All financial transactions are processed by Hoop & Javelin Holdings Ltd., Vincenti Buildings, Suite 522, 14/19 Strait Street, VLT1432 Valletta, Malta, owner of this website.
Can the FBI seize the domain because it's a .com TLD? Or, because transactions were occurring in the States?
However, in this case it is a little bit unclear: The "ub.com" domain itself has been registered with an UK based registrar, but the nameservers point to a US company (UltraDNS). Still, from the evidence available it seems that the US directly tampered with the data at the registry (VeriSign):
* According to the UK registrar's WHOIS information the responsible nameserver for the domain is at UltraDNS.
* UltraDNS seems to return the 'correct' results.
* When asking the .com nameservers for the ub.com nameservers, they return two nameservers at cirfu.net.
* cirfu.net leads to the web page with the seizure information.
So yes, it seems that the FBI can indeed size any .com domain, even though it has been registered with a registrar outside of the US. If I'd be a company not based in the US now would be the time where I'd think about migrating to another TLD - I guess for online gamling sites even .ly domains would be a better bet than .com.
They don't a care a bit if a site is entirely foreign-owned and entirely legal in the country of ownership.
Since I doubt the US government will start respecting international law (and ICAAN is international agreements, to which the US government has agreed) the only solution to this will be a viable alternative DNS system.
This is a serious threat to any startup... even though you're not engaged in gambling, they are constantly expanding the "crimes" they will use to sieze domains.
Having only a .com for a business feels a lot like having all your eggs in one basket now.