Candidate fights over Web sites Tenenbaum name bought by activist BY SCHUYLER KROPF Of The Post and Courier Staff Inez Tenenbaum, state education superintendent and Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is in a fight with a New York college student over who controls her name on the Internet. And it's because she's pro-choice. Andrew Jaspers, a student at Fordham University in the Bronx, is an abortion-rights opponent who has registered Tenenbaum's name with an Internet domain company. Jaspers, 25, has no connections to South Carolina politics but said he targeted Tenenbaum because he wants to defeat her and other pro-choice candidates. "I'm concerned about all the U.S. Senate races," he said. Among the sites Jaspers has registered are ineztenenbaum.com, ineztenenbaum.org, and tenenbaum2004.com under an entity called Saint Gerard Productions, which he controls. Jaspers said he claimed the sites because it is his legal right to do so. "We possess it for the legitimate business use of political speech," he said Monday. But Jaspers' actions have drawn a protest from Tenenbaum, who is one of two S.C. Democrats hoping to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Fritz Hollings next year. She says her name is her own "intellectual property" and wants Jaspers to surrender ownership of what she considers a campaign trademark. "Use of domain names that are confusingly similar to the (Tenenbaum for Senate) committee's constitutes infringement of the committee's rights, and violates the anti-cybersquatting provisions of the Lanham Act," Tenenbaum's attorney, William Y. Klett III, said in a letter to Jaspers. Klett said the campaign committee is willing to reimburse Jaspers for the cost of registering the sites if he will transfer their control over to Tenenbaum. The dispute hasn't stopped Tenenbaum from setting up her own official website at Inez2004.com, but campaign spokesman James Hammond said the case isn't over because public figures have a right to control their own name. "We're continuing to look into what Inez's legal rights are as far as her own name is concerned," Hammond said. "Obviously we prefer these websites were not out there. They are full of errors." Jaspers' ineztenenbaum.org site is up and running, and endorses Republican U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint of Greenville for the Senate seat. Tenenbaum isn't the only pro-choice candidate Jaspers has targeted. He's also purchased Internet domain site names of about eight candidates in the 2004 races, including South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle and Washington State Sen. Patty Murray. He acquired each site for one year at a cost of about $10 per domain. This also isn't the first time that candidates in South Carolina have had disputes with political rivals who have claimed use of their names for Web sites. In 2002, then-GOP candidate for governor Mark Sanford had a similar dispute with incumbent Jim Hodges when state Democrats bought Internet sites in the names of several Republicans.
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