KY Appeals Court Nixes Seizure of Gambling-Linked Domains

davidwr writes "A state appeals court in Kentucky ruled that the state courts cannot seize domain names as 'gambling devices.' The court ruled that 'it's up to the General Assembly — not the courts nor the state Justice Cabinet — to bring domain names into the definition of illegal gambling devices.'"

Comments

What prerogative does KY act under...

[Snotman]

when grabbing domain names owned by some other entity in the World? If any entity can just claim that a domain name is illegal, then what prevents me from grabbing KY domain names? Why would a state entity have a greater authority than any other political entity or individual? Who holds KY responsible for acting without a prerogative for this power? For instance, why don't the island nations hosting gambling companies grab all KY GOV domains just to be malicious? I would.

And this differes from other countries how?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I love how each state thinks it is pretty much the only thing in existence and the rest of the world can play by it's rules.

And how does this differ from other countries - like China, Russia, England, ...?

Remember: "States" - and Indian Tribes - in the United States are separate countries. The States just happened to join a federation for dealing with other countries - a federation like Common Europe, NATO, the UN, the League of Nations, etc.

(And of course the federation has progressively encroached on the States' sovereignty ever since, eroding the safeguards intended to retard such behavior. That's exactly what was expected at the time. But it's also a separate issue.)

Re:And this differes from other countries how?

[Red Flayer]

Remember: "States" - and Indian Tribes - in the United States are separate countries. The States just happened to join a federation for dealing with other countries - a federation like Common Europe, NATO, the UN, the League of Nations, etc.

(And of course the federation has progressively encroached on the States' sovereignty ever since, eroding the safeguards intended to retard such behavior. That's exactly what was expected at the time. But it's also a separate issue.)

That's a gross oversimplification. Many of the people who contributed to the Constitution were in favor of a strong Federal government (hence the term 'Federalist' used to describe them). While some were vociferously against a strong Federal government, it is mistaken to say that the United States was intended to be a federation like those you mention -- the original intent, as ratified by each of the states, was to be a much stronger union than any of those federations.

I will not disagree that the federal government has subsumed much of the authority of the states; I will, however, point out that the original States were not considered to be independent countries, otherwise foreign relations would not have been assigned to the federal government.

As for Indian tribes, they truly are more like sovereign nations, but there are entanglements that make them not quite independent.

To get back to the meat of your post, though -- states do have certain sovereign rights, and while sometimes they act without considering the impact of their actions on other states, this is one reason why we have a federal government -- to mediate disputes. It is a valid point that the OP makes, that it's somewhat screwy for a state or country to make unilateral proclamations that affect the rest of the country (or world). It's a very provincial attitude that pisses other people off.

Re:And this differes from other countries how?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Looks like someone flunked american history or government. The states aren't countries. The commonwealths like Mass or VA aren't countries either.

As originally envisioned, the states were supposed to do most of the governing, except for things that are international or inter-state, but the states are not countries.

I agree that someone flunked but I doubt it was yours truly.

Note that the first 13 states PREDATE both the Continental Congress and the Federal Government which succeeded it (though "staged a coup on it" is arguably a valid description). So they clearly were sovereign entities which eventually surrendered certain functions to the federation they formed.

Later states were sometimes formed from territories controlled by the federation (Michigan, Ohio, ...) and sometimes (Texas, Hawaii ...) independent (for some value of independent) countries admitted by treaty. However: All later states are admitted on equal basis with the original states. So if they weren't independent countries that joined a federation BEFORE they became member states they became such BY BECOMING member states. (Note that they have to be republics to be members and that one of the Constitutional functions of the Fed is to insure that they continue to be republics internally.)

No it's not. It's an entry in a database.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

But it's an odd thing when you think about it. A domain name is really just that. The name of a domain.

"What's in a name?"

In this case it's NOT just a name. It's an entry in a publicly-accessible and trusted database, mapping the name to a set of servers.

THAT's what the state of Kentucky seized.

And it's very valuable. I'm waiting with bated breath for the suits demanding reimbursement for lost (legal!) revenue resulting from the disruption of their business (along with damage to their trademark) caused by Kentucky's successful appropriation of their domain records.