[At-Large] U.S. seizure of .ORG domain name

Evan Leibovitch evan at telly.org
Fri Feb 4 15:32:13 UTC 2011


It seems pretty straightforward.

Any domain you register may be subject to scrutiny -- based on the content
of the site as well as the name itself -- under the laws of ANY of

   1. The country in which your registry is based
   2. The country in which your registry operator is based
   3. The country in which your registrar is based
   4. The country in which your ISP or web host is based
   5. The country in which you are based

In many, MANY cases at least one of these is the US.

As Carlton and Dev were saying, (1) and (2) are not necessarily the same
country. The [.tv] TLD is a ccTLD of Tuvalu, but it is operated in the USA.

But that;'s not the end of it. Other jurisdictions than the five above could
claim that you are infringing their laws because of the global reach of the
Internet (ie, you are accessible in their country even if you do not have a
presence there). While their direct influence over your ability to run your
site is not as strong as that of the five above, they can take other steps:

   - ban (ie, legally block)  your domain inside the country
   - charge you (the owner, or an executive in the case of corporate
   ownership) in your absence, and arrest you if you ever travel
there<http://www.ecardscasino.com/news/070906.html>(even in transit)

The extent of this exposure by registrants is not well known. As I said,
At-Large has a role to play in education about this.

- Evan



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