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When Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono recently attempted to register her name as an electronic address on the Internet, she was shocked to discover that a local political consultant had purchased the name, maziehirono.com, without her consent. Cybersquatting
under attack by
LegislatureBy Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin
After checking other domain name registration sites such as networksolutions.com and register.com, Hirono said she was amazed at how many local elected officials' names had been taken by unrelated third parties.
"Since its inception, the Internet has been a largely unregulated industry," Hirono said.
"Many of the rights we have under the law are susceptible to intrusion by other parties, and all public and private citizens are vulnerable to attack by those who in bad faith choose and use our names as a domain name."
The state Legislature moved a step closer to regulating the act of cybersquatting - described as the bad-faith registration of other people's domain names on the Internet.
The House Consumer Protection Committee yesterday approved a bill that would make it unlawful for anyone to register, buy, sell, loan, license or use a domain name identical or similar to the name of another living person or deceased personality without regard to the goods or services of the parties.
Under the proposed law, violators face civil fines of up to $5,000 per domain name, which is defined as any alpha-numeric designation registered as part of an electronic address on the Internet.
Hirono, who testified before the panel, said the lack of regulatory control over domain names and registration has made cybersquatting increasingly common. She supports the state's effort to model legislation after California, which simply states that a person should not have to pay someone who steals their name to get it back.
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