Domains Blocked By US Treasury 'Blacklist'

yuna49 writes "Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports today about the plight of a Spanish tour operator whose domain names have been embargoed by his domain name registrar (eNom). They pulled his domains after they discovered the tour operator's name on a US Treasury blacklist. It turns out he packages tours to Cuba largely for European tourists who can legally travel there, unlike Americans. The article cites 'a press release issued in December 2004, almost three years before eNom acted. It said Mr. Marshall's company had helped Americans evade restrictions on travel to Cuba and was "a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people." It added that American companies must not only stop doing business with the company but also freeze its assets, meaning that eNom did exactly what it was legally required to do.' The only part of the operator's business in the United States is his domain name registration; all other aspects of his business lie outside the United States."

Comments

A generator of resources that the Cuban regime...

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

...uses to oppress its people?

You mean things like providing a never ending stream of very real examples of how America wants to meddle in internal Cuban affairs, thereby providing an instant excuse to play the nationalist "they want to topple your government from Washington! Ignore the abuses you know about and rally together as a nation to resist them as a people!" card?

There's a lesson in here somewhere

[toby]

1. Don't have anything to do with the USA.

Non-Americans already have to do ridiculous things like obtain visas to just to make a flight connection in the US. Soon we're not even allowed to overfly the US. That's fun if, like me, you live in Canada.

To hell with them.

Re:Bullshit

[RenderSeven]

Exactly. The only reason for the Castro brothers to outlive the fall of the iron curtain is the embargo.

Maybe. An interesting thing I picked up traveling the Caribbean and talking to a lot of natives is how they want Cuba to stay on the embargo list. The last thing, say, Aruba wants is a huge island paradise thats almost within walking distance of Miami. Especially with airline fuel costing what it does. If Cuba were open again, tourism throughout the rest of the islands, and Mexico and Central America would take a huge hit. And that loss of income is politically destabilizing as well. There's more at work here than sheer stupidity.

What do you expect from ENOM

[dindi]

Enom are the people who took over registerfly's expired domains (expired because you had no means renewing them), and then tried to get a $200 extortion fee for your domain to give it back to you.

So what do you expect from companies like that? I would personally open an international lawsuit against them, and there is absolutely no way Enom can win that.

Re:So Americans Who Sympathize With Cuba...

[skatedog]

Yes, it's quite obvious we're the only ones doing what's right. That evidence is echoed worldwide, why look what good we're doing in the Middle East. American Foreign Policy has not been a pretty thing for at least the past 8yrs and really, much longer than that. Off topic maybe, on point definitely. If we had free trade with Cuba, they most likely would be the 51st State by now and a fine vacation spot. Embargos typically make the poorest and weakest of the nation being embargoed suffer. Those in power, find a way to remain in power. Now free trade and capitalism, and the free flow of ideas, now those things can be infective and spark great things, (see Fall of the USSR). I think it would be difficult at best to cite US foreign policy success where Cuba is concerned. Anyway, nice story from Washington Post 2/19/08 is here http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021901649.html

Re:eNom is the REAL provider, others only re-sell.

[Chris Pimlott]

I use gandi.net. They're fairly cheap ($15/yr), been around a good while (since 2000), not located in the US (France), and (most importantly), their agreement specifically notes that ownership of the domain is yours, not theirs. Their website is good and handles all the normal stuff you might need to do with a domain. I can't speak to their support, as I have not had instance to make us of it.

Re:So Americans Who Sympathize With Cuba...

[D'Sphitz]

I don't think Castro is in power anymore...

Re:So Americans Who Sympathize With Cuba...

[davidsyes]

Well, I'm going to chime in on Corea/Korea, since it's been brought up...

The US is just in a near-conniption fit that the North has not collapsed, imploded, or exploded. It's a major embarrassment that multiple US administrations just ineptly cannot figure out how to have state-to-state talks with the North and get out of the way of confederation leading to reunification. Don't like MY perception? Read...on

Check out "Korean Endgame" by Selig S. Harrison...

The first two chapters show how ignorant the US can be when it comes to taking sides and coercing what it thinks are its client states (and is instead manipulated by the South, as was Russia by the North), yet (the US) ends up delaying reunification because if later finds it NEEDS and DESIRES a 'clear and present danger' of sorts in order to justify $42B a year in deployed US military assets around Asia, and $2B a year going directly to the South.

The South recently offered citizenship to people of the North. The YOUTH of the South probably care less about politics, but wealthy in the loop with military and economic assets at risk don't want to be besieged nor bothered by a massive influx of poor Northerners. In general, though, many if not most Koreans (North and South are torn by the division instigated by by Kim Song Il, after duping Stalin and getting assent from China.

The US *claims* it wants to aid Korea Unify, but so far it mostly has obstructed or ineptly carried out talks, bullied the North, and placated the South, enable the South to experience as little pain as possible in the march toward confederation. The North expected (rightfully) confederation and a formal declaration of cessation of hostilities, but the US botched things imposing its OWN view on BOTH Koreas. However, Seoul, for its part, never signed the armistice...

Now, what is going on is the Russians no longer sell much of anything military to the North, but is instead selling to the South and to others. The upshot is that the NK "regime"/government/Workers' Party isn't likely to go out with a bang. It'll just muddle along, and reunification (50% thanks to the US) will happen DECADES later than it could have or should have.

For what it's worth, i feel sorry for BOTH halves of Korea and i hope history takes in hand all those who did their bit to undermine and humiliate a great people, and wrought them great humiliation.

i hope the Coreas reunify SOON (less than 10 years). I hope they shift to indigenous local partners of the regional defense, and I hope they PROVE to Japan that a unified Corea purged of US occupation is NOT a threat to the Japanese peoples. i don't think there will be any wars unless puppeteers from afar instigate things.