At Thursday's WATPA meeting, we discussed the problem of Web sites which
claim to be providing information about groups and agencies, which they do
not in fact represent -- and thus misleading or annoying Internet users.
Patrick is preparing some research on this, concerning Westchester sites.
It turns out that, on the same day, the Federal Trade Commission was
involved with the same general issue. (I have appended that story -- from
@Computerworld.)
Clearly, there is an Internet "consumer" problem starting to build up.
This is an area for us to focus some attention.
Norm
===========================================
> FTC opinion says InterNIC.com domain may violate
> U.S. law
>
> A "copycat Web site" may violate U.S. law by
> deliberately misleading consumers into thinking
> they are doing business with someone else,
> according to an advisory opinion issued by
> Federal Trade Commission staff today.
>
> The FTC staff criticized an Australian company,
> Internic Software, for registering Internet
> domain names at its www.internic.com site.
> InterNIC, a separate enterprise run by Network
> Solutions, Inc., has been authorized by the
> National Science Foundation to register domain .
> names, as well as keep track of them and resolve
> conflicts. It uses the domain internic.net.
>
> "The use of a domain name [internic.com]
> virtually identical to that of the official
> domain registration site, combined with the
> provision of nearly identical domain
> registration services to those offered by
> Network Solutions, is likely to create a false
> impression that the site is owned and operated
> [by] Network Solutions," the FTC staff
> concluded.
>
> This marks the second time that the FTC has
> dealt with the thorny issue of similar and
> potentially misleading uniform resource locators
> (URL). The FTC previously pointed to a site at
> www.nasa.com, concerned that children seeking
> photos from the popular NASA Mars mission might
> type in the .com site rather than NASA's actual
> URL at www.nasa.gov. The nasa.com site hosted
> pornography and was shut down after complaints
> from those who ended up there by mistake.
>
> "What will be interesting to see is what kind of
> jurisdiction [the FTC] will be able to come up
> with," Marcelo Halpern, an associate at Gordon &
> Glickson, a law firm in Chicago, said of the
> InterNIC dispute. The NASA case was more
> straightforward because a law protecting the
> NASA name had been violated. Plus with
> internic.com, the alleged offender is outside
> the U.S.
>
> The FTC said it has notified the Australian
> Competition and Consumer Commission about the
> internic.com site, and that agency is
> investigating.
>
> Some companies are increasingly concerned that
> imposters, competitors or malicious hackers
> could set up sites with URLs similar to a
> legitimate business. This would be an easy way
> to siphon off, offend or misdirect unsuspecting
> customers. Worry mounted when plans were
> unveiled that would increase available domain
> names by adding registries such as .firm and
> .store to the existing top-level domain names.
>
> "It signals they're [the government] becoming
> more aware of this issue," Halpern said. "The
> question is, will they take the next step and
> prosecute?"
>
> The internet.com site includes disclaimers that
> it is not affiliated with InterNIC and Network
> Solutions, but the FTC said those weren't
> sufficient to prevent user confusion.
>
> A separate issue is that the Australian company
> at www.internic.com is charging $250 to register
> domain names -- two and a half times the price
> at the official InterNIC site. Network Solutions
> also said that it hadn't received payment for a
> majority of the Australian firms' customers who
> sought registration. All domain name brokers are
> supposed to turn the $100 payment over to
> InterNIC for a name to be properly registered on
> the Internet.
>
> Network Solutions sought an advisory opinion
> from the FTC after receiving consumer complaints
> that when trying to find the official InterNIC
> on the World Wide Web, they inadvertently ended
> up at the internic.com Australian site.
>
> by Sharon Machlis
> ? Copyright 1997 by Computerworld, Inc. All rights reserved.
> @Computerworld is a service mark of International Data Group, Inc.
http://www.computerworld.com/news/news_articles/970822ftcopinion.html