"Domain spoofing is a serious problem for legitimate on-line businesses," explained Anne Mitchell, President and CEO of the ISIPP. "It causes the victim business' e-mail to be rejected by spam filters, causes their own mail servers to be overloaded with the rejections of the spam which was sent in their name, and can cause them to be listed on anti-spam blocklists, all of which can result in a loss of reputation and business."
But there is little that individuals and businesses can do to stop spoofing. The relevant US legislation – the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, (CAN-SPAM ACT), which came into force in January - does not permit individuals to take action into their own hands and sue spammers directly. This role is to be left to the usual enforcement agencies.
The solution, according to the ISIPP, is to use trade mark law. Not all internet domains qualify for trade mark registration, but many do, particularly if the domain belongs to an on-line business, and the domain name is intimately identified with the on-line business itself.
The advantage of this approach is that trade mark law allows victims to target not only the spoofers, but the spammers and advertisers behind the e-mails – who may be more readily identifiable.
"CAN-SPAM doesn't allow business owners to go after the spammers who are spoofing their domains, even though they are often the ones most motivated to bring spoofers to justice," explained Mitchell.
"Trade mark law gives these individual businesses that right of action, and can provide immediate restraining orders and freezing of assets. You can imagine the impact of all these individual lawsuits against spammers; it's the 'death by 1,000 paper cuts' concept in action," she added.
ISIPP has therefore launched a new suite of trade mark-related services, to help with registration of marks, internet forensics to help identify the culprits, and lawyer referrals for retaliating.