Court acquits cybercrime suspect

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The first man tried here for cybercrime walked free as the court stated that the Internet was a free medium which anyone could use as long as it did not inflict losses on others.

The fact that the country does not have cybercrime law also became one of the considerations of the Central Jakarta District Court when on Monday it exonerated Tjandra Sugiono, 32, from all charges.

The defendant, a former manager of local cosmetics giant PT Martina Berto, was charged with illegally registering the domain name MustikaRatu.com, the name of the company's main competitor, PT Mustika Ratu.

Prosecutor Y.N. Eddy had earlier asked the court to sentence the defendant to four months imprisonment and a fine of Rp 30 million.

People can register any domain name on the Internet that is the same as that of a famous company or celebrity and then offer the rights to the latter. In some countries, a few registrants had been found guilty in court following complaints from those claiming to have suffered losses as a result of the practice.

Local communications experts have long realized the need for a law to prevent cyber violations and the government is drafting cyber law to regulate matters like digital signatures, electronic transactions and consumer protection.

Judge Chasyani Tanjung, who presided over Tjandra's trial, said that the defendant had to be acquitted as PT Mustika Ratu had failed to prove that the company had suffered losses as a result of what the defendant had done.

The defendant had been charged earlier with violating Article 382 of the Criminal Code on fraudulent competition and Article 48 of Antimonopoly Law No. 5/1999.

The judge said that the defendant could not be charged under existing law because he had registered the domain name in his capacity as an individual, not on behalf of the company.