Slashdot Mirror
No, You Can't Seize Country TLDs, US Court Rules
itwbennett writes A U.S. court has quashed an attempt to seize Iran's, Syria's and North Korea's domains as part of a lawsuit against those countries' governments. The plaintiffs in the case wanted to seize the domains after they successfully sued Iran, Syria and North Korea as state sponsors of terrorism. But the court found the domains have the nature of a contractual right, and ruled that rights arising under a contract cannot be seized as part of a judgment.
But what does Bennett Haselton think about this? I can't form an opinion until he weights in on this issue. He's a frequent contributor.
Flock of Seagulls pooped on my parade!
Damn, I was hoping to get .com's and .gov's seized due to US state sponsored terrorism (I mean surveillance)
Hey, I'm going to sue sex offenders and as such, seize their listings in the phone book!
Seriously, what do they think they can gain from not letting a government control it's own name?
It's not like Iran is going to stop existing on the Internet even if they did take them. Peering through less hostile neighbors wouldn't just stop. The only leverage this would really give the US government is the ability to set up "kimjongisapoopyhead.nk".
Who are the plantiffs? I hate having to research every damn article on this site because of lazy contributors.
Since we cant punish them in virtual space
There was this contract between the government and the citizens where they agreed to:
1) not take away my freedom of speech
2) not take away my arms
4) not invade my privacy
How about it?
Awarding the domains would have set a precedent and opened a whole can of worms (opportunity?) in the porn industry.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Basically it works like this.
1) Amy has a contract to wash Bob's car for $100 month.
2) Carl sues Bob for murdering his dog.
3) The courts can not give Carl a contract with Amy. The courts can only award Carl with property and money taken from Bob.
Basically the courts can't force Amy to work with Carl. They can't force ICANN to work with the plantiffs.
DDoS those countries from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
...wants to people start getting tossed in prison for a few years when the most particularly frivilous and brain dead lawsuits fail miserably in a court.
Another part of me realizes this power would be corrupted and abused to provide even more avenues to silence critics of the ruling elite.
The U.S. doesn't fucking run the internet. Not that this kind of bullshit is just an American thing.
It should be America that is having its top level domains ceased.
Look at the history of US backed terrorist atrocities:
Sandistas, Cuba, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, South Africa, Korea, India, Mexico, Burma, Syria, Uruguay, Yugoslavia, Zaire, Panama, Pakistan, Laos, Indonesia, Iraq, Albania, El-Salvador, Ghana, Gutemala, Argentina, Chile, China, Columbia, Cambodia, Brazil - Castelo Branco, Israel
Afghanistan - US gave Taliban billions of dollars
Shame on you America, for accusing other countries of terrorism. Your whole country is bathed in the blood of the innocent.
I hope to see some of the guilty, eg. Kissinger, face war crimes trials.
One reason (IIRC, it was the same reason that SOPA/PIPA was shelved) is that China and Russia made it quite clear that blocking their domains is the same thing as blockading physical ship ports or denying access to airspace -- it would be considered an act of war and treated as such.
Same thing on this level. Taking the TLDs from the countries would further advance the cause of the UN to seize ICANN.
You think the US is bad... wait until the UN starts running things, with countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia at the helm. Got a pic of your friend eating a BLT? Your entire domain and IP range gets pulled.
North Korea and Syria sponsor terrorism? Never heard of that accusation, who do they support? And who was suing them? This could only be done by someone who was damaged, right?
Who gave North Korea a computer? Why would they need a TLD?
Then why do the courts make it possible to seize domains of individuals and private corporations?
The only nation in human history to fight a nuclear war and win!
Ignoring entirely why the us feels it's courts have jurisdiction at all, any other outcome would have resulted in these countries and their friendly neighbours legislating TLD definitions.
No government would want to trust their TLD (on which relies the entire country's infrastructure and economy) to a foreign country that interferes with it. Once that can of worms is opened, you'd probably end up with each country hosting their own alternative root and mandating their ISPs either default to using it or being able to fail over to it quickly when necessary.
A court in the US had to make a ruling in order to discover that there is a 'rest of the world' which doesn't belong to it?
And Mauritius lost its gov.mu! Now they are using govmu.org!
Basically it works like this. 1) Amy has a contract to wash Bob's car for $100 month. 2) Carl sues Bob for murdering his dog. 3) The courts can not give Carl a contract with Amy. The courts can only award Carl with property and money taken from Bob. Basically the courts can't force Amy to work with Carl. They can't force ICANN to work with the plantiffs.
A very thought-provoking post. I had trouble understanding why Bob would pay $100 a month to have his car washed, until I realized that washing his car is a euphemism. Upon realizing that, your argument became much more persuasive.