Otherwise the general idea seems absurd that an individual state could freeze a domain impacting for the whole Internet…
(EDIT: I won’t lose any sleep at the loss of such scum but the general principle seems a bit strange.)
So they're using the fact that Verisign is a US company and can therefore be leaned on.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. What do other countries do who don't have Verisign to lean on? US companies really don't like being told what to do by governments of other countries, but when the shoe is on the other foot...
They lean on their ISPs, see Spain and the La Liga controversy.
This appears to basically wipe the site from the entire internet, for all countries.
ccTLDs already exist and their respective countries have sovereignty over those TLDs: the UK can disappear any .uk domain name it wants from the global internet.
The .com TLD is American, and is therefore subject to American legal proceedings.
Stomping your feet on the ground because something's not perceived as fair doesn't really change things.
China has its own internet with limited access to the global "internet," other countries are free to do the same.
This is not an "American" proceeding so much as a Texan one, and it's not clear that the State of Texas should have any jurisdiction over the .com TLD.
Verisign is likely to respond depending on how good they think the relationship is between Texan lawmakers and the current Whitehouse administration.
Ample precedent and prior case law exists that the US Federal government can obtain court orders to seize .COM domains. Going back 15 years now.
State government that's another question entirely. When people say "American legal proceedings", the distinction between state courts and federal courts have two very different regions of responsibility and authority.
Multiple Internets over Internet time. Sadly. Some damage can't be routed around.
The latent ability of the United States to shut off some specific domain within a TLD is never going to cause people at large to say "We'll make our own .com with blackjack and hookers!"
In this hypothetical new system, other DNS roots would exist - and for practicality's sake, wouldn't collide with the "old Internet." Nobody is reissuing .coms, they will pick some new TLD or system entirely.. this today is known as a "ccTLD." Are people interested enough in true sovereignty beyond what ccTLDs offer? What does that even look like?
Why do most businesses enjoying .com domains today want to move to your system of control? Nothing can be truly "decentralized" any more than the DNS of today is: countries effectively opt in one way or another - the internet is a cooperative system, much like international diplomacy.
(XXX in this case)
It's the precedent it sets, and especially with the ... sensitivity ... in the US at the moment around 'opinions on things', this feels like it could be the first pebble of an avalanche.
Pretty clear to me.
This result means that Texas can take various means to block motherless. But more importantly no motherless employees should travel to Texas without risk of arrest. Same for abc/youtube/facebook employess traveling to India.
You should be aware of this and monitor it in your industry.
You know real, friendly, generous humans live in Texas, right?
a reasonable number of those people is 10-15%, not 51%+
I grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era, when black people weren’t allowed to vote or even participate in the economy at much beyond the level of slaves. I didn’t get upset when people criticized South Africa, or boycotted it, because the country’s actions certainly justified that.
The entire US is in much the same situation now: in the process of flushing democratic governance down the toilet, elevating open corruption to the standard way of doing business, and flirting with authoritarianism to a degree virtually unimaginable just a few years ago.
In that context, the #notalltexans whine sounds rather muffled from all that sand you’ve stuck your head in.
Would you rather live in Johannesburg or Dallas?
This isn't some "non-extradition country without a treaty" scenario - "neener neener, if I don't step foot in your area you can't touch me." The United States does still have a functioning Constitution.
If Texas wants to arrest an employee of these organizations, they can simply issue a Texan arrest warrant and other States will be compelled to enforce it.
This website was providing services to the people of Texas, and Verisign provides services to the people of Texas as well.
I don't think there's a vacuum so much as a wealth of "I don't like what's happening!"
And Kick Online Entertainment S.A. appears to be incorporated in Luxembourg. The "S.A." is a mostly European thing, kind of like a "limited" company.
(Under "Controversies".)
> In March 2012, the U.S. government declared that it has the right to seize domains ending in .com, .net, .cc, .tv, .name, and .org if the companies administering the domains are based in the U.S. The U.S. government can seize the domains ending in .com, .net, .cc, .tv, and .name by serving a court-order on Verisign, which manages those domains.
The only thing slightly redeem about about them economic wise is their gas reserves. The way they run their state is very similar to a corrupt nation as well. They still want to break away from the US.
However, applying this for violations of _state_ law seems odd.
Where does it end?
What if a law enacted by a single US city’s city council is violated? Would US as a country seize the domain?
"Sorry Meta, but BFE, Nebraska outlawed Farmville and now some guy named Bob owns facebook.com."
That's generally key in making a precedent. The first case is someone nobody really cares for, but it's built a precedent where the next case must follow suit.
The US court system really needs to do something about this, and overturn Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton in favour of Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union.
I do generally agree that local governments trying to forcefully exert their influence beyond their jurisdiction is deeply problematic. It wouldn't even be possible to host a website on the internet if this becomes normalized, due to being held to thousands of contradicting standards. At most Texas should have the authority to tell Texas ISPs to block traffic.
> Kick Online, which openly describes itself as a “moral free” company, ignored the lawsuit and refused to comply with the court’s order. It continued publishing and distributing harmful sexual material that was accessible to minors in Texas.
This is the same website with a forum with millions of users trading information on how to assault their partner.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2026/03/world/expose-rape-as...
FAFO.
Does this mean Texas can shutdown other websites in other states that provide abortion support? I’m sure there are those who would argue such to be harmful to children…(not to mention the fetus)
Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce law requiring age verification and parental consent on apps - https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/supreme-court-allows-texa... - July 6th, 2026
Supreme Court allows Texas’ law on age-verification for pornography sites - https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/court-allows-texas-law-on... - June 27th, 2025
https://mashable.com/article/all-the-states-and-countries-wi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...
Now, I say this mockingly, my neighbors (yes I live in Texas) say such things with a steadfast belief. Which is really weird to me because they keep electing adulterers and rapists.
Leftists and trans activists attempting to shut down Kiwifarms comes to mind.
Then it's violating the laws of a whole lot of places by serving pornography to adults.
The existence of a web server doesn't feel like enough nexus to seize a domain.
Nonsense.
There is no reliable way to not serve your content to people in Texas. If anything, Texas should compel ISPs to not serve it to their Texas customers.
I didn't know that Texas is supporting and promoting the North Korean government: http://naenara.com.kp/main/index/en/first
I wonder why they aren't being called out for anti-American terrorist groups.
Everyone learns this the hard way, it seems.
It was a choice by Motherless and their holding company, Kick Online, to egregiously ignore Texas law; the law has been found sound by the US Supreme Court, and enforceable by Texas. These are the facts of the situation. Everything else to discuss on this is feelings and opinion, unless there are relevant facts not yet shared or discovered.
The other point of view is that they "very reasonably" ignored Texas law because they're not in Texas.
The Supreme Court found that the law was valid, but that ruling doesn't mean it necessarily applies in a situation like this.
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.
Verisign might be bound by Texas law, but they're not the one accused of breaking any laws here. This isn't a law for registrars, it's a law for websites.
Waiting for the day when texas court demands deleting .ee LTD (since estonia is currently only country which has fought agaisnt age verification laws)
under that setup, yes, twxas is illegally breaking US sanctions against north korea
What do you mean "serves"? Does that just mean not actively blocking users from Texas? Allowing your web site to be accessible regardless of user location is, and always has been, the default way to run a web site. Your assertion would mean that web site operators are beholden to the laws of all jurisdictions on the planet if they don't actively block those users.
Think about what a bad precedent that would be. Some countries criminalize promotion of pro-LGBT+ content. What if those countries suddenly demand extradition of people who run pro-LGBT+ blogs because the web sites are available there?
Also, keep in mind that geolocation isn't actually part of the Internet - it's an overlay that private companies have cobbled together that usually works. But it's not perfect, especially at the subnational level. Many times I've connected to public Wi-Fi and I get an alert that I've signed into something from across the country, because that's where the Wi-Fi provider's IPs are located. Are you sure that every jurisdiction in the world will accept that if gelocation gets it wrong, you're off the hook? Utah has already claimed that companies are responsible for complying with their laws even if the user masks their location with VPN. https://www.privacyguides.org/news/2026/05/11/utah-targets-v...
Simple: a local court having jurisdiction over those individuals would utilize their own laws and discretion to decide if they are required to extradite these people.
If a country chooses not to comply, political consequences may ensue - this is basic international diplomacy. Russia doesn't seem to care about demands to extradite Snowden: they don't have to, they have the resources and political will to ignore these demands. Someday, perhaps to curry favor, they might comply.
Smaller, weaker countries don't have the luxury of noncompliance, nor do they have the same ability to have their various legal proceedings enforced extraterritorially.
Might makes right.
I'm honestly wondering what sort of person goes through life like that.
You're free to fight back and contest it and be the Erin Brockovich you've always wanted to be - that is freedom. But the rest of us in reality understand how diplomacy, politics, and economic activity works.
Interest (and by proxy, money) succeeds. People at large (not just neurodivergent, computer-employed, left-leaning folks) aren't all that interested in protecting your friendly neighborhood porn site (even if they frequent it or would be upset if it shut down), so these businesses lose.