US Shuts Down Canadian Gambling Site With Verisign's Help 354
First time accepted submitter ausrob writes "Domain seizures are nothing new, but this particular case is interesting. The Department of Homeland Security has seized a domain name registered outside of the U.S., by individuals who are not American citizens, and who registered with a Canadian registrar. From the article: 'The ramifications of this are no less than chilling and every single organization branded or operating under .com, .net, .org, .biz etc needs to ask themselves about their vulnerability to the whims of U.S. federal and state lawmakers (not exactly known their cluefulness nor even-handedness, especially with regard to matters of the internet).'"
GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
Either that, or they are just trying to spend money and justify their existance and vast budget somehow.
Also, first.
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, and they say "terrorists" hate "our freedom"...
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:4, Informative)
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Jeez, don't just post a link - quote the article.
On March 11, 2005, Al-Quds Al-Arabi published extracts from Saif al-Adel's document "Al Quaeda's Strategy to the Year 2020".[53][54] Abdel Bari Atwan summarizes this strategy as comprising five stages to rid the Ummah from all forms of oppression:
1) Derka derka US.
2) Derka derka civil liberties.
3) Derka derka collapse of US economy.
4) Derka destroy themselves they will, derka derr.
5) Derka derka MUHAMMAD JIHAAAAD!
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They do. No argument there, but the real shame is how easy it is for them to manipulate our leaders into destroying those very freedoms for them. Again, "...the terrorists win."
No they do not. They hate you because you are destroying their countries, bombing their children, raping their women, and doing unspeakable horrors to their livestock. They hate you because you are using them as pawns in your bid for global domination. If it was about freedom, well, there are lots of closer, less well armed, freedom loving countries on the planet.
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If Canada had the oil the middle east does
Apparently it has more.
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Christians do not believe in suicide let alone suicide bombing or killing of innocents.
Really? That memo must not have gotten around then. Or are you implying all the doctors that have been killed by "pro-lifers" were deserving of it? How about the years and years of bombings committed by the IRA? How about the Crusades? Christians have never had a problem killing people with whom they disagree. In fact, Christians have been some of the LEAST Christ-like people I've ever known.
We also do not believe it is ok to lie to people...
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Then why are they so good at it?
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They thought they were following Christian teachings; just not the ones that you follow.
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Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone says their country is better and that the others are backwards and losers.
I agree.
Although if you are a member of a country where large numbers of people take to the streets and people must die because a book got accidentally burnt or a picture of your prophet was drawn. Then I would say that your country has some growing up to do.
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Funny)
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As true patriot, I shall rob bank so that I can stay in glorious American gulag. Is like resort town and makes me feel safe!
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At least, I assume it does, otherwise why would the DHS be involved in closing down gambling sites?
Either that, or they are just trying to spend money and justify their existance and vast budget somehow.
Also, first.
DHS is the parent organization over all the US federal law enforcement agencies, so any federal crime is handled by the DHS.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEA [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BATFE [wikipedia.org]
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
The scary thing here is that this move is actually an attack on the Internet itself -- it is an attack on a global, borderless network. If every website is forced to follow the laws of every country whose citizens might connect to that website, or in other words the laws of every country in the entire world, it will be impossible to run a website. What will happen is an increase in the number of website that refuse to provide service to people from certain countries, and eventually an Internet that is fractured and divided into regulatory domains and whatnot. Not that people in the government have a problem with that; from TFA:
Many of the harms that underlie gambling prohibitions are exacerbated when the enterprises operate over the Internet without regulation
It is not hard to guess what these people want to do to the Internet.
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of abuse would be why the rest of the world is demanding that internet control be transferred to an INTERNATIONAL organization like the UN and ITU. WE'RE TIRED OF US JACKBOOTING ALL OVER OUR LAWS AND PROCEDURES.
In this case, the site SHOULD have been shut down, because they have evidence they were taking US customers. But there are CHANNELS for taking the sites down through CANADIAN law, and that was circumvented and ignored for the sake of American convenience.
Again.
Fuck the United States of Lobbyists.
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry but I disagree. The site should NOT have been taken down simply because a citizen decided to break the law and use the site if indeed they weren't supposed to. The site itself shouldn't have to police users to the extent that implies, suppose some state or country somewhere had a law that stated gambling could only occur on Sundays - would they be expected to follow that too?
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
So what? I can shop from Amazon.com instead of Amazon.ca ... I've bought stuff from Japan and Europe over the internet as well. If I buy something illegal, my government can charge me, but charging the vendor with breaking Canadian laws would be absurd.
So why does the fact that Americans don't want their citizens gambling place any legal obligations on a company not operating in the US?
The site it perfectly legal according to Canadian law. So why on Earth do you believe there would be a way for it to be shut down by using Canadian law?
This is a case of someone saying "waaah, you didn't stop our citizens from doing something we didn't want them to".
Should it be possible for, say, Iran to shut down a US web site because it didn't prevent Iranian citizens from accessing something it deems illegal? Of course not, because Iran are the "bad guys".
If you don't see this as the US applying their laws to external entities, you're missing the entire point. Because the business was operating legally within Canada. If the Americans want to be sure their citizens can't access sites on the rest of the internet ... well, then I suggest implementing the Great American Firewall, and give up the pretense that you're in favor of freedom. It's not up to other countries to implement your laws.
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You really think it's a good idea to let the UN have control of it? This was just talked about on Slashdot yesterday [slashdot.org].
Look, as bad as the US might be, the UN will be far, far worse. We will have Qaddafi 2.0 (whoever that may be) using the UN to track down dissenters. We will have China using deep packet inspection in order to "maintain security" when they'll really be stealing as much data as they can get their hands on. Think of the worst thing a country would do if it had sole control of the Internet, and
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I don't know how it would work, but what we truly need is a DNS system that is hosted by NO country. One that is beyond the control of countries all together. It would plainly need to be distributed and unreliant on a central master list -- maybe a P2P type system. The really hard part though, would be maintaining integrity of the results so spam/spoof sites don't take over while having no central authority to ensure that doesn't happen.
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in this day and age, there is not one single trule neutral nation left. if you think so, lets discuss it, but the powerful US's influence reaches where the sun don't shine..
sad but true. if the US wants you, no matter where you are or what you are doing, they can get at you. its the horror that we were taught, as kids, about the 'evil commies'. but its all true and it proves that with massive power comes massive corruption.
I don't think there was anything inherent in the US but that they did have massiv
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Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Interesting)
The quickest and best way for us non-USians to protect ourselves is simply to disallow all connections coming from the US to our websites.
Possibly that might be the sensible thing to do, 'cos next time you land in the US you could find yourself arrested, but as other posters have said, it's not OUR fault the US has stupid laws and it's certainly not up to us to police them.
If I have a non-US gambling website and someone from the US wants to come spend their $$$'s then I say good luck to 'em 'cos it's none of my business where you are as long as what we're doing is legal where I am! It's the US citizen that's broken the law, not the website.
Really getting fed up with the US continually forgetting they're just ONE COUNTRY amongst many. You want to make online gambling illegal - go right ahead! Make Intelligent Design part of the science curriculum ... fill ya boots! Legislate Pi = 3 ... whatever! Just don't think you can bully the rest of the World into doing it too!
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like a full court press on the Internet lately. Too much freedom of information to suit the powers that be I guess. Agree with or not, the censorship of Occupy Wall Street should have a chilling effect on anyone breathing "free air". Note how this kicked into high gear after OWS and the fact we have probably the most polarized elections in recent history coming.
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, when I first saw the web circa 1994 or something I actually mumbled to myself, "Wow, this is just too cool; they totally can't allow this to continue". If anything, I'm a bit surprised it remained free & open for almost 20 years.
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How can I forget those very old days of Dial Up AOL and a $189 dollar bill for using it with wild abandon. AOL should be like a giant fat tick filled with money STILL from those days. We should roll them around like a giant beach ball and see if any money falls out. We can roll out a few crop circles while we are at it for giggles.
Btw, how do you spell S.O.S. in alien?
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
we have probably the most polarized elections in recent history coming.
No we don't. We have a corporatist versus a corporatist. If there were going to be a polarized election, we'd actually have to have candidates with, you know, different policies.
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:4, Informative)
Err, no. Vib.ly was shut down by the Libyan Government for violating it's local laws.
Bodog was advertising itself in the US, in fact, it was hard to drive down I-15 in Vegas with out seeing a dozen tasteless bodog billboards. They were doing this intentionally to skirt federal online gambling laws.
To those who don't see a problem with unregulated gaming, read up on the history of organized crime and gambling. The Nevada Gaming Commission exists for a goddamned reason.
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why it makes so much sense to refuse to regulate them.
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Don't know about much in the USA, may be because of the white racism and religious nuts. But I can speak of one case where deregulation actually reduces crime.
There is a pier not far from where I used to live in northern part of Hong Kong. Every Saturday morning that pier has long lines, with people waiting to ride the hydrofoil to Macau, a gambling town about 90km west of Hong Kong. Before Macau was returned to China (from the Portuguese) in 1999, the gambling industry was controlled by only one company na
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In case it isn't clear to you by now, the "war on terror" is just an excuse to attack the few remaining holdouts from the massive economic clusterfuck that is the privately-owned, centrally monopolized Federal Reserve money-printin'-and-brown-people-bombin' system. For his "axis of evil" countries to attack, Bush picked a few mid-sized, ideologically pure (yet otherwise disparate) alternatives to his preferred globalist technocratic inflation-targeting consumptionist wage-slavery -- Stalinist socialism, Is
Re:GAMBLING FUNDS TERRORISM!!!11! (Score:4, Funny)
Either that, or they are just trying to spend money and justify their existance and vast budget somehow.
"Mr. President, I have an idea. How's about we just piss off the whole world to the point that they come and invade us, instead of us invading them? We can't afford to keep on offshoring war. We should bring that market home to the USA mainland. Just think what that would do for your poll ratings if the whole world was against us. The Sheeple would love you for it."
"Brillant [sic]!"
It has nothing to do with terrorism (Score:2)
bodog was operating contrary to both Canadian AND American law.
So, while in Canada, domain names are considered property, don't break Canadian law and expect the Canadian government to protect you when the Americans say "hey, we're going to do what you should have been doing yourself."
This is like that stupid guy who wrote stuff against the Koran, then fled to another sharia-law muslim country for asylum. Or the crackhead who went to the cops to complain that they got only half a rock from their dealer.
United Nations (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why we should move the control over the internet infrastructure to UN. United States is, once again, abusing their privileges. Even China acts nicely and only censors within their border. US does everywhere and for other nationals. In my opinion, US is much worse than China in terms of censoring.
Re:United Nations (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes give control to the UN so that you can suffer the censorship and control of ALL countries instead of just the US. You'll get the same pro-culture-theft and US-interest bullshit, PLUS you won't be able to post pics of Allah, download whatever kind of porn Britain's latest serial killer happened to be into, or talk about Tiananmen Square.
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s/Allah/Mohammed/g (although I imagine if they don't like pics of Mohammed, they won't like pics of Allah either...)
Re:United Nations (Score:5, Interesting)
I can really see the US/UK agreeing to any demands to remove all articles about Tiananmen Square, or removal of all criticisms of any or all religions. (/sarcasm)
What is more likely to happen is that the west will veto most if not all proposals originating in the east and the middle east, and Russia and the east will veto most if not all proposals originating in the west (excuse the culturally biased geographic descriptions), and the system will be happily paralysed, resulting in no change to the current status quo. To my mind this is infinitely preferable to a system which can be destroyed, or at least greatly harmed, by unilateral action on the part of any bully-boy nation.
I'm not sure the UN taking over the internet is the right answer, but I am absolutely sure that leaving things the way they are is the wrong one. The article gives one good reason why...
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If international gridlock should ensue, then why did ACTA so heavily favor US media interests over Russia's fine hosting services and China's quality replica goods?
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Oh please those are hardly comparable. The POTS system is a useless old relic compared to the Internet and never had anywhere near the capabilities.
Re:United Nations (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm at work but look up "female ejaculation" on Wikipedia and search for "legal" on-page and it should point you in the right direction.
Also, remember that porn featuring women with small breasts is considered child porn in Australia.
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this biggest problem that I have with sex on TV is losing balance and falling onto the floor. Things are even worse now with the flat panels.
Re:United Nations (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution isn't "different" control... the solution is "no control"
No you blithering idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
If the UN was in control, NOTHING would get censored because NOBODY could agree on it. Just like there is no resolution against Syria because China and the USSR doesn't want it. The US could veto ANY UN censorship attempt, so could the UK and a host of other nations.
Now the US has total control and the US has shown to be far worse at it then the countries you list, none of them have tried to censor outside their own borders.
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Unfortunately, what would happen is that everyone would agree to the lowest common denominator of censorship: censor everything everywhere.
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Guess what?
I TRUST them more than the US government and it's blatant pandering to lobbyists.
They may have "missions", but at least they're understandable socially driven missions, not blatant selling out to the highest bidder.
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The Internet needs less regulation, and more user control. We need to deploy more P2P systems, more cryptography, more wireles
Re:United Nations (Score:5, Informative)
making it illegal to use the Internet to communicate with people in countries whose governments object to such communication (that last one is one of ITU's rules about amateur radio).
Holy crap, my friend who's into HAM radio big time was talking to me about this just yesterday. It blows my mind that it's against US law to use amateur radio to talk to someone in another country if that country doesn't want me talking to him. How bizarre, I thought. And here you're telling me it's related to the buffoons at ITU? Slashdot just gave me a rather valuable lesson (also yesterday) on them in the UN story.
We need to deploy more P2P systems, more cryptography, more wireless links and mesh networks, and so forth.
Here you've touched on the exact reason why I was talking to my HAM friend yesterday to begin with. He burst that bubble real quick: in the US, it's also illegal to use encryption over amateur radio.
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No, it' just needs to be completely left alone by governments. They need to take care of the pipes, but what goes through it, is none of their concern. I can remember when the Internet declared it's Independence and told governments to keep their hands off of it, or that there would be a price to pay. It was a citizenship in a different realm, outside of the BS that we have built over the years, and it was to be the new hope of the information age.
What a dream. This cookie jar has a lot of hands in it now,
My homeland feels much more secure now! (Score:5, Funny)
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Obligatory addition: ...for the children!
Not new: .com, .net, .org? U.S. jurisdiction (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't new... even Slashdot has covered stories like these before.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/07/04/1439246/us-uk-targeting-piracy-websites-outside-their-borders [slashdot.org]
The summary can say not-American for a billion things, at the end of the day the domain TLD was com, over which the U.S. firmly asserts jurisdiction as the companies that run them are all U.S.-based.
Besides fighting 'The (U.S.) Man', people would do well to realize this and register somewhere a bit more friendly (in addition to any .com, .net, .org, etc.). In the case of this Canadian business, perhaps .ca? Oh wait, they did. And that ( bodog.com ) in turn redirects to a .co.uk .
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haha - I meant, bodog.ca .. redirects.. to.. yes. .com domain. Oh iro.. wait, where's Alanis? Have to verify proper usage... )
( This, of course, being the reason people want a
Re:Not new: .com, .net, .org? U.S. jurisdiction (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if US firms run those domains and so they're under US jurisdiction, the fact is .com, .net and .org have long been recognised as the domains for international organisations as opposed to organisations content with a single specific nationality or set of nationalities, and so if the US can't be trusted to maintain them for that purpose then it's time the US handed them over to somewhere like the UN where they genuinely can be managed to a standard they're intended for.
You're right that this isn't new, but it only serves to reaffirm the urgency that the US must give up control of these international domains. With it's escalating seizures now affecting legitimate international businesses enough is enough.
Re:Not new: .com, .net, .org? U.S. jurisdiction (Score:4, Insightful)
You want your own national domain, then co.countrycode, and similar seem to be popular choices. If you want the UN to control DNS - let them administer a *.un hierarchy.
Having said that, I have two points to make - first, no web site was shut down, this was just a removal of DNS entries. Second, I believe that this, although ordered by a US court, is in violation of the US Constitution's free speech protections. A DNS request is analogous to looking up someone's number in a phonebook. Publishing a phone number (or DNS entry), even for a criminal, should be protected free speech.
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No, your completely wrong. .com, .net, .org are, and always have been, US domains
RFC 1591 [ietf.org]:
Of these generic domains, five are international in nature, and two are restricted to use by entities in the United States.
World Wide Generic Domains:
COM - This domain is intended for commercial entities, that is
companies. This domain has grown very large and there is
concern about the administrative load and system performance
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It's clear that there have been international organizations under those TLDs for a long time, and that makes sense, since they existed prior to the CC ones. As I already said, registration under those TLDs has never been restricted to only US organizations. 1591 is just informing of that practical reality. That in no way implies that those TLDs somehow "b
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Re:Not new: .com, .net, .org? U.S. jurisdiction (Score:5, Interesting)
What is scary here is the cooperation of Verisign. In this case, Verisign maintains the registry for .com. But Verisign also still operates the 0 Root servers under contract to the Dept. of Commerce. So, if they wanted to (or were ordered to by the U.S. Govt) they could "technically" take out an entire TLD, including a ccTLD like .ru or .cn.
"Technically" is in quotes because the realities of the root servers would make it easy for the rest of the world to tell the U.S. to go screw at that point, and stop syncing the dozens of root servers that are distributed around the world off of the Verisign "corrupted" servers. However, it would be the end of the canonical DNS system as we know it.
AFAIK, the engineers at Verisign who handle root server issues try very very hard to stay out of any type of corporate shenanigans, but at the end of the day Verisign operates those servers, and Verisign is a U.S. Company, on U.S. soil, with executives who are very much subject to the immediate coercion of the U.S. Government.
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So next, all porn sites (Score:4, Insightful)
This was a Maryland law, which makes it illegal to run a gambling site anywhere in the world that the guy was convicted of, the US is enforcing with this domain.
So if one of those religious US nut-job states (you know the kind that think the world was created 5000 years ago by Adam and Eve, Santorum voters) decides that pornography is a crime, even if the sex took place in Japan, then likewise, the US will prosecute those Japanese and will shut down their websites.
I think the USA can't be trusted with the Internet.
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Well, let's think about this. You're picking on the far right, but the left has had control for over three years. This incident occurred on their watch, and in a very (by most measures) liberal state. So, let's get one thing straight...there are plenty of idiots on both sides, and maybe you shouldn't be the pot calling the kettle black.
Nobody remembers .com is for USA (Score:2)
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The people who want to gamble are going to to do it. This is just going to push legit gambling sites out of business and make it easier for fraudsters to run off with peoples money. Credit cards are a crappy solution because they make everything more expensive, just like a tax, except the money goes somewhere else.
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If you're a Canadian company with Canadian customers, use .ca, eh? .com makes it seem like you're targeting your southern neighbors.
And Eastern, Western, and Northern neighbors too.
Re:Nobody remembers .com is for USA (Score:5, Insightful)
erm, no it's not it was intended for commercial entities world wide. You have .us to use.
Re:Nobody remembers .com is for USA (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean in the same way as US firms with US customers use .us?
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If you're a Canadian company with Canadian customers, use .ca, eh? .com makes it seem like you're targeting your southern neighbors.
.com is the de facto standard top domain for pretty much any website in the world
The Facts
.us .gu .vi ]
Country-Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLD) are two-letter domains established for countries
Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) are three-letter (or more) domains that operate directly under policies established by ICANN processes for the global Internet community
Sponsored Top-Level Domains (sTLD) are proposed and sponsored by private agencies or organizations
U.S Jurisdiction
The U.S government has jurisdictional control over the ccTLD of its country and territories [
Being the sp
Not just .com, .net, .org. Add .tv and .cc (Score:3)
Or any TLD that's managed by a US company. Verisign manages .tv and .cc.
http://www.firstrowsports.tv/ [firstrowsports.tv]
They moved to http://www.firstrowsports.eu/ [firstrowsports.eu]
Piracy - the real kind (Score:4, Interesting)
In the old days of commerce by ships, they labelled this kind of behaviour as "Piracy on the high seas"
The punishment was generally hanging, I understand.
Bovada (Score:3)
No telling how long it will take the US to get to Bovada.lv, but I wouldn't feel safe playing there. I think they had been trying to do something about Bodog for 5 years!
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Anyway, I think this has to be about more than just a bookmaker using a .com domain name. They were probably actively targetting US customers, which may have been the issue.
There are loads of bookmakers with .com domain names, that are still quite happily trading (none of these are linked as I'm just making the point)
williamhill.com
ladbrokes.com
bet365.com
betvictor.com
boylesports.com
paddpower.com
betfair.com
etc
It's all a problem (Score:2)
It's not just .com and .net. Once the US Government decides that ICANN itself is in the US, what happens when they want to revoke "bodog.ca"?
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Nothing. The .ca servers are not in US control. I suppose the US could exert political pressure, but that's it.
Federal law? So what. (Score:5, Interesting)
"federal law prohibits bookmakers from flouting that law simply because they are located outside the country,"
Newsflash - a company registered outside the US and not doing business in the US is not bound by ANY type of US law, federal or otherwise. Perhaps someone should remind the US authorities that they don't run the world just yet.
They probably only did this because they think canada is a soft touch. I'd like to see them try it with a chinese or russian company.
Re:Federal law? So what. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently if it's .com, .biz, .net, and a bunch of other common TLDs they do.
It does highlight a little hypocrisy, because when other countries mess with the internet the US is the first to say the internet should be free so it can foster the things they believe in.
Just don't have a gambling site.
All your base are belong to USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Sovereignty, who's got it anymore? It seems Canada sold us theirs at a garage sale.
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Ha! Everyone else whores out to China, why not you guys as well? We keep talking about our amazing, best in the world system all the while China crushes us economically. The irony, huh? A Communistic country adapts and uses capitalistic tactics to achieve world domination. I would venture to say that tapping their vast labor pool and undercutting our prices, while we do NOTHING to protect our people kind of sums it up.
Seizer warrant is slightly confusing (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't read my TOS when I registered my domain, but I believe that the domains belong to me and don't belong to the registrar. The warrant makes it sound like the domain belongs to Verisign. I am not a lawyer and I'm probably reading this incorrectly.
I have many questions regarding this, namely WTF is a local detective involved in this case. What was his role? Was there some sort of crime in Maryland (specifically Anne Arundel County) that started this investigation?
Welcome to the Wild West (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue of Internet jurisdiction really ought to have been sorted out by now. At present it's shoot first and ask questions later.
It's hard to make a case for any online business if the mere fact of its availability outside the country in which it is domiciled can render it (and its staff) potentially liable for criminal, privacy, libel, patent and other legal processes in countries where it may not even know it has customers - or indeed can have its service disrupted by actions against upstream providers with whom it has no contractual relationship. The Internet is as precarious as the Pony Express.
The US, in particular, seems particularly resistant to international discussion on any aspect of the Internet - witness the bizarre conspiracy theories spouting forth from FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell which prompted the wonderful headline in the New American "Obama Quiet as UN & Dictators Push to Control Internet" [http://thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/computers/10953-obama-quiet-as-un-a-dictators-push-to-control-internet].
Unfortunately, if there isn't some progress on the subject of jurisdiction we're going to have a series of discrete regional networks (US, Europe, China, ...) and a distributed Great Firewall of Protectionism.
In the meantime, if you're looking for a new business idea, I'd suggest whittling might be fairly safe, provided you produce no rectangles with rounded corners.
U.*. (Score:2)
I guess we're going to get Internet-screwed by the U.*. one way or the other.
(Either U.S. or U.N.)
legalities (Score:4, Interesting)
If you host the domain name in Ontario Canada
It is considered property due to a recent ruling by the Ontario supreme court , one might argue that this site is legal in Canada and might get A similar judgement as long as it was hosted in canada.
NOW all we have to do is start a class action lawsuit and then take a trade suit to the WTO and get sanctions against the usa.
The last time this happened an entire nation was allowed free patents and copyrights when the USA lost.
DO not kid yourselves here...THIS IS GONNA NOW START GETTING REALLY UGLY.
Keep it up and Antigua with just get more free IP (Score:2)
http://www.antiguawto.com/ [antiguawto.com]
Time to start moving everything off of *.com (Score:2)
From here [ycombinator.com]:
Re:lol (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the moment America's clueless lawmakers stop trying to push their cluelessness on the rest of the world.
Re:lol (Score:5, Funny)
Keep insulting the USA and I promise, I will write to my senator to ask that Canada be invaded next.
Re:lol (Score:5, Funny)
Send him a check and I'm sure it will happen.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
They do. It's called Wall Street. All the profits are siphoned out of the country into pointless foreign wars and offshore banks. In fact, that's where all of your taxes go too for that matter, so it's exactly what you ask for.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It is interesting how U.S. corporations and gov (Score:5, Insightful)
The manufacturing sector has been hounded out of the US and now it is the turn of the most vigorous replacement industries (those based on the internet).
The reason the internet has been such a phenomenal success, with the most amazing record of growth ever, is that up to now the government has, perhaps unwittingly, kept its hands off. But there is nothing that the government can't improve, and they are going to improve the hell out of the internet.
I know I am picking on the USA. Up to now freedom has been greatest there, and Americans have reaped the benefits. Now Americans have the most to lose. Like gun and abortion rights, this is going to be a never-ending battle against the forces of darkness.
Support the EFF!