Re: [ga] Unfair?

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, Dec 17, 1999 at 08:22:54AM -0500, Dale Farmer wrote:
[...]
> 
> Ms. Cade:
>     If there are specific cases of consumer fraud associated with some
> domain name being performed, there are reasonably good laws and
> mostly functional courts that already address that behavior.

Within the context of a given country, perhaps.  But in a global 
context, such laws and functional courts don't exist.

>     What is needed is the enforcement of the existing laws against
> consumer fraud into the internet space.  Some countries may need
> their laws changed to include the internet in the jurisdiction, but that
> is a problem for the individual countries to deal with.

"Some countries may need their laws changed"???  God is going to step 
down Jan 1 and do that, I presume?  

> There is the
> area of fraud that crosses national borders, but again, most of
> the countries on this earth are pretty reasonable about extradition.

If this was so simple and straightforward, then software companies would
have no trouble enforcing laws about software piracy; music companies
wouldn't be worrying about pirated disks -- they would just extradite
the pirates; Rolex wouldn't need to worry about fake Rolex's for sale in
airports... 

Extradition is a very complex and costly thing to do under the best of
circumstances.  Enforcement/defense of any legal right across national
borders is complex and expensive -- ask Peter Dengate-Thrush, who is
defending in one of the first "anti-cybersquatter" bill cases, and who
will have to travel from down under to the US to present his case in a 
US court.

In sum, you are fantasizing.  In an international context there is no
effective legal remedy available for small to medium scale consumer
fraud, and even in large scale cases, it is difficult.  

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain