Have a .com web address? Know the legal risks

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/have-com-web-address-know-legal-risks-ck-113355

by pier0 • 14 years ago

203 75 14 years ago

nbr.co.nz

Roritharr2• 14 years ago

How about a redirect?

If i have a .com address redirect to my main .de page, i'd expect that the worst that could happen is the .com redirect will be changed to a takedown page, without any extradition charges for myself, am i wrong?

bhickey2• 14 years ago

I sincerely doubt that the ICE would see it that way. I presume they would liken it to putting up a billboard in Yuma that says "Free Crack at my store in Mexico!"

ThaddeusQuay24• 14 years ago

Correct. However, if you always redirect to somewhere else, and that somewhere else has an identity which really stands out, then people will get used to that destination. So, when the government takes away your DotCOM, your existing audience is already prepared with the knowledge of where to go to get your content. After some research, I believe that destination should be DotTEL, and I wrote about some of its features recently [1]. Lastly, I notice that I forgot to include there that DotTEL is also useful as a status page for the services handling the content to which it points.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649087

larrys4• 14 years ago

Extradition charges? You think they are going to go to the trouble of extraditing you? What are you doing exactly that you feel there would be the risk of that? How many people do you think they can even afford to extradite in a given year?

alextgordon• 14 years ago

You may laugh, but how many years ago would extraditing a university student with a website that had links to pirated content have been laughable?

GoodIntentions• 14 years ago

I don't think the .COM vs DE extension is as relevant as what type of interaction your web site is having with American citizens. ( Selling pharma/torrents/gaming etc )

They'll grab your NET/COM/ORG address in a heartbeat, but I think actually extraditing a person would require:

a: that person residing someplace that bends to US will. ( damn near everywhere )

b: costing US interests enough $$$ to piss them off.

Even if they don't extradite, you might find yourself arrested at the airport if you ever make a connecting flight through the good old US of A.

rmc4• 14 years ago

I can't wait till someone (successfully) gets an injunction in their home country to get whatever.com resolving back to their proper IP addresses.

It would either fork the .com namespace, or international pressure would mount for the US to no longer have full control over .com.

smsm422• 14 years ago

Since .com registrar is on US soil, AFAIK, injunction outside of the US would carry a very little weight fr it.

rmc4• 14 years ago

They would carry little weight in the USA. But, say, in the EU DNS servers and ISPs would have to obey it. It would a technical nightmare and complete headache for any sysadmin to have to "manually patch" in some values, but would be possible.

It would be an interesting time to live in.

larrys4• 14 years ago

I think this says it all about the bias in this article. Note who the author of it is:

"Vikram Kumar is chief executive of InternetNZ, which adminsters the .co.nz domain, and advocates on behalf of internet users."

But forgetting for a second even that, there are millions of .com/net/org etc domains. If you think the US Government is going to start to file cases against even 1000's of those owners they won't. They have the resources to prosecute only a small fraction that are "breaking laws".

In the US and other countries there are plenty of things that are illegal (smoking pot as only one example). How much enforcement effort is put into that? How many tax returns are audited? Of those audited how many are TCMP (where they reverse engineer and look at everything). An extremely small amount. Sure some people will get snagged. But to think it is you (in the case of most .com uses) is truly paranoia.

The US Government of course will act if they see something that clears the tipping point of a violation. But the risk is way overstated in exchange for having the benefit (at least for a US company) of a .com address.

timClicks• 14 years ago

Just to avoid doubt, InternetNZ is a charitable organisation that is neutral of commercial interests. .nz domain space is managed much differently than the rest of the world.

skrebbel2• 14 years ago

In fact, most of european TLDs are managed in a similar way. Usually always a non-profit, with varying degrees of involvement from internet-related businesses.

larrys4• 14 years ago

He still has to worry about the bottom line. He gets paid a salary and would certainly benefit from registrations in .nz even if a non-profit. Non-profit revenues pays his salary. No different then the head of PBS saying why pbs is superior to non-public tv.

skrebbel2• 14 years ago

> The bottom line: If you have a .com domain name, or other at-risk domain names like .net, you are subject to US domestic laws and jurisdiction.

I don't understand this. If you buy an American product and use it for business, you're an American? Except without the benefits?

Isn't that like Taiwan (or, well, ROC) filing an extradition request when I use my Asus laptop to pirate Taiwanese movies??

Or like Miele dragging me before the German courts because I vacuum cleaned (loudly) on sunday?

What am I missing? Is US law really this fucked up, or is the article exaggerating?

lawn• 14 years ago

That's exactly right. Do we still look down on third-world countries and their lack of democracy? Do we make fun of Chinese censuration? Sadly I've stopped doing that.

radu_floricica2• 14 years ago

It's not the US law that is at fault here, but the extradition treaties. It should be the same as being tried in a Pakistani court for being an atheist while you're born and lived your whole life in Holland: you shouldn't care. But because US is a de facto empire...

tptacek8• 14 years ago

That's not how extradition works. It depends on the treaty, but most of them stipulate that extraditable crimes must be recognized by both jurisdictions. You obviously can't be extradited to Pakistan for being an atheist.

Because we hear so often about legal proceedings against piracy in the US, I think we have a cognitive bias that suggests piracy is more criminal here than in Europe. That's mostly not the case. For instance: the UK's criminal copyright infringement laws, which date back to the late '80s, are just as stringent as ours.

smsm422• 14 years ago

Yes, US law is really like that. Of course, "subject to US law" is a bit of an exaggeration - you subject-ness extends only as far as .com address is concerned, AFAIK. But if the US government thinks you violated US laws, it can seize your .com domain. Unfortunately, taking a domain is much easier than taking physical property, so US government (due to intensive lobbying by copyright mafia) instituted such laws and procedures as to allow it. Next time your local copyright mafia raises its head, remember what they are capable of.

tptacek8• 14 years ago

UK law is like that too! People have attempted to have US citizens found civilly liable under the UK's (much stricter) libel laws in exactly the same jurisdictional razzle-dazzle as is being applied here.

rmc4• 14 years ago

You are not subjected to US law. However verisign have complete control over .com namespace, and they are subject to US law and US courts. Verisign will take your .com off you if the US counts tell them to.

excuse-me5• 14 years ago

Unless one day in the future you have to change planes in the US and suddenly find yourself arrested for running a used DVD site.

Or you can't fly inside Europe because the airlines share a no-fly list with the DHS and you are a US felon.

phatbyte• 14 years ago

Yes, the american dream, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

lwat• 14 years ago

.. and fuck the rest of the world!

drusenko5• 14 years ago

The concept of jurisdiction is complicated, but often comes down to "do you have the authority to make me care".

Any country in the world can make laws about whatever they'd like with regards to things they have control over. In fact, they can make laws about things they don't have control over, but in practice, you can safely ignore getting sued in Iran unless you plan on visiting Iran.

In this case, things are pretty simple: .com, .net, .org, etc are US domain names, administered by a US company, and the US has the authority to subject you to their jurisdiction (because so much of it happens in the US).

If you would like to use a US domain name, you are subject to US law. If you live outside the US and would not like to be subject to US law, then don't use a US domain name or a US web host.

The United States isn't doing anything special here that every other country in the world isn't also doing. If I buy and use a .fr domain name and host servers in France, I am subject to French and EU jurisdiction.

excuse-me5• 14 years ago

This doesn't apply only to servers hosted in the US. The US is claiming that because .com domains must ultimately be registered by a US registrar (since they have ultimate control of the DNS) then even if you have no servers in the US, no customers in the US and no links with the US - you are under US jurisdiction.

It's like France having jurisdiction if you use a French word in your product.

joe_the_user• 14 years ago

The United States isn't doing anything special here than every other country in the world isn't also doing.

Yes but one should use "special" advisedly here. As you say, the US has arrogated this authority simply because it can and indeed every state does this at one time or another and in one fashion or other. This shouldn't stand in the way of those who feel that those claims are outrageous trying to stop them.

sp332• 14 years ago

Verisign is the registrar for .com, and they are based in the USA. So the registration of a .com domain is (currently) under US jurisdiction.

rorrr2• 14 years ago

It's because that statement is not legally correct. Yes, they can take the domain away, but they can't extradite you and prosecute you, unless you're in one of the countries with mutual extradition treaties. It's not the US that fucked up, it's your country that caved to the US pressure.

tptacek8• 14 years ago

With very few exceptions (basically, China, Ukraine and Russia), the countries that don't have mutual extradition with the US are underdeveloped, poor, repressive, unstable, theocratic (the Vatican!), or all of the above.

I'm not sure what kind of pressure you think has to be brought to bear to get two countries to agree to extradite. Extradition treaties are the norm, not the exception. Extradition is not a product of American imperialism.

doubleconfess• 14 years ago

The point of the article is very valid and concerning, but there are alot of factual problems with how this article represents the facts in its main case study.

> For years the Department of Justice had maintained that online gambling was illegal. In a spectacular about turn just before Christmas last year, it said that the law (the Wire Act) only applied to sports betting. They finally recognised the obvious- it takes some skill to win at poker and blackjack. So when it took action against Bodog, it wasn’t for its main activity of online gambling but the relatively smaller one of sports betting.

From someone who has the unique combination of having been a professional poker player for long periods, as well as having worked at Bodog as a software developer I can tell you two things that are very wrong about this paragraph.

1. There isn't any skill in playing blackjack online. The only skill component of playing live is in counting cards, and that doesn't translate online because you are getting a "new deck" with every hand.

2. Sports betting is far and away the most profitable part of their business. In fact, their poker room is nothing but a nuisance to them because it allows professional poker players to swoop in and extract money from the sports betters before Bodog is able to extract it. This is demonstrated by the recent changes to their poker software that make the site very very unattractive to play poker on for any thinking player (ie anonymizing the tables), not to mention their previous rules about limiting the number of tables played at a time.

And then the main point of taking action against the site for the minor crime of sports betting, which is "legal" in Canada. I'm not so sure about that, I know when I worked there that it was common knowledge that the founder of the company hadn't stepped foot in Canada since Bodog had launched. Also, what does it matter if sports betting is the main part of its business or not? If it's illegal to service US customers with an activity that the US government finds illegal, they are obviously going to take action.

Of course I believe online sports betting shouldn't be outlawed, but the US government has always been much more clear about this being illegal when compared to its sometimes wishy-washy stance on poker.

troymc• 14 years ago

Maybe ICANN should allow multiple parties to manage the assignment of domains that aren't country-specific.

For example, let Nominet UK, auDA, InteretNZ, and CIRA manage some .com domains. Why not?

As far as I can tell, the current arrangement is a historical accident.

excuse-me5• 14 years ago

Hand over our God given internet to some foreigners?

In other news - Britain has announced that all letters sent with a postage stamp come under UK jurisdiction.

israelpasos• 14 years ago

Our company recently started using alternative domain handles such as .nu, .es, .se and so on in response to one of my rants. It is the interests behind legislation that continue to halt innovation. We could evolve much faster if we had brighter minds leading our country. In the meantime we decided to contribute by not using .com domains.

I believe URLs are bound to disappear.

Wired also published a related article on March 6: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/feds-seize-foreign-...

We completely agree with the UN's statement: “no single government should have a pre-eminent role in relation to international internet governance.”

drusenko5• 14 years ago

There are 2 issues here:

(1) The US gov't is getting more active in shutting down US-based domain names, sometimes legitimately and sometimes mistakenly. This is obviously very bad when it's not legitimate.

(2) Don't use GoDaddy. A Secret Service "request" should not have shut down JotForm -- they had no legal basis for doing so. GoDaddy has shown themselves time and time again to go above and beyond their legal duties and shut domain names down without any reasonable due diligence. (see http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2011/12/godaddy-a-glimpse-of-...)

read_wharf• 14 years ago

It is surprising to me how far a company like GoDaddy will go to alienate customers, and how a government like the US will go to alienate citizens, visitors and business people. I understand it's about money and power, but it still surprises me.

alan_cx• 14 years ago

This really has nothing to do with the US government. While the US worries the hell out of me in general, it is merely asking for these people. The real problem is the various other governments who, like the UK government, seem to bend to the will of the US with out a squeak.

What I don't understand is that the first job of a government has to be protecting its people. But recently, the reverse seems to be true. Why? Why are we the people suddenly the enemy of government? Why are our governments so happy to sling any one they can in to the weird and unjust legal system? How did that happen? Who the hell elects the US the world policemen and court?

davvid• 14 years ago

But recently, the reverse seems to be true

I don't believe this is a recent phenomenon.

Joakal2• 14 years ago

I'm working with my local Pirate Party to outlaw domain name seizures for the reason that it's asinine since domain names act as typically an address to content and can't violate any laws although the server hosting the content can still be. I also have further reasoning.

Unfortunately, it's for Australian domain names (.au). I think .au domain names are under USA jurisdiction due to AuDA's sponsorship contract with ICANN where ICANN is hosting Australian domain names on a nameserver. The sponsorship deal cost seems to be ~7% of domain names.

The Pirate Party is pretty great for entrepreneurs as they have many closely aligned motives. Did you know a Pirate Party in Czech is trying to make a constitutional amendment of an Internet Access right?

meiji• 14 years ago

Now if only they wouldn't call it the Pirate Party, it might actually attract more mainstream attention. Self-marginalising your political ethos because of the name seems remarkably short sighted. Sadly too many people won't get past the name to see the good that is trying to be done.

Joakal2• 14 years ago

It has caught some mainstream attention, look up Pirate Party Australia.

Is this mainstream attention enough: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/aussie-pira... ?

wavephorm• 14 years ago

The US is going completely authoritarian, and it's becoming more and more scary by the day. It is an extremely serious situation when the most powerful country in the world starts acting like this. Fascism is dangerous, and the US is walking a very thin line now.

Without question root DNS control needs to be stripped from this regime. Imagine for a second if the Internet was controlled by Nazi Germany, or Stalin-era Russia, or today's China... It would be completely unacceptable. If control is not taken away from these thugs now it will only get harder in the future.

nextparadigms2• 14 years ago

It's time for Google to give equal power to all national domains if they don't already do it in their search algorithm. Many people still make their websites .com because they know they would be better treated in Google search.

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

I think they value domains of the language you're searching, right? Or is that just a consequence of the websites in that domain being in the language that you're searching?

Have a .com web address? Know the legal risks

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