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Kentucky Judge Upholds State's Gambling-Domain Grab
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Oct 21, 2008 08:54 AM
from the always-think-forfeiture dept.
from the always-think-forfeiture dept.
JohnHegarty writes "A Kentucky judge has upheld that state's seizure of some of the world's most popular online casino domain names, ruling they constitute a 'gambling device' that is subject to Kentucky's anti-gambling laws." Wasn't it surreal enough on the first round?
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Your Rights Online: State of Kentucky Seizes Control of 141 Domain Names 505 comments
ashmodai9 writes "In a rather interesting (read: insane) decision, a district judge in the State of Kentucky has awarded control of 141 online gambling domain names to the governor of the state. Most of these are hosted offshore, and very few are registered under US domain name registrars, let alone registrars in the State of Kentucky (are there any?). You can check out the press release here, and confirm that the Commonwealth of Kentucky does in fact now 'own' these domain names by performing a WHOIS search on any of the domains listed here."
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Your Rights Online: KY Appeals Court Nixes Seizure of Gambling-Linked Domains 102 comments
davidwr writes "A state appeals court in Kentucky ruled that the state courts cannot seize domain names as 'gambling devices.' The court ruled that 'it's up to the General Assembly — not the courts nor the state Justice Cabinet — to bring domain names into the definition of illegal gambling devices.'"
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This just in (Score:5, Interesting)
Congress upholds right of DHS to confiscate your stuff for 24 hours.
I know, but is anyone surprised. Really, gambling is in that same circle as cigarettes and alcohol. Somehow the states have held on to their rights to exclusive domain over them within their borders whereas they lost about every other regulatory ability to the feds.
WTO maybe? Some world body should laugh them off.
Ground troops and the state's ability to enforce (Score:5, Insightful)
Some world body should laugh them off.
Ha! At the end of the day your internet connection does have to come to your house and somebody has to install it and the ISPs router in that state. Either the installation company (e.g. Qwest, SBC, Comcast) or the ISP if different have people paid on salary working in your state.
As a condition of doing bussiness the State can have it block or re-route IP addresses as a condition of the ISP doing bussiness in the state.
One can quibble about how the ISPs will be able to block dynamic changes in host IPs, but look if each hour the ISP does a DNS lookup on the domain name then blocks the resolved IP it wil be plenty effective.
That leaves the gambling sites to rely on Proxies, TOR, or constantly changing domain names, all of which will effectively gut their clientele.
The ultimate weapon for the state in this case is that state can legally declare all gambling debts unenforcable. If they allow cost recovery from VISA or Paypal, the gambling sites may not only find they can't do bussiness in Kentucky but that from VISA's point of view they can't do bussiness at all with VISA.
Given the latter death threat I suspect there's going to be cooperation on this at some level.
Parent
Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc (Score:5, Insightful)
So if the state doesn't approve of a radio station can they shut down the transmitter in another state or demand that the station modify all radios to not receive their signal? This falls under violating interstate commerce and KentUHky will likely find itself being forced to reverse by the feds.
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Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't imagine this case will help matters any...
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The Problem with American Liberals (Score:5, Insightful)
"Health care is not hand holding, it's a basic human right."
No, its not. A human right is not something given to you its something all people have by right of their existence. The freedom to voice your own mind (freedom of speech) is not something that is provided to you as all people have that ability (in one form or another).
Socialized health care is an entitlement just like public education and social security. Entitlements are not a bad thing but they are not to be treated as rights. The bill of rights does not 'give rights' it restricts the government from taking away rights people are naturally endowed with.
"Maybe where you (and Sarah Palin) are from treatment for a broken bone or chronic illness is "hand holding" but here in Montana its considered a basic necessity."
And maybe you (and Joe Biden) decides the desirable ends of an entielment merit destroying the purity and uniqueness of human rights by calling every good thing to be given a 'right' but here in reality rights and entitlements are different things.
Personally I am all for socialized Medicine *at the state level* I am also for free college education *at the state level* and Living wage enforcement *at the state level*. The more local the government the more they should be the ones who I have to interact with on a day to day level.
"Education is much the same way, though everyone around here does think that's a government function (though no one wants to pay the teachers...)"
Are there no private schools in Montana? What? there are... Seems to me people think its an entitlement the state can provide but its not solely the states job.
"And having social programs doesn't inherently increase the power of the state. It's poor implementation that does that."
It does over those benefiting from the programs (and those paying for them). Federal health care is a way for folks from California or South Carolina to have a voice in what conditions I have to meet to get care at a hospital. My Grandfather had little say over what treatment he was allowed to get for cancer in a socialized system.
"Socialized health care should be handed off to a team of highly skilled and respected health care providers."
Right because that's what our experience with the ever growing role of the federal government in K12 has demonstrated... The government will hand off that roll to a team of skilled and respected providers... Its not like they have a history of growing bureaucracies that are outperformed by private institutions (Private Schools / Charter schools) and self service people (home schoolers) spending far less money to do the same job.
"The government just foots the bill. Maybe you take issue with that last part."
Nobody, not you, not me, and most certainly not the government foots a bill without having a major say in how the money is used. I don't mind paying my taxes one bit, and if there is a real need I don't mind them going up. Personally I would rather send 7% of my check to DC and 28% to St. Paul (not counting SS, Medicare, ..., ...) but its not the money coming out I mind.
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Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc (Score:5, Funny)
The ultimate weapon for the state in this case is that state can legally declare all gambling debts unenforcable.
The state declaring it won't make it so. Gambling debts will still be enforced by large men in very nice suits, who carry heavy objects and know a great deal about the anatomy of the human knee.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's why we have large men in not-so-fancy uniforms who carry guns.
Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc (Score:4, Insightful)
Who says they're different people?
Everyone has a price.
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Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc (Score:5, Funny)
I really don't think the RIAA need to get involved in this one.
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Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc (Score:5, Informative)
But that's not what they're doing.
They're not rerouting traffic in the state.
They just took the domain names.
As in they can send joe blogs in japan to their own servers when he looks up one of those sites.
Imagine that you ran a mail order buisness, your "domain name" is your postal address.
You live and run your buisness from Iceland say or China.
A judge in an american state decides that you are competing with local buisnesses and signs an order taking your postal address and from then on any post sent from anywhere be it America, Europe or elsewhere will not be sent to you but rather to the judge.
The basis of course being that your postal address is an item required to do illegal buisness with people in an american state.
Clear enough for everyone?
The best solution would be for any registrars outside this juristiction to simply list the correct ownership information for the domains .
Parent
Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc (Score:5, Funny)
OK:
The judge runs over your puppy and laughs while pissing out the window on your head.
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Not entirely accurate (Score:5, Informative)
Basically the judge didn't throw the case out. He is letting it proceed. It's not the wholesale grab of domain names some people want you to believe.
Re:Not entirely accurate (Score:5, Interesting)
It's still a bad move. Basically, the judge should have thrown the case out because it's a piece of shit (or whatever the legal term is). If any of the gambling sites had corporate sites in Kentucky or web-hosting in Kentucky, then the suit has some legal basis.
But since they don't, it's setting a bad precedent of "Well, it's illegal here, so our laws apply to the website no matter where it's located".
Hang on tight, kids, it's a slippery slope coming up!
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Re:Not entirely accurate (Score:5, Funny)
the judge should have thrown the case out because it's a piece of shit (or whatever the legal term is).
I believe the legal term is P.O.S.
Parent
Re:Not entirely accurate (Score:4, Interesting)
The issue is not whether it's a "wholesale grab" or not. The issue is that if Kentucky has authority to seize a domain name used for gambling, any state has authority to seize a domain name used for anything in state law, and the net is quickly reduced to the lowest common denominator.
(Indeed, seems to me - though IANAL - that if this nutcase theory of jurisdiction holds, any country hostile to free speech can seize domain names left and right. Germany can seize "HolocaustDeniers.org", Russian can seize "PutinSucks.com".)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not entirely accurate (Score:4, Insightful)
The best scenario I could see is to have all the ISPs in Kentucky state to block access to the domain names/IPs of said gambling sites.
Otherwise that judge is just asking for an interstate and international mess.
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Re:Not entirely accurate (Score:4, Informative)
(Indeed, seems to me - though IANAL - that if this nutcase theory of jurisdiction holds, any country hostile to free speech can seize domain names left and right. Germany can seize "HolocaustDeniers.org", Russian can seize "PutinSucks.com".)
Well, they can try, but I don't know how they actually would ... the reason Kentucky was able to do this is because (as I understand the mechanics of it) ICANN is incorporated in the U.S., and they served them with a court order.
ICANN probably should have just told them to get stuffed, but they didn't (probably because they didn't want to get dragged into it, or get fined for being in contempt). But it's because they're located in, and incorporated in, the U.S. that gives a penny-ante court in Kentucky any sort of leverage.
A court in Germany could try serving ICANN with papers ordering them to turn over HolocaustDeniers.com or whatever, but I don't see why ICANN would comply -- and, more importantly, I don't see what sort of leverage a court in Germany would have to force them to. They could probably do the same thing to the registrar that controls the ".de" TLD, which I assume is incorporated in Germany, but not if it was a gTLD (.com, .net, .org, &c.).
I'm also not sure that the court in Kentucky would have had as much success at grabbing the domains if they'd been registered under the country code of some other country. E.g., if the site had been "GreatGambling.co.de", and they had ordered ICANN to transfer it, ICANN might have been able to say to them with a straight face that it was impossible, and they'd have to talk to the registrar for .de, which would be some company in Germany. But they can't pass the buck and claim it's beyond their control when it's a gTLD, since they oversee them.
The bottom line to all of this is that people need to realize that all the gTLDs are not some sort of international zone. At the end of the day they are basically .us domains without the explicit ".us" at the end. If you're doing something that's considered shady, or might possibly be considered shady, by virtually any court in the U.S., you would be better off getting a domain in a ccTLD from a country that's more tolerant, rather than a gTLD domain. Anyone with a gTLD domain has it basically at the whim and mercy of any state court judge in the United States; depending on the subject matter or the purpose of the site, that might be an improvement over some other country (Chinese democracy, lambasting various monarchies), or it might be a huge liability (gambling, DRM breaking, certain types of porn).
Parent
DNS (Score:5, Funny)
So is it time to update the DNS servers to ignore Kentucky?
Re:DNS (Score:5, Funny)
Both Domains? or do you want to change the core routers to just ignore their state's entire /24 subnet?
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Can't you just cut the telegraph line?
Re:DNS (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be here all week enjoy the squirrel stew and bourbon.
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Apologies to the Simpsons (Score:5, Funny)
Grandpa: I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I acknowledge Kentucky!
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So... (Score:3, Interesting)
A man can dream...can't he?
The law is so far behind the internet it hurts (Score:5, Insightful)
The application of laws designed to deal with print or broadcast media being applied to the internet - where ISPs are neither publishers nor distributors, from a strict legal perspective - is fraught with difficulty.
The application of social laws, like restricting your citizens access to gambling, also has an inherent problem when the social sphere in question is virtual. The law givers reaction often seems to be to target the technology when the social problem is what the law is meant to address.
Isn't the US supposed to be land of the free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Poorly Written (Score:4, Insightful)
Including by The Register. The judge is upholding his own ruling now that the companies that lost their domains get a chance to object. The loss of domains was done under a sealed order.
I can't find any legitimate reason for this to have been done under a sealed order (what were they going to do... hide the domain names), or before arguments were made. Here's hoping this gets fixed when it is actually appealed.
As for the circuit judge, Wingate (heh... like the old proxy software...), I think he's either making a political play to his career, or has a heck of a power complex. Next up, watch him issue an order that takes away my /. account for criticizing him. -.-
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It was probably to hide the names of the domains in order to secure them before trial.
KY hasn't really taken the domains, they have frozen control of them in an attempt to control assess while another procedure takes place. This is similar to the feds locking a bank account befor
Power (Score:5, Interesting)
Every day there's news here about Government trying to control the Internet. China with their great firewall, the UK and their laws, Australia and their version of internet control. Government gets crazy when they sense there's something they can't control. Judges, Senators, Presidents, the whole system.
What makes me sad is that I always thought it'd be harder to 'control' the internet, but it seems they'll do it sooner or later.
Somebody needs to stop this judge (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't Kentucky where tobacco comes from? Why doesn't a judge in, say, New York state order the seizure of the name Kentucky for poisoning the good people of New York?
It probablyt doesn't really matter. The judge is going to leave office soon and seek a more public office, probably running for the Senate or state governor (this can't be anything but a publicity stunt) and the order will get overturned on appeal.
Motion to remove to the Federal courts in (Score:5, Interesting)
Follow the Money... (Score:5, Insightful)
Utah (Score:3, Interesting)
So what happens when Utah starts doing the same thing to your porn sites or issuing warrants for people drinking on their *public* MySpace / Facebook pages?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or countries which ban criticisms of their government start grabbing domains of american hosted sites which break those laws.
Re:Utah (Score:4, Interesting)
So what happens when Utah starts doing the same thing to your porn sites..?
Available bandwidth would increase by a factor of 100.
Parent
Why not go after the real casinos (Score:3, Insightful)
The banks is where most of the gambling takes place and that not even with their own money, but other peoples money.
Gambling is illegal here in alabama (Score:5, Funny)
So I think alabama should sieze these domains from those bastards in kentucky.
Against international WTO agreements (Score:5, Informative)
If this goes far enough, there will be threats of action regarding a blatant disregard of international commerce treaties. Seems to me that point came up before when the US tried to shutdown off-shore gambling.
Ah, found it:
http://news.cnet.com/WTO-slams-U.S.-Net-gambling-ban/2100-1030_3-5658636.html [cnet.com]
Full Faith and Credit and the Commerce Clause (Score:3, Informative)
By seizing the domain name, the State now owns or controls the domain name. It owns or controls it in the home state, and by virtue of the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. Constitution, it owns or controls it in all the states. This is part one--the acquisition of the right.
Part two--the enforcement of the right--will be very interesting. Destruction of the domain's ability to do business in the home State appears to be a trivial problem. Destruction of the ability to do business in each of the other states is a tedious process, but thanks to the full faith and credit clause, a doable thing.
The dormant Commerce Clause, however, looms over all of this as the big Green Monster looms over Fenway. In short, the several states can't go writing laws that straightjacket interstate commerce. But addressing that question is probably too much trouble for to take for the two or three people that will read this post.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why don't these companies just move their domains to a registrar that doesn't have to follow US law?
And that would stop this judgement how exactly? Apparently the law of the state of Kentucky is applicable to any server on the internet, regardless of country of origin.
Re:differant registrar? (Score:5, Insightful)
The law of the state of Kentucky, like the laws of any nation or locality, is applicable only where the authorities of that nation or locality can send people with guns, or convince the locals to point guns on their behalf.
So the trick is to host your servers and register your domain in a country where a court order from Kentucky is going to be recycled as toilet paper.
Of course, Kentucky may then try to firewall that nation to keep its citizens from accessing your site. But if China can't do it very effectively, I doubt Kentucky can either.
Parent
Re:differant registrar? (Score:4, Informative)
That's fine in theory, but remember that ICANN, who controls the root servers, is a US corporation based in California.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's basically the case. Although I don't know about the Internet at large, you could at least shut down ICANN with a few well-placed court orders from any U.S. state you wanted to.
This is because -- as I understand it, anyway -- ICANN is incorporated in the United States, specifically in California. Court orders from other U.S. states are enforceable in California because of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution. So if a judge in some state (say Kentucky) orders ICANN to do something, d
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What are you smoking & where can I get some?
can i get the over/under (Score:5, Funny)
on whether gambling will be successfully outlawed worldwide?
and what website can i go to to place a wager on that occurence?
Parent
Re:kentucky (Score:5, Funny)
Indiana House Bill #246
The most famous -- and only known â" case of a state legislature in the US attempting to create by law a new value for pi was that of Indiana in 1897; it has become legendary, and the basis of myth and hoax. Although it has come to represent the occasional ignorance of innumerate legislators, it was not so obviously a bad idea at the time.
The bill was introduced to the house by legislator Mr. Record, but it was reported that "Mr. Record knows nothing of the bill with the exception that he introduced it by request of Dr. Edwin Goodwin of Posey County, who is the author of the demonstration."[3] The bill began in the Committee on Canals (aka the Committee on Swamp Lands), whose chairman tried unsuccessfully to send it to the Committee on Education.
Redefining the value of pi seems not to have been its principal goal, but a side effect. In fact, the bill seems to have offered four different, new values for pi. Rather, the bill was aimed at benefiting its author, who claimed to have patented a new method for "squaring the circle", which he proposed to let the state of Indiana use free of charge if they would pass his bill! Its opening statement is clear:
A bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the legislature of 1897.
To lend credibility to his claim, Dr. Goodwin gave these credentials:
Section 3. In further proof of the value of the author's proposed contribution to education, and offered as a gift to the State of Indiana, is the fact of his solutions of the trisection of the angle, duplication of the cube and quadrature having been already accepted as contributions to science by the American Mathematical Monthly, the leading exponent of mathematical thought in this country. And be it remembered that these noted problems had been long since given up by scientific bodies as unsolvable mysteries and above man's ability to comprehend.
It seems that Dr. Goodwin had already solved two of the great unsolvable problems of ancient geometry and claimed to have solved a third with his method of squaring the circle.
The bill made it through three readings and votes in the House, and its first reading in the Senate. It was evidently seen as of economical benefit, since Indiana would save royalties on the patent, and the legislators proclaimed themselves unfit to comprehend the details of the bill anyway. The finale was dramatic and down to the wire:[4]
That the bill was killed appears to be a matter of dumb luck rather than the superior education or wisdom of the Senate. It is true that the bill was widely ridiculed in Indiana and other states, but what actually brought about the defeat of the bill is recorded by Prof. C.A. Waldo in an article he wrote for the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science in 1916. The reason he knows is that he happened to be at the State Capitol lobbying for the appropriation of the Indiana Academy of Science, on the day the Housed passed House Bill 246. ... The roll was then called and the bill passed its third and final reading in the lower house. A member then showed the writer [i.e. Waldo] a copy of the bill just passed and asked him if he would like an introduction to the learned doctor, its author. He declined the courtesy with thanks remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know. That evening the senators were properly coached and shortly thereafter as it came to its final reading in the upper house they threw out with much merriment the epoch making discovery of the Wise Man from the Pocket.
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Re:So when does our freedom end? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about preventing people from gambling. This is about preventing people from gambling when they're not giving the state of Kentucky their cut.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not so victimless anymore is it?
If you take that view then glutony comes under the same catagory when you clog up your heart...then it directly affects the gluttons's family.
Not so victimless now is it?
If you take that view then dangerous sports comes under the same catagory when you smash your head off a rock while river rafting... then it directly affects your family.
Not so victimless now is it?
Alcohol - alhoclol, drunken beating, affects your family.
Not so victimless now is it?
Stock trading, loseing it all in a stock crash: affects you