Tech industry wary of domain name seizures

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) expressed concern Wednesday about government efforts to seize rogue websites in the name of intellectual property enforcement. 

Michael Petricone, senior vice president for government affairs at CEA, said government seizure of domain names "is a blunt instrument capable of causing significant collateral damage to innocent individuals and businesses."

He said CEA is committed to fighting copyright infringement, but he cited instances in recent months where the seizure approach to IP enforcement has negatively impacted non-offenders. 

The efforts have resulted in "the erroneous take down of legitimate music blogs and the slander of thousands of legitimate websites as purveyors of child pornography."

In a recent round of domain name seizures, the Justice and Homeland Security Departments shut down thousands of websites that hadn't broken the law, falsely accusing them of child pornography crimes, according to reports. 

The websites were replaced with a banner that read: "Advertisement, distribution, transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography constitute federal crimes that carry penalties for first time offenders of up to 30 years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution."

After the error was identified, it took about three days for some of the websites to go live again, rather than redirecting to this banner, according to reports.

As a House panel weighed IP enforcement on Wednesday, CEA said seizure is not the right fix. The association called on Congress to explore "more effective avenues" to combat rogue sites. 

"Basically, fighting piracy by seizing domain names is like duck hunting with an anti-aircraft missile.  You may hit some ducks, but you will hit plenty of other things as well," Petricone said.