Uncle Sam: If It Ends in .Com, It’s .Seizable
wired.com
wired.com
That said, the Internet breaks down a lot of established jurisdictional law because a website can operate effectively anywhere the Internet exists, and as such can theoretically be subject to the laws of any web-connected jurisdiction. These seizures are just another example of how the law has not caught up to the basic operating procedures of the web.
There is a certain legal philosophy that says the Internet is operating under its own version of Maritime Law, which is to say its a non-national zone where the law is defined by consensus practice and then ratified by bordering or participating jurisdictions. International salvage rights emerged from common maritime practice, and are now generally recognized as legally binding.
That's in theory a good model for the web, but I'm very certain the US Government doesn't see it that way.
All US judicial authority derives from the constitution. Given a controversy under the jurisdiction of the Federal courts, a trial cannot be denied the agreeved party unless:
1. There is no controversy
2. There is a stipulation in the constitution, or the jurisdictional laws passed by congress, that says federal jurisdiction doesn't exist.
3. There is a valid treaty which specifies a different process
4. The case was already tried.
5. Neither party is subject to the laws of the US.
Absent those conditions the US courts would have to take the case.
Forum selection conventions must still conform to the constitution.
If you wanted to change this you would need to convince Congress to pass a law changing enforcement of copyright.
Without the ability to take servers offline and to firewall traffic based on source/destination, what is an overreaching government to do?
This reminds me of the Laffer curve of taxation vs tax revenue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve
As government interference with the free Internet reaches a critical level, their enforcement and intelligence gathering ability will begin to decrease.
Although you cannot control what DNS name is given, so it's not a full DNS drop in.
Freenet IIRC does the distrbuted hosting.
Wired suggests that some want to move this stewardship to the UN. This is not a solution.
A still more decentralised approach is needed; if the Internet is to truly "treat censorship as damage, and route around it", no core Internet protocol can afford to have any kind of "root server", "switch board" or "root certification authority".
There are plenty of good hackers here, perhaps more importantly there are people here who can build communities; rather than trying to invent the "next facebook", I hope you will divert some of your attention to making a pervasively distributed Internet both (a) technically feasible and (b) desired by the Man In The Street.
I think we've got to get people to start using the decentralized internet we have.
While we have this issue with the US declaring it can seize .com domains I prefer the setup rather than turning it over to the UN where it make it near impossible to not have a domain subject to anyone's whim.
I've registered a few .it's (Italy) and still maintain a bunch of .com.au's. I dont know, the internet is starting to scare me...maybe avoiding .com isnt a terrible idea, but i have no idea how the others would behave. Likely they wouldn't be much better...
I feel like we're in the 60's of the Internet and soon 'the man' is going to come down on us all and we'll have to get real jobs and stop smoking our virtual weed.
http://swedishchocolate.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/swedi...
Yeah you're right, this isn't my day...sorry to any of the Swiss or Swedes who i have offended.
http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-b...
If people sit on their hands and say, “It’s all the same really, no point in doing anything,” then nothing will ever change. You have to vote a certain way, lobby, speak out, protest, write blog posts, and yes, even move domains from one place to a seemingly similar other place if you want to make the world a better place.
However the point of highlight territorial control of TLDs is just to make it clear that there is such a control that can be flippantly exercised. Which itself argues in favour of alternative DNS systems that are not subject to such anachronistic territorial control. Such an argument can't even begin if people think they can avoid the whole .com thing by moving to a different tld.
Why? Sounds like cutting your nose to spite your face.
If you had a store to open and all the customers were on "K" street would you not go there because "K" street had a .0001 chance of crime vs. a street with .000000001 chance of crime.
Is there rationality in your decision (for your particular purpose) or are you just protesting against what you see as a potential slippery slope?
But until I have that store, I needn’t worry about it. So I don’t see any irrationality here whatsoever.
Also, when people access a site, they either type in a domain from a physical source, or more often they search or follow links. Which TLD is used in the domain doesn't really affect this process very much, except in situations of 'passing off'. So perhaps it is a good idea to register the .com, but just not do anything with it.
How in touch are you with everyday users of .com domains?
Do you think the majority of the individuals and businesses in this country or in foreign countries are doing things that will make them fear loosing their domains because the US might seize their domain? (These are people that in many cases support racial profiling.)
They won't. I've been dealing with these people since 1995. They don't care.
They use passwords like "football". Then don't read FAQ's.
"Also, when people access a site, they either type in a domain from a physical source, or more often they search or follow links."
Where are you getting this from?
>> Where are you getting this from?
See here http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/02/11/facebook-login
My observations of usage come from working in IT at a wide variety of companies, from corporates to small businesses, including doing customer support at an ISP. I also have been coding HTML since December '93, so am no novice when it comes to the habits of people online. Personally I would say that people use the location bar as rarely as possible, and usually navigate by remembering a path to something, so once they are used to finding a login page through google, they tend to go through the same process again and again rather than typing in the URL, as even though that would be much quicker, it requires more actual thought.
As in; 'X is not really an issue, because in example Y it was mainly happening to foreigners', is very rarely a good argument for the vast majority of values of X and Y.
What are generic non country specific domains and is the new domain you have to own? This is the reason why they are so popular, nobody uses .us exactly for that reason.
Is .co a replacement, it's similar to .com, short and non US based. Maybe this will make the domain indifferent, TPB has .se now as the primary domain.
Seems like the US govt is determined to destroy the value of dot-com domains. I'm sure thousands of domain squatters are crying their eyes out right now!
1- you own the .com domain for branding, people understand it etc
2- your site isn't actually a .com
Would SEO be hurt by doing something like this?
Another thought: swomb.at could be considered worse than say swombat.at as it is using the TLD to complete the word but I may be completely wrong in that case.
Also, I didn't remember wired.com comments being such a cesspool...
Of all people, I would expect Hollyood executives to be particularly sensitive to this:
Unless if by "causing harm" you mean "not paying enough tax to the US", then I fail to see how this website was causing any harm...
If you are engaging in what is undeniably a business relationship (money/goods/services/written agreements/etc.) with people who are in a country, then it doesn't matter where you are; you can quite easily end up subject to the laws of that country. This is not a new idea. This is not a scary idea.
bodog got their domain seized because they thought they could engage in that sort of relationship with US customers despite offering services which were illegal in the US. This is downright mundane, and the amount of ignorant hyperbolic OMG FASCIST IMPERIALIST JACKBOOTED THUGS TRAMPLING ALL OVER ME hysteria it's generated frankly disgusts me.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that you ought to be able to break US laws when dealing with US customers. The question here is what sort of process is used to seize these domains. Notice how you alleged something about Bodog? Are these allegations proven in court? Was some kind of open hearing made? Did Bodog have a chance to respond to the allegations before their domain was seized?
I don’t speak for anyone except me, but I think it’s quite reasonable to (a) Agree with you that when dealing with US customers you ought to comply with US laws, while simultaneously (b) Asking tough questions about how the US government chooses to “enforce” its laws.
In any kind of business relationship, there are two parties involved, usually a seller and a buyer. In this case, it's the business and a costumer. If a transaction is illegal, both are equally responsible and thus liable, not just one of them (e.g. rape is not a business relationship, so the victim cannot be blamed, but prostitution is (as long as it's not forced), so the prostitute is breaking the law as well).
If the US makes some business relationships illegal, when one of the parties is in the US, it should go after that one party, not after the other one. E.g. copying DVDs is illegal in the US, but legal in most of Europe. Should I be punished for offering the service of making backup copies of DVDs for EVERYONE, or should the US punish the US customer that was using a service that is illegal?
In a way, what the US did is disrespect and ignorance of Canadian national sovereignty. Canada seems to be OK with that, but I hope that other countries won't be...
If an US citizen pays to prostitute at overseas can US sue the prostitute for offering the service to united states citizen where it isnt illegal?(assuming states finds out about it somehow)
Because this is basically the same, a serviceprovider offers a service thats legal in the country the company and hosting is based on for customers of said country. When someone not from the said country finds out about the service and starts to use it the company is doing something illegal? Internet is global and it is nearly impossible to make a service that ISNT ILLEGAL SOMEWHERE (see china & citizenrights/laws)
Further, the use of such trickery is the result not of passionate seekers of justice, but ambitious federal agents and prosecutors who see a fairly easy, high-profile target. It is a bad sign of the way the machine of justice runs these days, and doesn't bode well for freedom for the US or the internet.
Summum ius, summa injuria.
Sports betting. It probably does cause actual harm to some, but that's debatable. And should all occasionally harmful things (like say, guns and vodka) be outlawed? Liquor stores and betting shops in poor neighbourhoods: are they harmful? Should they be outlawed?
What this company does is legal many places, though not in the USA. Were some of the people who chose to use the site located in the USA? Yes. Is the site merely a front for enabling US citizens to break their country's law? Harder to say what the percentages of users are.
This seems similar to closing down a betting shop located in Canada, on the grounds that a lot of the patrons had crossed the border to go there and break US law.
That analogy leaves me with a few questions: (1) is a "tunnel to Canada" a good analogy for "a .com domain hosted in Canada"? (2) Is it true/ a good thing that .coms come under US jurisdiction? (I think this is the case, but shouldn't be).
The problem arises because, unfortunately, .com domains are based under US jurisdiction. Given that, there's an option for US-local lawmakers to apply for a takedown.
it may be a historical fact, but it's not a general perception. The internet is global, and I (and probably many people) read ".co.uk" as "A UK-based business", for example. And ".com" reads as "a business on the net". ".com" has prestige as a top-level domain, even for companies that don't do much business in the USA. it says "worldwide" - like the internet.
Did Bodog only allow US residents to use their website? That seems highly unusual.
The constant rhetoric of groups like the Tea Party around "what the founding fathers wanted" is a response to things like the Fourth Amendment being completely ignored. It is unfortunate so much of that anger gets focused in ultimately useless directions with the Democratic witch hunting. The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force was started by the Reagan administration.
Democrats and Republicans are merely different sides of the same rusty coin.
Gay marriage is only an issue because some Republicans feel they have every right to control your personal relationships. A few Republicans also want to ban abortion, which is again a ridiculousness intrusive government control. Let alone tapping every form of communication, tightening immigration restrictions, increasing law enforcement funding etc. Even the idea we can dictate what other country's do inside their brooders suggests a level of control that's unreasonable.
PS: I would love to vote for Ron Paul, but everyone else just seems to pay lip service to the idea of smaller government without intending to do so.
This is completely OT but marriage is by design, its very nature and tradition not a personal relationship. That's why you have a gathering (the wedding itself), someone usually perceived as important presiding, a party (the reception), why you take your vows in public, why its registered in often publicly accessible registry, why you announce it in a newspaper etc, etc. The concept is even established in the common law by which you can, sometimes and in some places, become married by "acting married" in public.
Marriage is for the society much more than it is for the people getting married. And in the western culture governments decided the terms of marriage (also, possibly more importantly, divorce) on and off since antiquity. It's not some new development.
[edit] For example, in the US the Democrats publicly say they want healthcare to be affordable, in the UK the Conservatives are the right-wing party and publicly say they want to keep healthcare free and available to everyone based on need, not the ability to pay.
"My chief can beat up your chief."
(And if you really believe one side wants more control than the other, regardless of side, you've bought it, hook, line and sinker. The question isn't about control, anymore. It's about how to express that control.)
.is, however, is managed by Iceland. Iceland has been positioning itself as a haven for organizations concerned about free-speech and broad-sweeping censorship.
However, I could see a seizure of a domain in a different country's TLD (ccTLD to be specific) causing a diplomatic scuffle between the US and the foreign country. I can't imagine France would be thrilled with the FBI seizing 'foo.co.fr' or something.
A quick performance scan show it can comfortably handle 50 concurrent requests with a 5.5MB throughput.
I'm very curious what kind of numbers longer tests on higher bandwidth connections would generate.
Its really a very bad long term move on DOJ's part and especially undercuts the US State department efforts
Why is it unreasonable for a .in domain to follow Indian law? Isn't that the whole point of country-specific domains?