Laws of .com

Volume VI, Issue 19: Novemer 27, 2008

Internet Gambling Curtailed by New U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury Department Rules

CIRA's Decision in Yourcommunityrealty.ca – Implications of Registering a Domain for the Purpose of Resale.

Obama to Post Presidential Addresses On YouTube

Class Action Launched against Classmates.com

Virtual Affair Leads to Real Life Divorce

eHarmony to Offer Same Sex Matches

Internet Gambling Curtailed by New U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury Department Rules

On November 12, 2008, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board released their final rules implementing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. The final rules require financial institutions participating in certain payment systems to develop and implement due diligence policies and procedures that are reasonably designed to prevent payments to gambling businesses in connection with unlawful Internet gambling.

The final rules were passed in the midst of strong opposition from Internet gambling companies and financial institutions. The gambling companies objected to the rules on the basis that they do not clearly define “unlawful Internet gambling”, making compliance problematic. Financial institutions argued that the rules imposed an unreasonable burden on them to enforce gambling laws, which they suggested should be the domain of government authorities. Although the agencies acknowledged the challenges faced in carrying out these rules, their position is that the rules are flexible in dealing with the due diligence measures that must be adopted. The agencies also stated that there could be no single regulatory definition of “unlawful Internet gambling” due to the patchwork of gambling laws adopted by different states.

Companies have until December 1, 2009 to comply with the rules.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2334680,00.asp
http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/internet/unlawful-internet-gambling-enforcement-act
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp1266.htm

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CIRA's Decision in Yourcommunityrealty.ca – Implications of Registering a Domain for the Purpose of Resale.

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (“CIRA”) recently released its decision in a domain name dispute between Vivian Risi and Ray Fattahi over “YOURCOMMUNITYREALTY.CA”. The Complainant, Risi, carries on business in Toronto as a realtor and also provides other related services. She registered the trade-mark “YOUR COMMUNITY REALTY” with the Canadian Trade-mark Office in February 2005. She also owns a website accessed through the URL “YOURCOMMUNITYREALTY.COM”. The Registrant of the disputed .ca domain name, Fattahi, operates a website at gooya.ca, which provides news and business directory services targeted at the Persian-Canadian community in Toronto. Fattahi registered the disputed domain name in 2006, and used it to redirect users to gooya.ca, which contains advertising for several realtors. In May 2008, Risi received a notice of domain name auction for yourcommunityrealty.ca from Fattahi.

The three-Member CIRA Panel found the disputed domain name to be “confusingly similar” to Risi’s mark as the domain name read without the .ca suffix was identical to the mark.

The Panel also found that Registrant, Fattahi, registered the domain name “in bad faith”. In arriving at this conclusion, the Panel focused on whether Fattahi had registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of transferring it to the Complainant or a competitor, which constitutes bad faith, without requiring any further proof under the CIRA Dispute Resolution Policy. The Panel found that Risi’s registration of her trade-mark with the Canadian Trade-mark Office puts Fattahi on notice that the name is being used by someone else. Furthermore, the words contained in the domain name had nothing to do with the gooya.ca website. The Panel thus concluded that Fattahi registered the name for the purpose of selling it to Risi or her competitors, to Risi’s detriment.

On the issue of whether Fattahi had a “legitimate interest” in the domain name, the Panel noted that in order to establish a legitimate interest, a registrant must be acting in good faith and held that because of its prior finding that Fattahi had acted in bad faith, Fattahi did not have a legitimate interest. The domain name was therefore ordered transferred to Risi.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.cira.ca/en/dpr-decisions/00110-yourcommunityrealty.ca.pdf

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Obama to Post Presidential Addresses On YouTube

In addition to making weekly radio presidential addresses available ( as has been the custom of United States presidents for years), President-elect Barack Obama plans to include links to his video presidential addresses on YouTube from the website of the president elect. His spokeswoman said that leaders, policy advisers and Cabinet members from Obama’s office will also appear in videos on a regular basis and that Obama will continue to post videos after he takes office.

This initiative builds on Obama’s campaign model that reached millions of voters online during the presidential race and will allow him to convey his message outside the traditional media.

For additional information, visit:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008392020_apyoutubepresident.html
http://www.change.gov/

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Class Action Launched against Classmates.com

A California man has launched a class action lawsuit against one of the Internet’s oldest social networking sites, Classmates.com, which was launched in 1995. The lawsuit centers around an advertising strategy that tells users who have posted a free profile that former classmates are trying to contact them. In order to see who has visited the profile or sent a message, Classmates.com users are required to upgrade their membership.

The message received by the representative plaintiff that former classmates were trying to contact him turned out to be false. While it appears that some members of the site did indeed try to view the plaintiff’s profile, the plaintiff did not know who those members were. As such, he claims that he was defrauded in the amount he paid to upgrade his membership account, being $15.00. For a site that boasts 40 million users, the claim is potentially a significant one for Classmates.com.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2008/11/classmates

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Virtual Affair Leads to Real Life Divorce

A British woman has filed for a real life divorce from her real life husband after finding out that her husband’s virtual alter-ego was involved in a relationship with another female virtual alter-ego in Second Life, the popular virtual world. The woman, whose own Second Life virtual alter-ego was virtually married to her husband’s virtual alter-ego in Second Life, considered the virtual affair as disturbing as a real-life affair.

For more information, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/nov/13/second-life-divorce

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eHarmony to Offer Same Sex Matches

Dating website eHarmony, heavily promoted by Christian evangelical leaders when it was founded, agreed in a civil rights settlement to give up its heterosexual-only policy and offer same-sex matches. eHarmony must implement this new policy by March 31, 2009. Additionally, as part of the settlement, it must also offer the first 10,000 same-sex registrants a free six-month subscription.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.mercurynews.com/businessheadlines/ci_11027561

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