Milpitas Councilmember Anthony Phan may have violated the law after he allegedly registered a website domain that used the first and last name of Vice Mayor Carmen Montano and then had it redirect to his own website, according to Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney John Chase.
In early February, Montano said that she discovered carmenmontano.com was passing web users along to standwithphan.com. After contacting the District Attorney’s office, Chase replied to Montano in an email on Feb. 9, writing that Phan’s “conduct appears to violate cyber piracy laws.” He added that while the vice mayor had the ability to file a civil lawsuit, it wasn’t immediately clear that there was a crime that the district attorney’s office could pursue.
Chase added that he had also reached out to Phan and expected him to stop using the domain. As of Feb. 13, carmenmontano.com was no longer redirecting to Phan’s website, but it still comes up as the first result on Google when searching for carmenmontano.com.
The dispute comes as the November race for the city’s mayoral seat heats up. While Montano hopes to take over current Mayor Rich Tran’s seat, Phan has not officially announced his candidacy for the position. However, his official Instagram page’s bio reads “Campaign announcement coming soon.” Tran, who is running for a city council seat and is considered an ally to Montano when it comes to board votes, has endorsed her in the mayoral race.
When asked to comment on the situation, Phan wrote in a text, “It’s laughable that a mayoral candidate running to represent Silicon Valley has no clue how domain names work. It’s unfortunate that she was not digitally competent enough to register a domain name; it is relatively inexpensive and a simple process.”
Montano’s official campaign website is carmenmontano4mayor.com.
When pressed whether he was the one responsible for the alleged misconduct, Phan replied, “no comment” and also declined to say whether he was running for mayor. On Friday, Phan tweeted out a Mercury News story about the mayor’s recent proposal to limit homeless encampments in the city, writing, “If you’re upset over a domain name but not outraged by this, you need to take a long hard look in the mirror.”
In response, Montano called Phan’s alleged actions “unethical.”
“Where’s the decency?” asked Montano. “We’re public servants. I’m sad and at the same time I’m mad. I’m just speechless, actually.”
According to ICANN, an online tool that offers details about a domain’s registration, “carmenmontano.com” was created in November but much of the identifying information has been redacted. The statute that the district attorney’s office says Phan may have violated falls under the California Business and Professions Code, which states that it is unlawful to register a website domain “with a bad faith intent” that utilizes the name of another individual.
The website quarrel isn’t the first controversy to beset Phan’s political career. In 2016, the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission investigated allegations that Phan had improperly reported election contributions and loans for his councilmember campaign. And in 2018, Phan apologized to the city’s mayor after mailing out fliers that implied Tran had communist sympathies.
