Today I saw a sign in someone's yard in opposition to a local politician, displaying the man's name affixed to a .dot com. Above the url was one word: Recall.
The only reason his opponents were able to grab that url was that he was an older man, not a big wheeler and dealer, and serving in a small community. He neglected to consider the ramifications of failing to reserve an url on the Internet. Now his legal name is being employed on the Internet to malign him. This, I feel, is unfair, because it places a new burden upon those running for public office, or anyone, indeed, who achieves a certain level of notoriety.
If you want to oppose a person, you should be allowed to reserve the word "sucks" appended to their full legal name; but you should not be allowed to sit on the actual legal name. I base this reasoning on the expectation of users searching for a specific web site. If you enter "Joe Smith" in the Google search engine, you are probably a fan. If you enter "Joe Smith sucks," you're probably not. "Sucks" began as a vulgar connotation, but nowadays is used with less prejudice. You can find numerous critical web sites with "sucks" appended to the url. In the event that there are multiple individuals with the same name, the url should be allotted on a first-come, first-serve basis--but it should always go to the person who has the name registered upon their birth certificate.
In lieu of a law protecting individuals, I believe that political players should voluntarily abide by this straight-forward ethical position. Dirty tricks may succeed from time to time, but they also give insight into the nature of the perpetrator, as in the case of Cheney.
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