Kentucky Judge Upholds State's Gambling-Domain Grab

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?

This just in

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

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.

Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc

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.

Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc

Isn't the US currently under sanctions from the WTO for its discrimination against foreign based gambling sites, while allowing a select few US based ones?

I can't imagine this case will help matters any...

Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc

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.

Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc

I really don't think the RIAA need to get involved in this one.

Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc

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 .

Re:Ground troops and the state's ability to enforc

OK:
The judge runs over your puppy and laughs while pissing out the window on your head.

Not entirely accurate

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

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!

Re:Not entirely accurate

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.

DNS

So is it time to update the DNS servers to ignore Kentucky?

Re:DNS

Both Domains? or do you want to change the core routers to just ignore their state's entire /24 subnet?

Apologies to the Simpsons

Lisa Simpson: But Grandpa, this flag only has 49 stars.
Grandpa: I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I acknowledge Kentucky!

The law is so far behind the internet it hurts

The book Blown to Bits we previously discussed [slashdot.org] goes into this in some detail but there is a clear, and increasing, problem that legislatures are very far behind the curve on the global nature of the internet. Not only can district courts in the US have a say, potentially, on the content hosted on a server in another country - let alone another state - but it also creates a pressure to host your servers in the country with the most lax laws around content control.
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?

What a lie! Freedom so long as it is granted by the state is more like it. I should be able to have a domain name regardless of what it says. And on internet gambling in general, my money is my money, so I should be allowed to gamble with it if I so choose. If the government did its job and was there to protect the people rather to limit them, they would investigate online casinos for fairness and punish those that aren't playing square or if they are offshores, warn consumers about their practices.

Power

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.

Motion to remove to the Federal courts in

...5...4...3...2...1 A state judge rules that state officials have the right to take domain names registered elsewhere and belonging to organizations based elsewhere? This one is not staying in the state courts.

Follow the Money...

"Among other things, the state says online gambling drains the state of money by undermining horse racing, a key tourism industry for the state."

Gambling is illegal here in alabama

So I think alabama should sieze these domains from those bastards in kentucky.

Against international WTO agreements

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]

Re:kentucky

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.

Re:differant registrar?

Apparently the law of the state of Kentucky is applicable to any server on the internet, regardless of country of origin.

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.

Re:So when does our freedom end?

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.

can i get the over/under

on whether gambling will be successfully outlawed worldwide?

and what website can i go to to place a wager on that occurence?