It proposed amendments to Chapter 113 of Title 18 of the United States Code that would authorize the Attorney General to bring an in rem action against any domain name found "dedicated to infringing activities," as defined within the text of the bill.

[1] It was opposed by organizations and individuals such as Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Demand Progress, the Distributed Computing Industry Association,[1] Tim Berners-Lee, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch.

[1] Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) announced he would take the steps necessary to halt COICA so it is not enacted into law in 2010, and was successful, effectively killing this bill and requiring it to be resubmitted and for it to make it through a new committee again in 2011 with a different makeup of its members.

The text of the bill defined an infringing website as one that is: (A) primarily designed, has no demonstrable, commercially significant purpose or use other than, or is marketed by its operator, or by a person acting in concert with the operator, to offer: (i) goods or services in violation of title 17, United States Code, or enable or facilitate a violation of title 17, United States Code, including by offering or providing access to, without the authorization of the copyright owner or otherwise by operation of law, copies of, or public performance or display of, works protected by title 17, in complete or substantially complete form, by any means, including by means of download, transmission, or otherwise, including the provision of a link or aggregated links to other sites or Internet resources for obtaining such copies for accessing such performance or displays; or (ii) to sell or distribute goods, services, or materials bearing a counterfeit mark, as that term is defined in section 34(d) of the Act entitled 'An Act to provide for the registration and protection of trademarks used in commerce, to carry out the provisions of certain international conventions, and for other purposes', approved July 5, 1946 (commonly referred to as the 'Trademark Act of 1946' or the 'Lanham Act'; 15 U.S.C.

[4]The bill, if passed, would have allowed the Attorney General to bring an in rem action against the infringing domain name in United States District Court, and seek an order requesting injunctive relief.

On September 30, 2010, the EFF posted an update to their Deeplinks Blog, announcing that the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee had been delayed until after the 2010 midterm elections.