Kentucky Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of The State On The 141 Domain Seizures

[SpareDomains]

Kentucky Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of The State On The 141 Domain Seizures On Technical Grounds | The Domains

 

[enlytend]

From the article:

The associations tried to represent the domain names themselves, without identifying who owned the domain names. The Supreme Court found that Domain Names like real estate cannot be represented, only the owners can be represented and they were not named by the trade groups.

So it sounds like the appeal was overturned on the basis of a technicality because of lack of involvement by the actual domain owners?

Can't believe they're still going back and forth over this insane issue !

 

[Erdy]

This is very annoying and scary news. I'm surprised there aren't many people rising their voices on the stupidity of this issue. Online gambling is legal in many countries, including the UK, where I live. Just because the domain is accessible from Kentucky doesn't mean the domain or website's existence is limited to Kentucky and their local law.

I think the organisation that controls domain names needs to be an international organisation independent from any government. Otherwise we will see more US originating problems in the future regarding domain industry.

There is also a need for a powerful domainer association that can organise big protests. Member websites and individual domain owners could put up stickers published by the association on a certain day. There are many big domain related websites, namepros being one of them and there are certainly lots of domainers who have high traffic portfolios.

It is disappointing to see namepros so passive on these issues. But I'm not very surprised. In the past we have seen trademark bullies pushing around the domainers and namepros was nowhere to be seen during any of those incidents either. This is not what I expect from the best domainer forum.

 

[SpareDomains]

This is very annoying and scary news. I'm surprised there aren't many people rising their voices on the stupidity of this issue. Online gambling is legal in many countries, including the UK, where I live. Just because the domain is accessible from Kentucky doesn't mean the domain or website's existence is limited to Kentucky and their local law.

I think the organisation that controls domain names needs to be an international organisation independent from any government. Otherwise we will see more US originating problems in the future regarding domain industry.

There is also a need for a powerful domainer association that can organise big protests. Member websites and individual domain owners could put up stickers published by the association on a certain day. There are many big domain related websites, namepros being one of them and there are certainly lots of domainers who have high traffic portfolios.

It is disappointing to see namepros so passive on these issues. But I'm not very surprised. In the past we have seen trademark bullies pushing around the domainers and namepros was nowhere to be seen during any of those incidents either. This is not what I expect from the best domainer forum.

I agree it's stupid. Hopefully one of the US people with one of the domains at risk does step up with a lawyer on behalf of the others as a trip to Kentucky from another country wouldn't be worth it unless you lost a premo domain although the principle of the matter is worth it. I would drive there if one of them was mine but since none of them are my opinion wouldn't be worth anything. Scary to know 1 state can make a decision that affects people in other countries as well. We should all geo block Kentucky from all of our sites and see how they like that when they can't reach anything online. Not sure what namepros could do as 1 of the domains has to be yours for them to listen to you, so hopefully someone that lost one is in the process of stepping up.

 

[TheDomains]

""I would drive there if one of them was mine""


I think the Commonwealth made it clear that if you showed up in the courtroom and said you owned one of the seized domains you would be arrested on the spot

 

[tech4]

Probably the state lobbied the court to do it. Its like one of those situation in America where Gov. abuse their power and stop allowing representation in any case.

 

[Dave_Z]

This is not what I expect from the best domainer forum.

Sorry to see your expectations not met. Then again, having arguably unrealistic expectations does not
really help anyone.

The NamePros "bigwigs" could maybe send an online protest of sorts. But...the courts involved do not
have to pay attention or give any weight to any of them, either.

Like it or not, only the actual registrants of the domain names involved in that dispute can really take a
part in that. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time (and money?) to afford disputing this.

 

[Erdy]

Dave, did you actually check what the case is about? Those guys live somewhere in the world and operate either a gambling website where it is legal or they have a parked domain or a domain with affiliate links on them. They have nothing to do with Kentucky.

Let's say you live outside the US and you registered a poker domain and parked it at sedo. Then you suddenly hear they are trying to seize your domain and they brought up a court case because your domain is considered to be a gambling device in Kentucky. How would you feel about this? I mean this is beyond stupidity.

Just because your domain is accessible from somewhere in the world doesn't mean that particular local authority has the right seize your domain. Anybody in domain industry should be very concerned by this overreaching local authority who clearly has no idea on how the Internet or domains work.

Why should these domain owners be defending themselves? They didn't do anything wrong except registering their domain with a US registrar and assuming the US legal system has any kind of logic behind it.

How would you feel if you were wrongly accused by a crime you didn't commit and they create a mambo jambo to make you look guilty and other people are just watching. This is beyond belief.

 

[Timewarp]

If they get away with this its basically a green light for states to start stealing all kinds of valuable domains (including ones with multi-million dollar sites operating on them) from all over the world.