Judge says domain name loss is not a "substantial hardship" | Hacker News Reader

Judge says domain name loss is not a "substantial hardship"

arstechnica.com

87 pointscanistr42 comments

Ignoring the various free speech issues and focusing on the headline: remember, "substantial hardship" is a technical term.

It means "a demonstrated economic, technological, legal, or other type of hardship to the person requesting the variance or waiver." [0] Of particular note, it only seems to come up in the case of requesting a waiver or other sort of legal exception. An example usage might be a homeless person getting a waiver for a court filing fee, because coming up with the money would be a hurdle he probably couldn't clear.

In this particular case, the company in question is requesting the expedited return of a seized domain, while legal proceedings are still going on. In order to secure such a ruling, they would need to show that not having the domain for the duration of the trial would actually be crippling, not merely inconvenient. (Having not been in the courtroom, I don't know how well they argued this point, but apparently the judge didn't buy it.)

[0] http://www.kleinfeldlaw.com/Publications/Articles/Variances%... and in other places; the usage seems to be fairly consistent

The purpose of the domain seizures was to disrupt -- ideally, to shut down -- websites that the US copyright industries didn't like. Causing them substantial hardship was the entire purpose of the seizure, and to argue that the seizure didn't cause that is purely dishonest.

Exactly. If he's saying it shouldn't be a big deal to get back up at another address, then why is he allowing ICE to seize it in the first place, and what's the point of his ruling?

which is bs, since losing a domain also makes you lose all the thousands of links going to it...would he expect the same of Google? After all, they also own Google.org, so they can just let everyone know to go there instead.

why am I not surprised that the judge is 70 years old:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_A._Crotty

No reason to go ad hominem on the judge.

Seems like it's more a disagreement on the legal definition of "substantial"

ad hominem is not always a logical fallacy, the judge's age may very well be relevant.

a more web savvy judge would have never made such a comment.

The only evidence you have to assert that the judge isn't "web-savvy" is his age. Creepy! A comment this dumb is evidence for how toxic the whole thread is, so let's all stop debating what is and isn't "ad hominem" and move on.

Ad Hominem is a logical fallacy. Unless the OP was saying "The judge is wrong because he's seventy years old" he was not committing ad hominem, just commenting on a (possibly irrelevant) quality of the judge.

that's exactly what he was saying.

Nope. He argued that the judge was wrong, and then suggested that it was the judge's age that caused him to make an error.

What he didn't do is to use the judge's age in support of the first argument -- that would have been ad hominem.

http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html

he did: "[suggest] that it was the judge's age that caused him to make an error"

he didnt: "[use] the judge's age in support of the first argument"

forgive me; perhaps you could clarify the difference?

It was a side note and not part of the argument.

Is this a first year philosophy class? Reminds me of kids in law school. Ad hom this, straw man that...pointless discussion. We can all go look up the definitions if we want & decide for ourselves. Let it go & discussion the actual issue.

Fact is having a second means to communicate (a .me or whatever address) doesn't mean speech isn't an issue here.

http://www.thedomains.com/2011/08/05/federal-court-rules-dom...

It is the difference between

> My opponent is an idiot and believes X to be true, therefore X is false. (ad hominem)

and

> X is false. My opponent believes X to be true, therefore they are an idiot. (Not ad hominem.)

No, he's looking at causality, not logical entailment. He's not saying the judge is old, therefore he must be wrong on Internet matters; he's saying that the judge being old is likely an influential cause of his being wrong on Internet matters. Ad Hominem only refers to fallacy of using personal qualities to present logical arguments; it has nothing to do with the use of personal qualities to ascertain causality.

> Rojadirecta can use its "large Internet presence"

Isn't its large internet presence largely rojadirecta.com ?

I wonder how this judge would feel if the US government suddenly "seized" his home address and telephone number; it's the nearest personal equivalent I can think of.

Not a good enough equivilent to be worth making. The US Government would have to seize his address and number, but he'd still have his house and phone, just in a different location. And in that (very odd) scenario, I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to let people know about it. After all, we've all moved house and changed our telephone numbers now and then.

The Supreme Court already has laws on the books allowing that very thing to occur. While its unlikely to happen to this judge, it has happened. One of the more recent judgements determined that property could be seized even when it's not being converted to public property.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain

The difference is that with eminent domain you must be compensated at a fair market rate. In this case, the property is simply seized.

I would compare this to atdhe.net. They were a fairly large site that linked to streamed sports and TV shows until their domain was seized by ICE because it was a .Net domain. But they managed to stay alive, change their domain name, and get back in business as some other website (I believe it's now atdhenet.tv).

The point is that they were still able to get back their audience after losing their primary domain name.

Sure, it's possible, but I'd still consider it a hardship. One success story doesn't demonstrate that it's easy.

I know a guy who lost one of his legs in a boating accident. After a few years he was able to run again with a prosthetic. No big deal there...

It's more like, the judge runs 1-800-FLOWERS on the side. This 800 number is seized. The "incoming links" are all the advertising and phone books and rapid dial and people's brains and everywhere else this number is stored.

Of course he could set up 1-800-FLORIST instead, but it's going to take a very long time to get back to the same level of business.

"Under federal law, the owner of seized property can seek its return if the government's continuing to hold it would cause a "substantial hardship" to its owner."

So the US can seize my laptop or large quantities of my monetary savings and I have no legal right to get those things back?

Google "civil forfeiture" -- scary stuff. You can get it back, but the onus is on you to stake a valid claim.

Sometimes they'll strike a deal with the rightful owner outside of court - essentially holding the property for ransom.

And this is what happens when a judge who does not understand the internet or business has the power to destroy someone's life.

Yes, they may be able to get the word out to some of their customer base. But a substantial fraction of the customer base that they had won't find them again. And there is likely to be real value in having the dot com.

It's really shocking and depressing to me how many court cases are being settled and laws are being passed by judges and congresspeople that know nothing about the subject matter.

> And this is what happens when a judge who does not understand

You're assuming the judge is ignorant and not malevolent.

Once you start assuming malevolence for an action that can just as easily be explained by incompetence, you very quickly start to step into tin-foil-hat territory.

My legalize is poor, is this judge suggesting this is the case in this particular case, or in the general case?

In the future I will make sure that I register domains that are not under the control of the U.S. government.

I would like to do the same. Do you have any suggestions about which TLD to use and which registrar to use?

Are they redirecting MX records? What would happen, for example, to a Google Apps user in this situation? My understanding is that the entire online infrastructure would disappear for a Google Apps user without some intervention by Google.

It seems that there are are a variety of situations where having your domain cut off would result in significant data loss. This might even be a blessing in disguise for people facing charges in court. "No your honor, I can't give law enforcement access to my email - they were deleted by Google when you seized my domain, since I was no longer the verified owner."

I have moved away from Google Apps for Domains without canceling, and I could still manage the account from https://www.google.com/a/domain-name.example/

So if this is still true, a user could set up for the new domain name and carry on.

Of course if there is a warrant to seize the name, there may also be a warrant to seize control of associated services.

Stupid judge. He has no idea what happens when you lose a domain: you need to pay money for a new one, alert your customers, pay for new ads, and possibly modify your site with the new code.

I know I can't be the only one that worries for the future of the internet? I know the internet will be around for a long time to come, but the question is, will it ever be the same?

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.

And the past smells like roses?

There is some messed up stuff going on and the potential for more, but that's something to fix and not an excuse for fatalism. Protecting individual freedom and human rights is an ongoing process.

I suspect that if it was an american website it would be considered more substantial.

If the seizure of the domains didn't cause substantial hardship, why were they seized in the first place? Seems this judge thinks the government can play both sides of the fence depending on what is convenient in a given context.

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