the Complainant.
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Susie Hughes © Shout99.com 2005
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