Kentucky ruling brings up old debate about switching to offshore registrars.
A blog post over at Wall Street Journal today titled “Online Businesses Subject to Local Laws…Everywhere” discusses the Kentucky gambling domain seizure. It mentions that the businesses who have had domains seized don’t have any presence in Kentucky.
One commentor wrote “…just time to quit using US-based Registrars”
I don’t think this is the solution. It may cause more problems than it solves, depending on where you move your domains too.
First, just because the registrar is outside the U.S. doesn’t mean the person/court/entity going after the domains can’t claim U.S. jurisdiction. They can claim it because Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) is located here. Or because ICANN is. In fact, geo-domainer Skip Hoagland won a case over Amman.com when he pulled ICANN’s registrar agreement into the mix.
You should be very concerned about overseas laws if you move your domains to non-U.S. registrars. At the GeoDomain Expo over the summer, Hoagland says he keeps all of his foreign city geo domains inside U.S. companies and leases them to his foreign subsidiaries.
In the case of Amman.com, the domain was transferred to a middle eastern domain registrar. Laws in many middle eastern states could allow governments to seize any domain related to gambling and adult entertainment. Or perhaps a court would get a wild hair and try to seize a domain related to mortgages (charging interest is against social rules in some countries) or womens’ rights. Or democracy, anyone?
I don’t have a good answer for people worried about jurisdiction issues and U.S. registrars. But I believe at the end of the day — which may be a long day — your domains will be in better hands if under the jurisdiction of U.S. law.
Lda says
Perhaps you should also look at this from the perspective of those of us who do not live in the U.S. In my case, Australia.
The Dot Com is a WORLD domain, without specific country association, not just for the U.S. Dot US is the U.S. specific domain extension.
The Kentucky decision basically means that any tinpot U.S. state with a desire for domain theft can appropriate and destroy corporate structures ANYWHERE in the world by creating and then abusing their own homegrown state laws.
Domain owners outside the U.S. invariably have no facilities or representation or funding for defending U.S. state decisions.
The threat to the prestige and usability of Dot Com/Dot Net/Dot Org etc. WORLDWIDE is now REAL and IMMEDIATE. Dot Com may well be dead as a world domain if this ruling holds.
Time for the whole structure to be moved to the U.N. jurisdiction.
Clayton Narcis says
I second that .COM does not belong to US or should be controlled by US and should not fall under any specific country law.
Although .com maybe the king for now (yes i know this is arguable), but if this continues, more and more people will move over to new gTLD(s).
Jeff Schneider says
There can be no question as to how similar Domain names are to real estate. We all have read numerous articles about the future real estate is really a cyber-asset called domain names. Its called association.
Our opinion is that Geo domains are the most susceptible to states and communities in being subject to invoking an eminent domain argument for seizure.
The world is often not fair, but the stark reality is that if you own Geo Domains you are going to be more susceptible to seizure. We doubt very seriously that domiciling outside the U.S. will supply any real safety
Jeff Schneider, Owner/Co-founder= USeBiz.com
Jeff Schneider says
The notion that the .com extension is the weakest extension to go after as stated by some of you is FICTION. There is more power in the .com extension than any other. Just ask the major corporations of the world if they will not defend the .com in court? I think we all know the answer.
Andrew says
lda, clayton – this has nothing to do with it being .com. It could be .net, .info, I don’t care. It also doesn’t matter if your domains are in Australia. What’s to keep an Australian court from making a stupid decision?
Too Many Secrets says
@Andrew
“What’s to keep an Australian court from making a stupid decision?”
Let’s be honest here. The US courts make stupid decisions all the time. Much more frequently than other first world courts do.
The legal system in the US *encourages* false claims and frivolous lawsuits with little consequences. Since 2001, your rights and freedoms have been eroded tremendously.
The bottom line is, if you are going to move your business [domains] out of the US, pick a jurisdiction with a solid legal system. Do your research, it’s not hard to find these places.
I’ve been doing business offshore for 12 years. I mean real business, not paper companies hiding from the tax man.
My experience is that the British based legal system is the most predictable and sensible in dealing with all matters whether physical property or internet properties. So that gives you choices like British Isles, Cayman, Bermuda, Bahamas, BVI, Australia, Gibraltar, hell even Canada.
Stay away from places where the legal system is political based like Latin America.
– Richard
Lda says
Andrew.
You appear to have misunderstood my point.
It has NOTHING to do with courts outside the U.S., or their relative stupidity.
U.S. courts *alone* are the danger to domain owners worldwide because THEY can force U.S. registrars/Verisign to do their bidding with biased local laws, similar to Kentucky’s.
Courts outside the U.S. don’t have that right.
If ‘world’ TLDs such as com/net/org etc. are to remain valuable as *world* domains outside the U.S. then U.S. states must not have the power to steal domain assets at their whim.
It’s not a new proposal but my comment about moving the authority to the U.N. is about the only way we all can be protected from your state laws and their future avarice.
Andrew says
Lda, frankly I worry more about governments like China (which would presumably want to be part of this UN-like structure) getting more involved.