News Source: http://www.webpronews.com
Published: Oct 17, 2008 - 09:09 am
Story Found By: NeO 1315 Days ago
Category: Domaining
Like China, Kentucky is now trampling on the freedoms of the citizens of the Commonwealth by blocking domains that are legal in most parts of the world.
13 Comments
Comments
As a Kentuckian, this is just soooooo embarrassing. Watching politicians try to legislate the internet is like watching your dog run in traffic.
Can’t we just knock Kentucky completely off the grid for a while?
I do not see how they can actually get away with this. What if the domain name is registered out of the country along with the hosting. Other countries do not have to follow laws in other countries or even states. They should have the KY based ISP’s block certain websites from being accessed, would make this a lot easier I would think.
As a KY-based SEM, this breaks my heart. Of all the terrific stuff going on in KY, this makes everything look like a teh backwater hillbilly fail zone. Was anyone who actually understands the global economy and new media present when this was considered?
I guess the assumption is that Kentuckians are too stupid to use proxy sites....
The gambling organizations are among the most innovative and sophisticated businesses on the web. Could it be the gambling organizations deliberately fanned these flames in KY knowing the state’s history of flamboyant enforcement attempts would help set a precident in their favor? A state appeal or supreme court defeat would seem to be unavoidable - and the gambling entities know it. But then they have a court decision (KY Supreme court) to point to when suits are filed against future expansion.
I’m not sure if you can compare China to the US here. While the Great Firewall of China blocks domains, they haven’t AFAIK taken legal action against their owners? This trend of seizing domains seems uniquely American at the moment. And not only Kentuckians. Last year the US Department of the Treasury took control of several "cuban themed" domains on the grounds that the US has an embargo against the country. The owner was British, operating through a company in Spain and had their servers located in the Bahamas. The only US connection was that they registered the domains through the US company Enom. It’s a strange situation where your domains are (seemingly) better protected by a Russian Registrar than a US one. I’d certainly avoid US Registrars now for "sensitive" domain names until someone resolves this all in court.
A sad commentary on the United States for sure. As the Internet goes truly global, most commerce moves online, and just about every developed nation outpaces us in delivering broadband and encouraging entrepreneuring, we let a backward state step in and threaten the very basis of the Internet - domain name rights on the top level domains. Our foreign colleagues are already pointing a finger at said state and poking fun at our "union". Clearly Kentucky has admitted its failure to lead on this -- by saying "until express guidelines from sate and federal legislative bodies say other wise." Last I checked New York, New Jersey, California, and even Alaska have the balls to demonstrate they are capable of making laws and leading the nation in at least thinking about what they see as issues in need of attention. Perhaps because their lawmakers actually have a shot at promotion to federal positions some day? Effective tomorrow -- all tubes must reroute around the Great State of Kentucky. Boooyah!
Newsflash: In America gambling is illegal and has been for a very long time. Just like you have to pay taxes to the IRS, even though it is voluntary, the Feds if NOT the State governments will be coming after any American actually stupid enough to be running an illegal gambling activity online that is homebased in the States.Gee this is like saying: I am going to be selling Fireworks from a Website operating in the Commonweatlh of Virginia. Sure, try it if you are really stupid.By the way, Virginia likes to bust people for life for merely downloading Kiddy Porn. Is any adult website operator going to be crying about that restriction too?I would be more worried about going to jail for ten years, than I would be about losing a domain.
@JohnHGohdeYes but allowing states (or even countries) dictate to website owners that they must be closed to their citizens is problematic. So every website owner must be aware of how their material stands legally around the world, and set up the correct geo-location rules. Knowing the law according to every country and state on the planet is tough work. Let’s put this on the other foot, imagine a state in Russia decides in their local court that firework sites are illegal. The Russian court then prosecutes a US based business for allowing their site to be viewed by those residents. Soon we have international lawsuits blowing up all over the place - where the site owners were unaware of the local laws and didn’t have the correct blocking in place. Maybe site owners better just restrict IPs access only to their own country - just to be on the safe side? Lets dump the idea of international commerce eh? This approach to policing the web is absolutely insane to me. If you *are* going to restrict material then just level laws at your local ISP - don’t come after the site owner or domain. Especially when the business has no dealings with your constituents
@NickWilsdon Presumably citizens of their own country would know what the local laws are. It is only problematic for people setting up websites in other countries totally clueless as to what the laws are.I would never buy stock in the Hong Kong Stock Market precisely because I would not want to have to travel to Hong Kong, if anything would go wrong. Why would buying web domains be any different?If you cannot stand the heat then you should stay out of the kitchen.Gambling in the United States is like trying to sell moonshine. Our government wants their cut of the action, and they are not above putting people in jail in order to enforce their percentages. Perhaps, you people should have greased the wheel a little better? How much money have you donated to one or more of our U.S. Congressmen?
With all due respect John, you still don’t see my point. Yes, business are expected to understand what the local laws are in their *own* countries but the assumption with this case, is that they understand the laws in *every* country (and state).AFAIK these poker domains had no business connection with Kentucky beyond being accessible through the net. The judge here is saying that the business needs to have blocked Kentuckians from having access and by way of punishment, he is taking the domains. Lets try another senario. One Russian judge in the state of Ivanovo, decides that websites condemning Prime Minister Putin are illegal. They then take to court an American political site which failed to block people in Ivanovo from seeing it. It passes judgement that the domain and assets of that company are confiscated. You see the picture now? Gambling maybe illegal in the US but it is not in *many other countries*. We must not mistake US law with some kind of global law. The internet allows free access to sites hosted in different countries and legalities. What this ruling says, is that companies must now start pro-actively blocking any geographic region where their material is considered illegal. Not such an easy task. The alternate of course if not to hold your domain names within US juristiction. They then have no sanction to apply to the domain owner. While you talk about ICANN here, they do not in fact have a mandate to confiscate "gambling" domains. Many UK citizens own COM/NET/ORG casino domains quite legitimately. This ruling was leveled at and carried out by a US Registrar, who had no choice but to abide by the country rules in which it operated.This is why I suggest that using a Registrar outside US juristiction is quite a sensible move at the moment if you have domains considered "at risk" under US law.
@NickWilsdonIn Common Law jurisdictions there is a concept called venue. A judge cannot take any domain unless he has venue over it. And, that would mean that the domains physically resides within the state of Kentucky. If the judge did not actually have venue, it is up to the defense attorneys to motion for a dismal based upon venue. Or, motion to have the venue changed. If the judge over rules their motions, then once again it is up to defeneys attornies to save the point for appeal. If the defense attorneys failed to do this, which happens all the time, that is just plain tough under the U. S. jurdiscal system.You appear to be equating justice with the practice of law. You do realize don’t you that some individuals have spent decades rotting inside a U.S. jail because the courts are refusing to consider any newly found evidence? This type of thing happens all the time in Virginia. You have X numbers of days to present evidence, even in a capital case, and after that it is just plain tough.I am sorry, but in the U.S. judges and lawyers play dirty. Judges will often do things prohibited by case law precisely because they know that the defending attorneys have to bear the cost of filing an appeal, where 99% of all appeals filed are lost, often for procedural reasons.Once agian, unless you are prepared to bear the cost of showing up on U.S. territory to defend lawsuits no matter how frivolous then you have no business purchasing domains through U.S. companies residing within the territories of the United States.It is just a matter of commonsense. You will never see me purchase a British or Russian domain for similar reasons.Of course the same thing happens with foreign registrars, too. Just violate one of their unknown laws, like showing a couple kissing on the website and see what some foreign countries just might have to say about it.