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The domain seizure is nothing out of the ordinary. At least a dozen have been seized over the last 12 months, including those during the indictments of Black Fr

The domain seizure is nothing out of the ordinary. At least a dozen have been seized over the last 12 months, including those during the indictments of Black Friday (nb pokerstars.com, fulltiltpoker.com have been handed black) and Blue Monday (at least 10 domains still under seizure including truepoker.com). The domain itself (bodog.com) was unused. The operation continues under bovada.lv (for US) and bodog.eu/co.uk for European custom. Nearly all US-facing gambling operations have been moved to non-dotcom domains (dot.eu, dot.co.uk and dot.ag - for Antigua and Bermuda - the most common) for this very reason. To read more from an industry perspective [full disclosure, i am co-editor of this site]: http://pokerfuse.com/news/law-and-regulation/undercover-investigation-spanning-six-years-leads-bodog-indictments-domain-name-seizure/ http://pokerfuse.com/news/law-and-regulation/undercover-inve... The domain seizure itself was of interest only as it showed the DOJ/DHS have a continued interest in trying to take down what it sees as illegal online gambling operators; that they can order a dot-com domain name seizure is par-for-the-course these days.

heyitsnick 15y ago
More specifically, ten domain names were seized in May [1] including doylesroom.com and truepoker.com, and i think it was 4 or 5 in April's "Black Friday" (domains of pokerstars, full tilt, ultimate bet and absolute poker). The former 2 have been returned. 1: http://pokerfuse.com/features/in-depth/a-whos-who-of-blue-monday/#domains http://pokerfuse.com/features/in-depth/a-whos-who-of-blue-mo...
cmatthias 15y ago
If you read the article, you will discover that the author asserts that this situation is different, because it's the first time that a .com domain registered through a foreign registrar has been subject to seizure by US authorities. I don't know enough about the history of domain seizures to know whether this is true or not, but if so, it definitely represents an increased level of enforcement by US authorities -- if I owned a company operated and registered outside the US, I'd now think twice about using a .com name as my primary address.
- larrys 15y ago
  "if I owned a company operated and registered outside the US, I'd now think twice about using a .com name as my primary address." Why? Is that just on principle? Or do you see this behavior by the government as rising to the level of the US taking down sites that flout or even break the law in a de minimis way? Keep in mind that to do what they did there is a level of case preparation required to get the proper signoffs to make this happen. I think if someone is doing something illegal they have something to worry about, sure. But for 99.9% of the web sites out there why is this a cause for worry? Edit (since I can't reply to below): "the "convenience factor" of owning a .com no longer outweighs the potential risk" The reason to own a .com is not convenience. It's ubiquity at least in the US. Speaking as someone in the business who deals with customers of registration domains all the time (and also with people buying valuable domains) at this time using a non .com domain is a non-starter for the majority of people.
  - cmatthias 15y ago
    "Why? Is that just on principle? Or do you see this behavior by the government as rising to the level of the US taking down sites that flout or even break the law in a de minimis way?" I think it's a combination of several factors. One is definitely principle. The other major reason is that if I'm running a business from outside the US, and do not deal with US customers or business partners, why should I waste my time figuring out whether what I'm doing is contrary to some law in one US state, just to ensure that the US doesn't steal my domain from me? Especially in some industries, there are vastly different notions of what is considered appropriate in the US vs. Europe (see the sports betting example). My opinion is that based on cases such as this, the "convenience factor" of owning a .com no longer outweighs the potential risk of losing the domain on the whim of the US government.
    - drucken 15y ago
      Exactly. This can only be a boon for the .EU domain, ccTLDs and all their registers, especially those which allow second-level domain names like .de. There is simply too much uncertainty with using American-hosted domains already and it is increasing every week.
nextparadigms 15y ago
I think all those situations are "out of the ordinary". This has only happened in the past couple of years. Not to mention that I don't think US should "own" the .com domain.
literalusername 15y ago
> full disclosure, i am co-editor of this site Awesome site. I tried subscribing to your newsletter, and the server responded: Forbidden (403) CSRF verification failed. Request aborted. More information is available with DEBUG=True. Edit: I wonder if the site's trying to detect CSRF with a cookie, which I rejected. I hope not, because that would mean I won't be subscribing to your newsletter.
- heyitsnick 15y ago
  Woh sorry about that, I will check it out. I guess it's django's CSRF verification not working. Don't think it's cookie-based though so not sure what's going on. The mailing list is run through mailchimp, you can sign up directly here: http://eepurl.com/fsyQo http://eepurl.com/fsyQo Thanks!
  - literalusername 15y ago
    Done. Thanks!

heyitsnick 15y ago

More specifically, ten domain names were seized in May [1] including doylesroom.com and truepoker.com, and i think it was 4 or 5 in April's "Black Friday" (domains of pokerstars, full tilt, ultimate bet and absolute poker). The former 2 have been returned. 1: http://pokerfuse.com/features/in-depth/a-whos-who-of-blue-monday/#domains http://pokerfuse.com/features/in-depth/a-whos-who-of-blue-mo...

cmatthias 15y ago

If you read the article, you will discover that the author asserts that this situation is different, because it's the first time that a .com domain registered through a foreign registrar has been subject to seizure by US authorities. I don't know enough about the history of domain seizures to know whether this is true or not, but if so, it definitely represents an increased level of enforcement by US authorities -- if I owned a company operated and registered outside the US, I'd now think twice about using a .com name as my primary address.

larrys 15y ago
"if I owned a company operated and registered outside the US, I'd now think twice about using a .com name as my primary address." Why? Is that just on principle? Or do you see this behavior by the government as rising to the level of the US taking down sites that flout or even break the law in a de minimis way? Keep in mind that to do what they did there is a level of case preparation required to get the proper signoffs to make this happen. I think if someone is doing something illegal they have something to worry about, sure. But for 99.9% of the web sites out there why is this a cause for worry? Edit (since I can't reply to below): "the "convenience factor" of owning a .com no longer outweighs the potential risk" The reason to own a .com is not convenience. It's ubiquity at least in the US. Speaking as someone in the business who deals with customers of registration domains all the time (and also with people buying valuable domains) at this time using a non .com domain is a non-starter for the majority of people.
- cmatthias 15y ago
  "Why? Is that just on principle? Or do you see this behavior by the government as rising to the level of the US taking down sites that flout or even break the law in a de minimis way?" I think it's a combination of several factors. One is definitely principle. The other major reason is that if I'm running a business from outside the US, and do not deal with US customers or business partners, why should I waste my time figuring out whether what I'm doing is contrary to some law in one US state, just to ensure that the US doesn't steal my domain from me? Especially in some industries, there are vastly different notions of what is considered appropriate in the US vs. Europe (see the sports betting example). My opinion is that based on cases such as this, the "convenience factor" of owning a .com no longer outweighs the potential risk of losing the domain on the whim of the US government.
  - drucken 15y ago
    Exactly. This can only be a boon for the .EU domain, ccTLDs and all their registers, especially those which allow second-level domain names like .de. There is simply too much uncertainty with using American-hosted domains already and it is increasing every week.

nextparadigms 15y ago

I think all those situations are "out of the ordinary". This has only happened in the past couple of years. Not to mention that I don't think US should "own" the .com domain.

literalusername 15y ago

> full disclosure, i am co-editor of this site Awesome site. I tried subscribing to your newsletter, and the server responded: Forbidden (403) CSRF verification failed. Request aborted. More information is available with DEBUG=True. Edit: I wonder if the site's trying to detect CSRF with a cookie, which I rejected. I hope not, because that would mean I won't be subscribing to your newsletter.

heyitsnick 15y ago
Woh sorry about that, I will check it out. I guess it's django's CSRF verification not working. Don't think it's cookie-based though so not sure what's going on. The mailing list is run through mailchimp, you can sign up directly here: http://eepurl.com/fsyQo http://eepurl.com/fsyQo Thanks!
- literalusername 15y ago
  Done. Thanks!