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Kentucky Judge Upholds State's Gambling-Domain Grab

Posted by timothy on from the always-think-forfeiture dept.

JohnHegarty writes "A Kentucky judge has upheld that state's seizure of some of the world's most popular online casino domain names, ruling they constitute a 'gambling device' that is subject to Kentucky's anti-gambling laws." Wasn't it surreal enough on the first round?

4 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Not entirely accurate by lrsach01 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Basically the judge didn't throw the case out. He is letting it proceed. It's not the wholesale grab of domain names some people want you to believe.

    1. Re:Not entirely accurate by Kadin2048 · · Score: 4, Informative

      (Indeed, seems to me - though IANAL - that if this nutcase theory of jurisdiction holds, any country hostile to free speech can seize domain names left and right. Germany can seize "HolocaustDeniers.org", Russian can seize "PutinSucks.com".)

      Well, they can try, but I don't know how they actually would ... the reason Kentucky was able to do this is because (as I understand the mechanics of it) ICANN is incorporated in the U.S., and they served them with a court order.

      ICANN probably should have just told them to get stuffed, but they didn't (probably because they didn't want to get dragged into it, or get fined for being in contempt). But it's because they're located in, and incorporated in, the U.S. that gives a penny-ante court in Kentucky any sort of leverage.

      A court in Germany could try serving ICANN with papers ordering them to turn over HolocaustDeniers.com or whatever, but I don't see why ICANN would comply -- and, more importantly, I don't see what sort of leverage a court in Germany would have to force them to. They could probably do the same thing to the registrar that controls the ".de" TLD, which I assume is incorporated in Germany, but not if it was a gTLD (.com, .net, .org, &c.).

      I'm also not sure that the court in Kentucky would have had as much success at grabbing the domains if they'd been registered under the country code of some other country. E.g., if the site had been "GreatGambling.co.de", and they had ordered ICANN to transfer it, ICANN might have been able to say to them with a straight face that it was impossible, and they'd have to talk to the registrar for .de, which would be some company in Germany. But they can't pass the buck and claim it's beyond their control when it's a gTLD, since they oversee them.

      The bottom line to all of this is that people need to realize that all the gTLDs are not some sort of international zone. At the end of the day they are basically .us domains without the explicit ".us" at the end. If you're doing something that's considered shady, or might possibly be considered shady, by virtually any court in the U.S., you would be better off getting a domain in a ccTLD from a country that's more tolerant, rather than a gTLD domain. Anyone with a gTLD domain has it basically at the whim and mercy of any state court judge in the United States; depending on the subject matter or the purpose of the site, that might be an improvement over some other country (Chinese democracy, lambasting various monarchies), or it might be a huge liability (gambling, DRM breaking, certain types of porn).

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  2. Against international WTO agreements by RiffRafff · · Score: 4, Informative

    If this goes far enough, there will be threats of action regarding a blatant disregard of international commerce treaties. Seems to me that point came up before when the US tried to shutdown off-shore gambling.

    Ah, found it:

    http://news.cnet.com/WTO-slams-U.S.-Net-gambling-ban/2100-1030_3-5658636.html

    --
    "I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
  3. Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc by HungryHobo · · Score: 4, Informative

    But that's not what they're doing.
    They're not rerouting traffic in the state.
    They just took the domain names.
    As in they can send joe blogs in japan to their own servers when he looks up one of those sites.

    Imagine that you ran a mail order buisness, your "domain name" is your postal address.
    You live and run your buisness from Iceland say or China.
    A judge in an american state decides that you are competing with local buisnesses and signs an order taking your postal address and from then on any post sent from anywhere be it America, Europe or elsewhere will not be sent to you but rather to the judge.

    The basis of course being that your postal address is an item required to do illegal buisness with people in an american state.

    Clear enough for everyone?

    The best solution would be for any registrars outside this juristiction to simply list the correct ownership information for the domains .