Copycats that drive traffic

Computerworld - Go to www.call-girls.net and you'll see the smiling face of Britney Spears atop a naked model. The site offers similar portraits of Pamela Anderson, Whitney Houston and a few dozen others "caught in the act."

"This is copyright infringement," says Chris Brandon, an Internet investigator who works from an undisclosed location in North Carolina. "These Web site operators are using famous names to drive traffic to their sites. I just picked up three cases like these this week."

Bruce Schneier, founder of Counterpane Internet Security Inc. in San Jose, says there's not much he can do about a porn site that's using his name in its Web address. Contacting the Marina Del Ray, Calif.-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is useless, he says. And a legal battle would drain him of resources he'd rather use elsewhere.

According to Brandon, the most expedient resolution to such a problem is complaining to the Web site's Internet service provider or the hosting service that supports such a site. Chances are, the hosting service or Internet provider will dump the client for violating their terms of use agreements.

But when the use of a corporate name or logo can tie your company to fraud, it's time to pursue stronger channels. For example, when Unisys Corp. recently caught wind of spam e-mails that were peddling stolen credit cards with a header that read "U_ni_sys", the company's security director called the FBI.

"We forwarded that to the FBI because it involved credit card fraud, interstate commerce and issues which we thought would be better off handled by the FBI instead of us going through a trademark infringement suit," says Kerry Ruhl, director of information security at the Blue Bell, Pa.-based IT services firm.

During the past year and a half, Ruhl says he has had to take action in approximately seven such copyright infringement cases. And most of his department's time is spent blocking hackers from the network, he adds.

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