Cybersquatting May Become A Crime In Nigeria

Posted on October 21, 2011

According to a report in AllAfrica.com out today, Nigeria is considering criminalizing Cybersqautting.

“”Cybersquatting is the registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.””

According to the bill, any person who is found guilty of cybersquatting shall be liable on conviction to the fine of not less than N1 million or imprisonment for a term of not less than one year or both.

The bill also makes “Data interference” a criminal offense.

Data Interference is the “damaging, deletion, alteration and suppression of data within computer systems or networks, including data transfer from a computer system by any other person without authority” and under the bill is punishable with imprisonment of term of not less than 5 years or fine of not less N5 million.

“If the offence is committed by infringing security measures or is against critical infrastructure or for the purpose of terrorism, the punishment shall be imprisonment for a term not less than 7 years or a fine of not less than N10 million or both. ”

$1 Million Nigeria is less than a $1K USD so its certainly well below the $100,000 USD provided under the U.S. Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) of 1999.

However making such conduct criminal is another matter entirely.

 

9 thoughts on “Cybersquatting May Become A Crime In Nigeria”

  1. My guess is $1k USD in Nigeria is not to far from 100k in the US relatively speaking. Currency conversion means nothing if you live there. For example here in Bali (in USD) most people I know make < $20 a week, but get paid monthly. It would take a year to save $1k here if there were no other expenses which there of course are.

  2. Are all of the other ‘con’ operations coming out of Nigeria not criminal acts?
    And, if so, has that reduced the amount of ‘con’ activities over the past 20 yrs.?

  6. I have been referred to your blog by a trusted mutual friend. My client, the widow of a deceased Nigerian cybersquatter, has placed in my registrar, Lead Networks, 20 million premium domain names. Due to strict domain registration laws in Nigeria, we need a foreign partner to move these names to Registerfly…

  7. WhaterverSucks.com and WhateverCares.com how do these names play into world of CyberSqauting? I recently had an email sent to me asking if our company would like to purchase ………cares.com and ………sucks.com . The email stated they are a reputation management company and for 595.00 they would transfer them to us. But it is one of my clients name. For 595.00 it’s not worth the udrp … But that also engorges more. Thoughts would be great. Thanks

  8. Criminal trademark infringement. Brilliant.

    This way trademark owners can offload their enforcement duties to the state.

    Let taxpayers cover the costs.

    Innovative!

  9. It’s nice that Cybersquatting will be considered as a crime. BTW if someone own a domain name including someone else’s trademark then domain owner cannot make their own brand but it will make bad effect on original trademark.

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