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Police Demand Summary Domain Takedown, Traffic Redirection

Posted by Soulskill on from the please-and-thank-you-or-else dept.

Stunt Pope writes "This morning, Toronto-based domain registrar easyDNS received a request from the City of London (UK) police demanding that they summarily take down a BitTorrent search site based out of Singapore — or else they would 'refer the matter to ICANN' — suggesting easyDNS could lose its accreditation. The police further directed easyDNS to point all traffic for the domain to an IP address that promoted competing commercial online music services based out of London, UK." easyDNS raises some important questions in the blog post they put up after receiving the request. Quoting: "Who decides what is illegal? What makes somebody a criminal? Given that the subtext of the request contains a threat to refer the matter to ICANN if we don't play along, this is a non-trivial question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought it was something that gets decided in a court of law, as opposed to 'some guy on the internet' sending emails. While that's plenty reason enough for some registrars to take down domain names, it doesn't fly here."

8 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Douche-o-matic by elloz · · Score: 5, Funny

    I summarily summarize this as an exercise in douchedom by dumb policemen.

    1. Re:Douche-o-matic by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Funny

      The UK demanding a Canadian based firm use UK law while in Canadian, while domain in question is for a company in a Singapore?

      Perhaps the UK should have their head of state take up the matter with Canada's head of state.

      --
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    2. Re:Douche-o-matic by elloz · · Score: 5, Funny

      I tried complaining to ICANN once. They told me ICANN fuck off.

    3. Re:Douche-o-matic by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Funny

      Did they mention if you could has a cheeseburger?

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      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  2. too many assholes around here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I didn't know Jack Thompson was licensed to practise law in the UK.

  3. IPCU: London by harvestsun · · Score: 4, Funny

    Intellectual Property Crime Unit: London would be the worst crime drama ever. It would consist entirely of people sitting at desks, sending strongly worded emails.

    1. Re:IPCU: London by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, but what would distinguish it from other potential shows featuring strongly-worded email-at-desk action is that the people doing it would be completely fucking unbearably obnoxious self-entitled arsebuckets. Or, at least employed, by them. So it'd really be more like a reality show.

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    2. Re:IPCU: London by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Funny

      It'd make a great buddy cop show:
      A straight-laced deskjockey forced to team up with a maverick with blatent disregard for the law in the City of London.
      Together they write stern letters with no legal merit whatsoever.

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