A "seismic impact on the Internet" could be caused by Congressional approval of the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act of 2003, according to Sebastian Rupley, writing in PC Magazine. Still at an early stage of discussion, this draft law was the subject of a joint hearing before the US House Judiciary and Commerce Committees on 23 September: "...The proposed legislation 'would fundamentally alter the current structure of the Internet by providing a new perpetual property protection for facts, and holding conduits such as ISPs liable for facilitating the transmission of illegal databases,' according to an advisory from NetCoalition. 'In addition,' the advisory continues, 'it would create a new subpoena provision modeled after [the] Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which would allow anyone—not only database producers—to seek personal information about a user alleged to have illegally distributed a database.' ...One of the key charges made by those who oppose the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act is that companies who disseminate information on the Internet would have to put in place costly and difficult processes to make sure they weren't releasing protected information. 'In the online world, think of search engines or other online companies who are in the business of making information available to people,' says Markham Erickson, Director of Federal Policy and Associate General Counsel at NetCoalition. 'They respond in an automated way, millions of times a day, to requests for information. The proposed legislation would force Internet companies to monitor the requests going across their systems to avoid liability.'"
That last point was contested by the bill's supporters at last week's hearing. They claim that ISPs would not be liable for violations of database protection that they did not profit from or "actively induce." However, NetCoalition disagrees and unfortunately, the bill has not been assigned an "H.R." number yet, so its text is still not online.