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Kentucky Judge Upholds State's Gambling-Domain Grab
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?
Congress upholds right of DHS to confiscate your stuff for 24 hours.
I know, but is anyone surprised. Really, gambling is in that same circle as cigarettes and alcohol. Somehow the states have held on to their rights to exclusive domain over them within their borders whereas they lost about every other regulatory ability to the feds.
WTO maybe? Some world body should laugh them off.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.
So is it time to update the DNS servers to ignore Kentucky?
There is a war going on for your mind.
...is Kentucky now responsible for the casino-spam flooding my inbox? Where can i sue'em?
A man can dream...can't he?
The book Blown to Bits we previously discussed goes into this in some detail but there is a clear, and increasing, problem that legislatures are very far behind the curve on the global nature of the internet. Not only can district courts in the US have a say, potentially, on the content hosted on a server in another country - let alone another state - but it also creates a pressure to host your servers in the country with the most lax laws around content control.
The application of laws designed to deal with print or broadcast media being applied to the internet - where ISPs are neither publishers nor distributors, from a strict legal perspective - is fraught with difficulty.
The application of social laws, like restricting your citizens access to gambling, also has an inherent problem when the social sphere in question is virtual. The law givers reaction often seems to be to target the technology when the social problem is what the law is meant to address.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
What a lie! Freedom so long as it is granted by the state is more like it. I should be able to have a domain name regardless of what it says. And on internet gambling in general, my money is my money, so I should be allowed to gamble with it if I so choose. If the government did its job and was there to protect the people rather to limit them, they would investigate online casinos for fairness and punish those that aren't playing square or if they are offshores, warn consumers about their practices.
Including by The Register. The judge is upholding his own ruling now that the companies that lost their domains get a chance to object. The loss of domains was done under a sealed order.
I can't find any legitimate reason for this to have been done under a sealed order (what were they going to do... hide the domain names), or before arguments were made. Here's hoping this gets fixed when it is actually appealed.
As for the circuit judge, Wingate (heh... like the old proxy software...), I think he's either making a political play to his career, or has a heck of a power complex. Next up, watch him issue an order that takes away my /. account for criticizing him. -.-
SIG: HUP
Every day there's news here about Government trying to control the Internet. China with their great firewall, the UK and their laws, Australia and their version of internet control. Government gets crazy when they sense there's something they can't control. Judges, Senators, Presidents, the whole system.
What makes me sad is that I always thought it'd be harder to 'control' the internet, but it seems they'll do it sooner or later.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Isn't Kentucky where tobacco comes from? Why doesn't a judge in, say, New York state order the seizure of the name Kentucky for poisoning the good people of New York?
It probablyt doesn't really matter. The judge is going to leave office soon and seek a more public office, probably running for the Senate or state governor (this can't be anything but a publicity stunt) and the order will get overturned on appeal.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
...5...4...3...2...1 A state judge rules that state officials have the right to take domain names registered elsewhere and belonging to organizations based elsewhere? This one is not staying in the state courts.
"Among other things, the state says online gambling drains the state of money by undermining horse racing, a key tourism industry for the state."
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
The initial court orders effectively prevent the name from being released from the previous registrar.
The operations in question can, however, create new domains using offshore registrars, but changing a domain name is not a cheap operation.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Why don't these companies just move their domains to a registrar that doesn't have to follow US law?
And that would stop this judgement how exactly? Apparently the law of the state of Kentucky is applicable to any server on the internet, regardless of country of origin.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Some world body should laugh them off.
Ha! At the end of the day your internet connection does have to come to your house and somebody has to install it and the ISPs router in that state. Either the installation company (e.g. Qwest, SBC, Comcast) or the ISP if different have people paid on salary working in your state.
As a condition of doing bussiness the State can have it block or re-route IP addresses as a condition of the ISP doing bussiness in the state.
One can quibble about how the ISPs will be able to block dynamic changes in host IPs, but look if each hour the ISP does a DNS lookup on the domain name then blocks the resolved IP it wil be plenty effective.
That leaves the gambling sites to rely on Proxies, TOR, or constantly changing domain names, all of which will effectively gut their clientele.
The ultimate weapon for the state in this case is that state can legally declare all gambling debts unenforcable. If they allow cost recovery from VISA or Paypal, the gambling sites may not only find they can't do bussiness in Kentucky but that from VISA's point of view they can't do bussiness at all with VISA.
Given the latter death threat I suspect there's going to be cooperation on this at some level.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
So if the state doesn't approve of a radio station can they shut down the transmitter in another state or demand that the station modify all radios to not receive their signal? This falls under violating interstate commerce and KentUHky will likely find itself being forced to reverse by the feds.
So what happens when Utah starts doing the same thing to your porn sites or issuing warrants for people drinking on their *public* MySpace / Facebook pages?
There is a war going on for your mind.
What are you smoking & where can I get some?
There is a war going on for your mind.
The banks is where most of the gambling takes place and that not even with their own money, but other peoples money.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
So I think alabama should sieze these domains from those bastards in kentucky.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Lisa Simpson: But Grandpa, this flag only has 49 stars.
Grandpa: I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I acknowledge Kentucky!
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
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
The ultimate weapon for the state in this case is that state can legally declare all gambling debts unenforcable.
The state declaring it won't make it so. Gambling debts will still be enforced by large men in very nice suits, who carry heavy objects and know a great deal about the anatomy of the human knee.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.
I can't imagine this case will help matters any...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Indiana House Bill #246
The most famous -- and only known â" case of a state legislature in the US attempting to create by law a new value for pi was that of Indiana in 1897; it has become legendary, and the basis of myth and hoax. Although it has come to represent the occasional ignorance of innumerate legislators, it was not so obviously a bad idea at the time.
The bill was introduced to the house by legislator Mr. Record, but it was reported that "Mr. Record knows nothing of the bill with the exception that he introduced it by request of Dr. Edwin Goodwin of Posey County, who is the author of the demonstration."[3] The bill began in the Committee on Canals (aka the Committee on Swamp Lands), whose chairman tried unsuccessfully to send it to the Committee on Education.
Redefining the value of pi seems not to have been its principal goal, but a side effect. In fact, the bill seems to have offered four different, new values for pi. Rather, the bill was aimed at benefiting its author, who claimed to have patented a new method for "squaring the circle", which he proposed to let the state of Indiana use free of charge if they would pass his bill! Its opening statement is clear:
A bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the legislature of 1897.
To lend credibility to his claim, Dr. Goodwin gave these credentials:
Section 3. In further proof of the value of the author's proposed contribution to education, and offered as a gift to the State of Indiana, is the fact of his solutions of the trisection of the angle, duplication of the cube and quadrature having been already accepted as contributions to science by the American Mathematical Monthly, the leading exponent of mathematical thought in this country. And be it remembered that these noted problems had been long since given up by scientific bodies as unsolvable mysteries and above man's ability to comprehend.
It seems that Dr. Goodwin had already solved two of the great unsolvable problems of ancient geometry and claimed to have solved a third with his method of squaring the circle.
The bill made it through three readings and votes in the House, and its first reading in the Senate. It was evidently seen as of economical benefit, since Indiana would save royalties on the patent, and the legislators proclaimed themselves unfit to comprehend the details of the bill anyway. The finale was dramatic and down to the wire:[4]
That the bill was killed appears to be a matter of dumb luck rather than the superior education or wisdom of the Senate. It is true that the bill was widely ridiculed in Indiana and other states, but what actually brought about the defeat of the bill is recorded by Prof. C.A. Waldo in an article he wrote for the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science in 1916. The reason he knows is that he happened to be at the State Capitol lobbying for the appropriation of the Indiana Academy of Science, on the day the Housed passed House Bill 246. ... The roll was then called and the bill passed its third and final reading in the lower house. A member then showed the writer [i.e. Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know. That evening the senators were properly coached and shortly thereafter as it came to its final reading in the upper house they threw out with much merriment the epoch making discovery of the Wise Man from the Pocket.
The law of the state of Kentucky, like the laws of any nation or locality, is applicable only where the authorities of that nation or locality can send people with guns, or convince the locals to point guns on their behalf.
So the trick is to host your servers and register your domain in a country where a court order from Kentucky is going to be recycled as toilet paper.
Of course, Kentucky may then try to firewall that nation to keep its citizens from accessing your site. But if China can't do it very effectively, I doubt Kentucky can either.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
That's why we have large men in not-so-fancy uniforms who carry guns.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
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 .
This isn't about preventing people from gambling. This is about preventing people from gambling when they're not giving the state of Kentucky their cut.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
on whether gambling will be successfully outlawed worldwide?
and what website can i go to to place a wager on that occurence?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
OK:
The judge runs over your puppy and laughs while pissing out the window on your head.
I really don't think the RIAA need to get involved in this one.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Who says they're different people?
Everyone has a price.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
By seizing the domain name, the State now owns or controls the domain name. It owns or controls it in the home state, and by virtue of the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution, it owns or controls it in all the states. This is part one--the acquisition of the right.
Part two--the enforcement of the right--will be very interesting. Destruction of the domain's ability to do business in the home State appears to be a trivial problem. Destruction of the ability to do business in each of the other states is a tedious process, but thanks to the full faith and credit clause, a doable thing.
The dormant Commerce Clause, however, looms over all of this as the big Green Monster looms over Fenway. In short, the several states can't go writing laws that straightjacket interstate commerce. But addressing that question is probably too much trouble for to take for the two or three people that will read this post.
Who will show up after you've already been injured, fail to locate those who did it, and fine you for breaking the state's anti-gambling laws in the first place.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
The more I learn about the United States Govenment the more it seems that aside from being able to blow the world off the face of the universe it has very little real power.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
As a former resident, I can say that this is no surprise. Kentucky is probably one of the most corrupt states in the union. The entire state is governed by old money and the horse racing industry. Every governor in my life time has had a major scandal of some sort. Kentucky is the best argument against States' rights that I can think of. The bridges on Interstate 65 have been being painted for about 8 years now because of the corrupt transportation cabinet forcing various contractors to pay bribes that drove them off from finishing the job.
Not so victimless anymore is it?
If you take that view then glutony comes under the same catagory when you clog up your heart...then it directly affects the gluttons's family.
Not so victimless now is it?
If you take that view then dangerous sports comes under the same catagory when you smash your head off a rock while river rafting... then it directly affects your family.
Not so victimless now is it?
Alcohol - alhoclol, drunken beating, affects your family.
Not so victimless now is it?
Stock trading, loseing it all in a stock crash: affects your family.
Not so victimless now is it?
Lighting scented candels: burns down your house and kills you and your family.
Not so victimless now is it?
The "It affects the persons family" argument is bullshit because it covers everything and anything. Everything has a chance to hurt your family and even if you don't have a family you get covered by the same crap laws.
So the trick is to host your servers and register your domain in a country where a court order from Kentucky is going to be recycled as toilet paper.
That's fine in theory, but remember that ICANN, who controls the root servers, is a US corporation based in California.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
That's basically the case. Although I don't know about the Internet at large, you could at least shut down ICANN with a few well-placed court orders from any U.S. state you wanted to.
This is because -- as I understand it, anyway -- ICANN is incorporated in the United States, specifically in California. Court orders from other U.S. states are enforceable in California because of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution. So if a judge in some state (say Kentucky) orders ICANN to do something, despite ICANN being in California, there's a good chance ICANN is required to do it. At the very least they can't just blithely shrug it off, as they might do with an order from a court from another country.
There are a lot of checks and balances that are supposed to come into play -- state courts aren't supposed to rule on things that are outside of their jurisdiction, for one -- but those questions get into gray areas pretty quickly. If a site is accessible in a particular state, does that automatically make it subject to that state's laws? You and I (and most people who understand how the Internet works) would probably say no, but I'm not sure there's legal precedent on that. Many Internet users erroneously assume that a web site is subject only to the laws of wherever the server actually hosting it physically resides, and this is a pretty logical stance, but a lot of judges seem to lack this understanding. Increasingly there seems to be an attitude that if a user can access a site from a particular location, then it falls into that court of that location's jurisdiction, despite the servers being located thousands of miles away: that's the stance that the court in Kentucky seems to be taking.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"A weak government lacks the power to take your stuff or your liberty." Really?? Patriot Act, Property confiscation laws...."
He did say 'the original intent' most true conservatives (not neo-conservatives) think thinks like the Patriot act are sham.
Neo-conservatives want to project US power and that cant be done with a weak central government.
American Liberals want the federal government to provide health care, education, cradle to grave hand holding and you cant do that with a weak central government
Either way We the People are getting the short end of the stick..
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
Stock trading, loseing it all in a stock crash: affects your family.
Weren't we already talking about gambling?
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
But the issue here is whether kentucky has the right to stop them doing business in the rest of the world.
Of course General Public has uniforms. He's a general, fer cryin' out loud!
"Health care is not hand holding, it's a basic human right."
No, its not. A human right is not something given to you its something all people have by right of their existence. The freedom to voice your own mind (freedom of speech) is not something that is provided to you as all people have that ability (in one form or another).
Socialized health care is an entitlement just like public education and social security. Entitlements are not a bad thing but they are not to be treated as rights. The bill of rights does not 'give rights' it restricts the government from taking away rights people are naturally endowed with.
"Maybe where you (and Sarah Palin) are from treatment for a broken bone or chronic illness is "hand holding" but here in Montana its considered a basic necessity."
And maybe you (and Joe Biden) decides the desirable ends of an entielment merit destroying the purity and uniqueness of human rights by calling every good thing to be given a 'right' but here in reality rights and entitlements are different things.
Personally I am all for socialized Medicine *at the state level* I am also for free college education *at the state level* and Living wage enforcement *at the state level*. The more local the government the more they should be the ones who I have to interact with on a day to day level.
"Education is much the same way, though everyone around here does think that's a government function (though no one wants to pay the teachers...)"
Are there no private schools in Montana? What? there are... Seems to me people think its an entitlement the state can provide but its not solely the states job.
"And having social programs doesn't inherently increase the power of the state. It's poor implementation that does that."
It does over those benefiting from the programs (and those paying for them). Federal health care is a way for folks from California or South Carolina to have a voice in what conditions I have to meet to get care at a hospital. My Grandfather had little say over what treatment he was allowed to get for cancer in a socialized system.
"Socialized health care should be handed off to a team of highly skilled and respected health care providers."
Right because that's what our experience with the ever growing role of the federal government in K12 has demonstrated... The government will hand off that roll to a team of skilled and respected providers... Its not like they have a history of growing bureaucracies that are outperformed by private institutions (Private Schools / Charter schools) and self service people (home schoolers) spending far less money to do the same job.
"The government just foots the bill. Maybe you take issue with that last part."
Nobody, not you, not me, and most certainly not the government foots a bill without having a major say in how the money is used. I don't mind paying my taxes one bit, and if there is a real need I don't mind them going up. Personally I would rather send 7% of my check to DC and 28% to St. Paul (not counting SS, Medicare, ..., ...) but its not the money coming out I mind.
"Ahh! Arrogance and stupidity in the same package, how efficient of you!" --Londo Molari
Treaties are approved by the Senate, not the states, and yes, there is a treaty (actually a series of treaties and annexes, I think) involved in joining the WTO. The president approves, but the Senate must consent.
Treaties occupy a spot between the Constitution and statutory law. Law must conform to adopted treaties, but treaty language can be overridden by the Constitution.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.