The anti-cybersquatting Laws

The Anti-Cybersquatting Laws
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Cybersquatting is the illegal registration and use of another person or company’s trademarks in domain names to win proceeds from the status of those trademarks (Curtin, 2010). The Anti-cybersquatting law was established to prevent the rising issues of cybersquatting in the U.S (Curtin, 2010). The Anti-cybersquatting laws were set to thwart fraudsters from obtaining another person’s trademark and trying to sell that mark to the real owner or other people in the market. Any person found violating the laws risks losing their domain names, or the court might forfeit or cancel the domains (Curtin, 2010). The court is also likely to cancel the transfer of the domain back to its real owner.
From a personal perspective, I believe that these laws should be extended to protect internet domains and the usernames that people use on social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. There have been many cases of false impersonation on the social sites over the years, and many people have fallen victim (Curtin, 2010). After Facebook launched its username feature which enabled users to generate their personal, discrete web addresses, many people were adversely affected. Other than the celebrities on social media, companies are also likely to be affected by such actions (Curtin, 2010). For example, a fake BP twitter account was created after the company was involved in oil spillage in order to mock the company and gain more attention from the media.

The reputation of the company was adversely affected since the account had gained many followers who were fed with the wrong information. However, when the company raised a complaint to Twitter owners, they only compelled the domain creator to post a disclaimer.
Issues related to false impersonation have become very popular in our social media dominated society. The practice may destroy the reputation of a person or a company if such practice is left to continue (Curtin, 2010). Therefore, some provisions need to be established to protect companies and people from falling into such traps of false impersonation.
Reference
Curtin, T. J. (2010). The name game: Cybersquatting and trademark infringement on social media websites. JL & Pol’y, 19, 353.