He contended that the APCPA appears to have been designed to enable the creation of a parallel domain-name infringement enforcement scheme that is broader and more onerous than the Uniform Dispute Resolution Process (URDP) offered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The bill also would expand on the protections already offered under the federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, he said.

Corwin claimed that trademark owners already prevail in 85 per cent of all UDRP complaints and almost 100 per cent of the cases brought under the anticybersquatting law, which was approved by US Congress in 1999.

Under the proposed bill, trademark owners would be able to encourage state and federal officials to bring what are essentially trademark infringement suits without any need to prove that their targets were engaged in illegal activity, Corwin said. He added that although the URDP requires a complainant to show that a domain was registered by someone in bad faith, the APCPA includes no such requirement for companies or individuals seeking to initiate a private right of action.

According to Corwin, the bill also appears to cover so-called geo-domains -- for example, anycountry.com or anycity.com -- and generic domains such as foodfestival.com or musical.com. Those types of domains typically haven't been subject to trademark restrictions, he said.

Another part of the proposed bill that is of concern to the ICA is a provision that Corwin claimed would allow just about anybody to get WHOIS information simply by asking for it, without any restrictions for reliably identifying who is asking for the information and why. He said that provision would violate the legitimate privacy expectations of domain name registrants, because it would require registrars offering proxy services to disclose who the owners of a domain are upon mere receipt of a notice.

However, an aide to Senator Snowe said the concerns raised by the ICA are a bit "disconcerting" given the sharp growth of phishing and related domain name abuses. He also dismissed the notion that the bill was somehow redundant to the laws that are already in place for dealing with those abuses.

"This is not a regulatory bill but an enforcement bill," the aide said. "It clearly defines phishing and domain abuses as deceptive practices." As a result, he added, the FTC wouldn't "have to waste time in court" proving that phishing qualifies as a deceptive practice from a legal standpoint.