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US Shuts Down Canadian Gambling Site With Verisign's Help
First time accepted submitter ausrob writes "Domain seizures are nothing new, but this particular case is interesting. The Department of Homeland Security has seized a domain name registered outside of the U.S., by individuals who are not American citizens, and who registered with a Canadian registrar. From the article: 'The ramifications of this are no less than chilling and every single organization branded or operating under .com, .net, .org, .biz etc needs to ask themselves about their vulnerability to the whims of U.S. federal and state lawmakers (not exactly known their cluefulness nor even-handedness, especially with regard to matters of the internet).'"
At least, I assume it does, otherwise why would the DHS be involved in closing down gambling sites?
Either that, or they are just trying to spend money and justify their existance and vast budget somehow.
Also, first.
This is why we should move the control over the internet infrastructure to UN. United States is, once again, abusing their privileges. Even China acts nicely and only censors within their border. US does everywhere and for other nationals. In my opinion, US is much worse than China in terms of censoring.
Thanks, DHS! I have long been worried that terrorists could gamble online and somehow infringe my safety and freedom.
Sure, the moment America's clueless lawmakers stop trying to push their cluelessness on the rest of the world.
This isn't new... even Slashdot has covered stories like these before.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/07/04/1439246/us-uk-targeting-piracy-websites-outside-their-borders
The summary can say not-American for a billion things, at the end of the day the domain TLD was com, over which the U.S. firmly asserts jurisdiction as the companies that run them are all U.S.-based.
Besides fighting 'The (U.S.) Man', people would do well to realize this and register somewhere a bit more friendly (in addition to any .com, .net, .org, etc.). In the case of this Canadian business, perhaps .ca? Oh wait, they did. And that ( bodog.com ) in turn redirects to a .co.uk .
This was a Maryland law, which makes it illegal to run a gambling site anywhere in the world that the guy was convicted of, the US is enforcing with this domain.
So if one of those religious US nut-job states (you know the kind that think the world was created 5000 years ago by Adam and Eve, Santorum voters) decides that pornography is a crime, even if the sex took place in Japan, then likewise, the US will prosecute those Japanese and will shut down their websites.
I think the USA can't be trusted with the Internet.
Or any TLD that's managed by a US company. Verisign manages .tv and .cc.
http://www.firstrowsports.tv/
They moved to http://www.firstrowsports.eu/
It has several, here is an example.
Silence is a state of mime.
In the old days of commerce by ships, they labelled this kind of behaviour as "Piracy on the high seas"
The punishment was generally hanging, I understand.
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Keep insulting the USA and I promise, I will write to my senator to ask that Canada be invaded next.
Bodog.com saw this coming from a mile away and switched their domain name to Bovada.lv in November 2011. Bodog.com was just a redirect site when it was seized and Bovada.lv is still up and running.
No telling how long it will take the US to get to Bovada.lv, but I wouldn't feel safe playing there. I think they had been trying to do something about Bodog for 5 years!
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I think that's all part of the problem. Most likely, they were serving US customers. They probably made no attempt to turn away customers from other jurisdictions where the website may not have been legal. To operate within the law, they should probably do like all the media sites (like Hulu and Netflix) and assure that all payments are done on credit cards within countries that have legalized online gambling, and that traffic is coming from proper IPs. sure there are ways around this stuff but if they were making an effort to block US traffic, I'm sure they wouldn't be in this position in the first place.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
erm, no it's not it was intended for commercial entities world wide. You have .us to use.
Ungovernable = Pure chaos = Too risky for business
Cheers, Glen
You mean in the same way as US firms with US customers use .us?
Could you cite your source that .com is only for US? I've certainly never perceived that way.
Cheers, Glen
"federal law prohibits bookmakers from flouting that law simply because they are located outside the country,"
Newsflash - a company registered outside the US and not doing business in the US is not bound by ANY type of US law, federal or otherwise. Perhaps someone should remind the US authorities that they don't run the world just yet.
They probably only did this because they think canada is a soft touch. I'd like to see them try it with a chinese or russian company.
Sovereignty, who's got it anymore? It seems Canada sold us theirs at a garage sale.
Take the Red Pill.
A source link in TFA goes to the actual warrant. The way it reads, a Maryland detective in addition to a DHS task force "officer", have a warrant to retrieve property, in this case "the Internet domain name bodog.com".
I haven't read my TOS when I registered my domain, but I believe that the domains belong to me and don't belong to the registrar. The warrant makes it sound like the domain belongs to Verisign. I am not a lawyer and I'm probably reading this incorrectly.
I have many questions regarding this, namely WTF is a local detective involved in this case. What was his role? Was there some sort of crime in Maryland (specifically Anne Arundel County) that started this investigation?
We don't live in Shouldland.
The issue of Internet jurisdiction really ought to have been sorted out by now. At present it's shoot first and ask questions later.
It's hard to make a case for any online business if the mere fact of its availability outside the country in which it is domiciled can render it (and its staff) potentially liable for criminal, privacy, libel, patent and other legal processes in countries where it may not even know it has customers - or indeed can have its service disrupted by actions against upstream providers with whom it has no contractual relationship. The Internet is as precarious as the Pony Express.
The US, in particular, seems particularly resistant to international discussion on any aspect of the Internet - witness the bizarre conspiracy theories spouting forth from FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell which prompted the wonderful headline in the New American "Obama Quiet as UN & Dictators Push to Control Internet" [http://thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/computers/10953-obama-quiet-as-un-a-dictators-push-to-control-internet].
Unfortunately, if there isn't some progress on the subject of jurisdiction we're going to have a series of discrete regional networks (US, Europe, China, ...) and a distributed Great Firewall of Protectionism.
In the meantime, if you're looking for a new business idea, I'd suggest whittling might be fairly safe, provided you produce no rectangles with rounded corners.
Nothing. The .ca servers are not in US control. I suppose the US could exert political pressure, but that's it.
Send him a check and I'm sure it will happen.
Take the Red Pill.
The manufacturing sector has been hounded out of the US and now it is the turn of the most vigorous replacement industries (those based on the internet).
The reason the internet has been such a phenomenal success, with the most amazing record of growth ever, is that up to now the government has, perhaps unwittingly, kept its hands off. But there is nothing that the government can't improve, and they are going to improve the hell out of the internet.
I know I am picking on the USA. Up to now freedom has been greatest there, and Americans have reaped the benefits. Now Americans have the most to lose. Like gun and abortion rights, this is going to be a never-ending battle against the forces of darkness.
Support the EFF!
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
If the UN was in control, NOTHING would get censored because NOBODY could agree on it. Just like there is no resolution against Syria because China and the USSR doesn't want it. The US could veto ANY UN censorship attempt, so could the UK and a host of other nations.
Now the US has total control and the US has shown to be far worse at it then the countries you list, none of them have tried to censor outside their own borders.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They do. It's called Wall Street. All the profits are siphoned out of the country into pointless foreign wars and offshore banks. In fact, that's where all of your taxes go too for that matter, so it's exactly what you ask for.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
If you host the domain name in Ontario Canada
It is considered property due to a recent ruling by the Ontario supreme court , one might argue that this site is legal in Canada and might get A similar judgement as long as it was hosted in canada.
NOW all we have to do is start a class action lawsuit and then take a trade suit to the WTO and get sanctions against the usa.
The last time this happened an entire nation was allowed free patents and copyrights when the USA lost.
DO not kid yourselves here...THIS IS GONNA NOW START GETTING REALLY UGLY.
If you're a Canadian company with Canadian customers, use .ca, eh? .com makes it seem like you're targeting your southern neighbors.
.com is the de facto standard top domain for pretty much any website in the world
The Facts
.us .gu .vi ] .mil .edu .gov ] .com .net ] by spirit belong to the global community and are under the control of ICAAN, however, ICAAN incorporated in the U.S and falls under U.S Jurisdiction. The highly controversial [ .xxx ] sTLD is also sponsored by a U.S company and falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S government.
.com belongs to the global internet community but U.S legislation may be forced upon adopters at the U.S governments whim.
Country-Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD) are two-letter domains established for countries
Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) are three-letter (or more) domains that operate directly under policies established by ICANN processes for the global Internet community
Sponsored Top-Level Domains (sTLD) are proposed and sponsored by private agencies or organizations
U.S Jurisdiction
The U.S government has jurisdictional control over the ccTLD of its country and territories [
Being the sponsor of the following sTLD's, the U.S Government also has jurisdictional control over [
Generic Top-Level Domains like [
There are many other TLD's I have not listed here that are also under U.S government jurisdiction either directly or indirectly (i.e. through organizations incorporated within U.S borders)
Conclusion
sources: as listed by parent
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