6 ms·

The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the st

The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. I don't care if you like the porn site in question or not, or condone or endorse its content. This is a slippery slope towards every regional tinpot dictator legislature attempting to censor the internet by having an entity's domain name revoked. .com in particular has also been well proven over the past 5 to 10 years to be vulnerable to federal court orders to seize domains at the registrar level. That's not really anything new. It's a known risk for anyone building a corporate brand/identity around a specific .com domain name. What's new is this is being done from the state court level. (Edit: To be clear, in my opinion, a US State court completely lacks jurisdiction on this matter).

bmelton 3mo ago
How do you feel about GDPR?
- walrus01 3mo ago
  I worry about it about as much as I worry about getting extradited to Thailand to face court for violating a law insulting the Thai king. I am unaware of even a single person of my nationality who has been extradited to Europe to face some kind of GDPR tribunal. If I were running a business that had any operations or clients whatsoever in Europe my opinion on this topic would be different (in terms of legal liability to the corporation, and necessity of compliance to ensure ongoing revenue from European customers, etc), but I am not.
  - bmelton 3mo ago
    Thanks for the answer! It wasn't a gotcha, I was genuinely just curious.
- applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
  The GDPR doesn't try to remove anything from the global internet. You're free to not serve your site in the EU. Texas is free to block sites in Texas. But Texas trying to remove the ability of Europeans to access European websites is a completely different matter.
  - bmelton 3mo ago
    > The GDPR doesn't try to remove anything from the global internet GDPR Article 17 expressly requires the removal of things from the global internet > You're free to not serve your site in the EU Geoblocking is functionally impossible
    - applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
      > GDPR Article 17 expressly requires the removal of things from the global internet ...as part of compliance with GDPR, if you choose to be compliant. Please name one instance of the EU suing and successfully removing an American website from the internet under this article, or any part of the GDPR? Considering we're talking about an actual case of the US seizing the domain of a European website, whataboutting a hypothetical with the GDPR which has never done the reverse despite being in force for 10 years is incredibly disingenuous. --- Rate-limit edit: > Are you saying that you don’t think that the GDPR text is written to apply outside of the EU, or that it does say that but it’s not relevant because it’s not viable for anybody to enforce that? The GDPR is European legislation, written for the territory the EU has legal jurisdiction over. Why would anybody think it's meant to apply outside of the EU? Plenty of businesses choose to operate by two sets of privacy policies, one where they continue fucking over their American users and one where they adhere to the GDPR for European users, and that is perfectly acceptable. There is no "think" about it, the legislation obviously does not apply outside the EU, nor is it intended to.
      - akerl_ 3mo ago
        Are you saying that you don’t think that the GDPR text is written to apply outside of the EU, or that it does say that but it’s not relevant because it’s not viable for anybody to enforce that?
      - fc417fc802 3mo ago
        > Why would anybody think it's meant to apply outside of the EU? Because it's clearly worded in such a manner, similar to US financial laws. The key difference is that the EU so far lacks the leverage to throw its weight around outside its own territory to the extent that the US does. (Also presumably politicians won't be willing to burn bridges over PII handling violations to the same extent that they do over financial crimes.)
jasonfarnon 3mo ago
[flagged]
- walrus01 3mo ago
  It is known to have servers, offices, employees, bank accounts, business licenses in texas?
  - monksy 3mo ago
    Motherless.xxx's tracepath is: https://ipinfo.io/185.107.81.233 https://ipinfo.io/185.107.81.233 Hosting out of the netherlands. Kick their owners are globally headquarted in Australia, their US operations are out of SFO, CA.
  - jasonfarnon 3mo ago
    Why do you think that is necessary for jurisdiction? It's doing business with TX customers every time it serves an ad to someone there. The law governing sufficient contacts for internet companies has been pretty well established since the 2000s.
    - walrus01 3mo ago
      > It's doing business with TX customers every time it serves an ad to someone there By this same logic if my web server physically located in Canada, the USA or Iceland serves LGBTQ content to people in Uganda I should be held liable or dragged into a Ugandan court under some of Uganda's anti-LGBTQ laws? https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=uganda+anti+lgbtq+law https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=uganda+an...
      - jasonfarnon 3mo ago
        I'm not sure what your point is. Courts generally follow precedent, not your opinion about what is or isn't logical. Do you want me to explain to you the nature of extraterritorial jurisdiction, extradition treaties, etc., distinguishing your hypothetical from this case? I don't have a dog in this fight. If you really want to understand what's going on I would suggest you simply look up the complaint this AG filed, which will give the basis for jurisdiction, which the court evidently accepted.
AdieuToLogic 3mo ago
> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. Two things of note regarding this. First, note the office of origin: Texas Attorney General, which is currently occupied by Ken Paxton who is running for a tightly contested seat in the US Senate. Second, a state court does not have jurisdiction beyond its borders for entities not operating within same. > .com in particular has also been well proven over the past 5 to 10 years to be vulnerable to federal court orders to seize domains at the registrar level. ... What's new is this is being done from the state court level. Which is why any attempt to enforce this ruling would be subject to removal to Federal court.
- rootsudo 3mo ago
  And third, there was a default judgement. I wonder what was the value of the domain on the open market, its quite a famous domain and probably had high lead generation.. But I agree with the parent comment. This is so much state overstepping bounds and irony aside, so much for independence and rights by a state that proclaims personal agency comes first.
  - walrus01 3mo ago
    Personal agency comes first in Texas only as long as you're a white heterosexual christian man with conservative political beliefs.
  - AdieuToLogic 3mo ago
    >> Two things of note regarding this. > And third, there was a default judgement. Unenforceable and meant strictly for political theater IMHO. > This is so much state overstepping bounds and irony aside, so much for independence and rights by a state that proclaims personal agency comes first. When a political party declares we are in a "post-truth" era and fully embraces nihilistic "the ends justify the means" tactics, the result is inevitable; Take, hold, and increase power by any means necessary. For if one does not hold oneself to a standard of ethical behavior, where the actions of others do not affect one's adherence to the rule of law, where the temptation to indulge in vendettas is not renounced, and where there is no accountability for engaging in any of the aforementioned, then there is no motivation for seeing those one disagrees with as anything more than an irritant to be dispatched forthwith. And we then find ourselves with elected officials wildly exceeding their mandate, such as here.
thegrim33 3mo ago
So, you feel the same about stuff like the GDPR then, right?
- walrus01 3mo ago
  Answered below in same thread.
dabluecaboose 3mo ago
> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. I agree. California has been doing this since 2022 [1][2] and it's equally indefensible. States should not be allowed to wield their size and influence as a cudgel against other states and jurisdictions. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2571 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... [2] https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/ghost-gun-crackdown-attorney-general-bonta-files-landmark-lawsuit https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/ghost-gun-crackdown-a...
- walrus01 3mo ago
  Interestingly if you browse American-hosted online internet firearms accessories websites (and FFLs who will sell you something online to ship to your local FFL), for the most part, it's just a basic HTML popup of "Are you over 18? Click Yes, okay, proceed". I haven't seen a single one that actually attempts to implement age verification. It seems that the Internet-based vendors, the same general cohort of companies that are exhibitors or attendees at the annual SHOT trade show, are not very scared of the Californian AG yet. I'm unaware of the Californians attempting to seize anyone's domain name over this issue. But indeed this also seems like an overreach, California doesn't get to regulate what an Internet gun accessory store in Idaho advertises or publishes on the Internet. State to state transfers of serialized items go through a well defined federal government regulated process, such as if a person in Nebraska buys a Zastava M70 online from a dealer in Montana.
  - LoganDark 3mo ago
    But you see, guns aren't harmful to small children. It's that damn pornography. Seeing a gun doesn't traumatize you for life, but man, seeing a private area? Life ruined. Of course, once the number of years since you were born reaches exactly 18, your brain automatically shuts off the part of you that is impossibly traumatized by private areas, so it's suddenly completely okay and normal. Oh, and when you reach exactly 16, somehow you're only impossibly traumatized by private areas on the screen, not in-person. Everyone knows this is true. (I don't mean to be genuinely insensitive about the real harms that adult content can pose. I just think there's a difference between calling content harmful simply because it's adult and content causing harm because the viewer isn't ready for it)
crossroadsguy 3mo ago
One of the reasons I keep my .in domain up and running as my backup email (and just for personal use). That .com domain, if taken down/away from other jurisdictions (the ones that can easily do it) for whatever reason (including a “mistake” or slip) would mean it’s gone for good (because I neither have the capacity nor resources to appeal/fight that in foreign lands).
- walrus01 3mo ago
  Your .IN domain is probably one of the worst possible choices of all ccTLD to claim that you can publish things on it without fear of reprisals or censorship, be assured that something bad would happen to it or you personally if you happened to run afoul of any powerful people in the Indian government (or oligarchs). Something like .NL (you do not need to be a Dutch national to register) or .IS would be much more legally resilient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    Maybe crossroadsguy lives in India. By using your home country's ccTLD, you have only one source of censorship instead of two.
    - walrus01 3mo ago
      I mean he's probably fine as long as he does absolutely nothing to challenge the status quo or anyone powerful in India. Which doesn't really seem like an optimal situation for a censorship resistant domain. There's a vast quantity of examples of Indian state and federal government authorities issuing court orders to "remove" content from the internet over the past 25+ years. Take a look at some of the citations in the Wikipedia page I linked.
      - graemep 3mo ago
        Someone living in India would have to follow Indian court orders regardless of where their domain was registered. Another TLD would mean obeying laws and court orders in another country as well
jayd16 3mo ago
So like, California voters can just pass a proposition to force the suspension of a dozen conservative domains, for example? Or even better, Rhode Island could?

bmelton 3mo ago

How do you feel about GDPR?

walrus01 3mo ago
I worry about it about as much as I worry about getting extradited to Thailand to face court for violating a law insulting the Thai king. I am unaware of even a single person of my nationality who has been extradited to Europe to face some kind of GDPR tribunal. If I were running a business that had any operations or clients whatsoever in Europe my opinion on this topic would be different (in terms of legal liability to the corporation, and necessity of compliance to ensure ongoing revenue from European customers, etc), but I am not.
- bmelton 3mo ago
  Thanks for the answer! It wasn't a gotcha, I was genuinely just curious.
applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
The GDPR doesn't try to remove anything from the global internet. You're free to not serve your site in the EU. Texas is free to block sites in Texas. But Texas trying to remove the ability of Europeans to access European websites is a completely different matter.
- bmelton 3mo ago
  > The GDPR doesn't try to remove anything from the global internet GDPR Article 17 expressly requires the removal of things from the global internet > You're free to not serve your site in the EU Geoblocking is functionally impossible
  - applfanboysbgon 3mo ago
    > GDPR Article 17 expressly requires the removal of things from the global internet ...as part of compliance with GDPR, if you choose to be compliant. Please name one instance of the EU suing and successfully removing an American website from the internet under this article, or any part of the GDPR? Considering we're talking about an actual case of the US seizing the domain of a European website, whataboutting a hypothetical with the GDPR which has never done the reverse despite being in force for 10 years is incredibly disingenuous. --- Rate-limit edit: > Are you saying that you don’t think that the GDPR text is written to apply outside of the EU, or that it does say that but it’s not relevant because it’s not viable for anybody to enforce that? The GDPR is European legislation, written for the territory the EU has legal jurisdiction over. Why would anybody think it's meant to apply outside of the EU? Plenty of businesses choose to operate by two sets of privacy policies, one where they continue fucking over their American users and one where they adhere to the GDPR for European users, and that is perfectly acceptable. There is no "think" about it, the legislation obviously does not apply outside the EU, nor is it intended to.
    - akerl_ 3mo ago
      Are you saying that you don’t think that the GDPR text is written to apply outside of the EU, or that it does say that but it’s not relevant because it’s not viable for anybody to enforce that?
    - fc417fc802 3mo ago
      > Why would anybody think it's meant to apply outside of the EU? Because it's clearly worded in such a manner, similar to US financial laws. The key difference is that the EU so far lacks the leverage to throw its weight around outside its own territory to the extent that the US does. (Also presumably politicians won't be willing to burn bridges over PII handling violations to the same extent that they do over financial crimes.)

jasonfarnon 3mo ago

[flagged]

walrus01 3mo ago
It is known to have servers, offices, employees, bank accounts, business licenses in texas?
- monksy 3mo ago
  Motherless.xxx's tracepath is: https://ipinfo.io/185.107.81.233 https://ipinfo.io/185.107.81.233 Hosting out of the netherlands. Kick their owners are globally headquarted in Australia, their US operations are out of SFO, CA.
- jasonfarnon 3mo ago
  Why do you think that is necessary for jurisdiction? It's doing business with TX customers every time it serves an ad to someone there. The law governing sufficient contacts for internet companies has been pretty well established since the 2000s.
  - walrus01 3mo ago
    > It's doing business with TX customers every time it serves an ad to someone there By this same logic if my web server physically located in Canada, the USA or Iceland serves LGBTQ content to people in Uganda I should be held liable or dragged into a Ugandan court under some of Uganda's anti-LGBTQ laws? https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=uganda+anti+lgbtq+law https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=uganda+an...
    - jasonfarnon 3mo ago
      I'm not sure what your point is. Courts generally follow precedent, not your opinion about what is or isn't logical. Do you want me to explain to you the nature of extraterritorial jurisdiction, extradition treaties, etc., distinguishing your hypothetical from this case? I don't have a dog in this fight. If you really want to understand what's going on I would suggest you simply look up the complaint this AG filed, which will give the basis for jurisdiction, which the court evidently accepted.

AdieuToLogic 3mo ago

> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. Two things of note regarding this. First, note the office of origin: Texas Attorney General, which is currently occupied by Ken Paxton who is running for a tightly contested seat in the US Senate. Second, a state court does not have jurisdiction beyond its borders for entities not operating within same. > .com in particular has also been well proven over the past 5 to 10 years to be vulnerable to federal court orders to seize domains at the registrar level. ... What's new is this is being done from the state court level. Which is why any attempt to enforce this ruling would be subject to removal to Federal court.

rootsudo 3mo ago
And third, there was a default judgement. I wonder what was the value of the domain on the open market, its quite a famous domain and probably had high lead generation.. But I agree with the parent comment. This is so much state overstepping bounds and irony aside, so much for independence and rights by a state that proclaims personal agency comes first.
- walrus01 3mo ago
  Personal agency comes first in Texas only as long as you're a white heterosexual christian man with conservative political beliefs.
- AdieuToLogic 3mo ago
  >> Two things of note regarding this. > And third, there was a default judgement. Unenforceable and meant strictly for political theater IMHO. > This is so much state overstepping bounds and irony aside, so much for independence and rights by a state that proclaims personal agency comes first. When a political party declares we are in a "post-truth" era and fully embraces nihilistic "the ends justify the means" tactics, the result is inevitable; Take, hold, and increase power by any means necessary. For if one does not hold oneself to a standard of ethical behavior, where the actions of others do not affect one's adherence to the rule of law, where the temptation to indulge in vendettas is not renounced, and where there is no accountability for engaging in any of the aforementioned, then there is no motivation for seeing those one disagrees with as anything more than an irritant to be dispatched forthwith. And we then find ourselves with elected officials wildly exceeding their mandate, such as here.

thegrim33 3mo ago

So, you feel the same about stuff like the GDPR then, right?

walrus01 3mo ago
Answered below in same thread.

dabluecaboose 3mo ago

> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. I agree. California has been doing this since 2022 [1][2] and it's equally indefensible. States should not be allowed to wield their size and influence as a cudgel against other states and jurisdictions. [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2571 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... [2] https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/ghost-gun-crackdown-attorney-general-bonta-files-landmark-lawsuit https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/ghost-gun-crackdown-a...

walrus01 3mo ago
Interestingly if you browse American-hosted online internet firearms accessories websites (and FFLs who will sell you something online to ship to your local FFL), for the most part, it's just a basic HTML popup of "Are you over 18? Click Yes, okay, proceed". I haven't seen a single one that actually attempts to implement age verification. It seems that the Internet-based vendors, the same general cohort of companies that are exhibitors or attendees at the annual SHOT trade show, are not very scared of the Californian AG yet. I'm unaware of the Californians attempting to seize anyone's domain name over this issue. But indeed this also seems like an overreach, California doesn't get to regulate what an Internet gun accessory store in Idaho advertises or publishes on the Internet. State to state transfers of serialized items go through a well defined federal government regulated process, such as if a person in Nebraska buys a Zastava M70 online from a dealer in Montana.
- LoganDark 3mo ago
  But you see, guns aren't harmful to small children. It's that damn pornography. Seeing a gun doesn't traumatize you for life, but man, seeing a private area? Life ruined. Of course, once the number of years since you were born reaches exactly 18, your brain automatically shuts off the part of you that is impossibly traumatized by private areas, so it's suddenly completely okay and normal. Oh, and when you reach exactly 16, somehow you're only impossibly traumatized by private areas on the screen, not in-person. Everyone knows this is true. (I don't mean to be genuinely insensitive about the real harms that adult content can pose. I just think there's a difference between calling content harmful simply because it's adult and content causing harm because the viewer isn't ready for it)

crossroadsguy 3mo ago

One of the reasons I keep my .in domain up and running as my backup email (and just for personal use). That .com domain, if taken down/away from other jurisdictions (the ones that can easily do it) for whatever reason (including a “mistake” or slip) would mean it’s gone for good (because I neither have the capacity nor resources to appeal/fight that in foreign lands).

walrus01 3mo ago
Your .IN domain is probably one of the worst possible choices of all ccTLD to claim that you can publish things on it without fear of reprisals or censorship, be assured that something bad would happen to it or you personally if you happened to run afoul of any powerful people in the Indian government (or oligarchs). Something like .NL (you do not need to be a Dutch national to register) or .IS would be much more legally resilient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Maybe crossroadsguy lives in India. By using your home country's ccTLD, you have only one source of censorship instead of two.
  - walrus01 3mo ago
    I mean he's probably fine as long as he does absolutely nothing to challenge the status quo or anyone powerful in India. Which doesn't really seem like an optimal situation for a censorship resistant domain. There's a vast quantity of examples of Indian state and federal government authorities issuing court orders to "remove" content from the internet over the past 25+ years. Take a look at some of the citations in the Wikipedia page I linked.
    - graemep 3mo ago
      Someone living in India would have to follow Indian court orders regardless of where their domain was registered. Another TLD would mean obeying laws and court orders in another country as well

jayd16 3mo ago

So like, California voters can just pass a proposition to force the suspension of a dozen conservative domains, for example? Or even better, Rhode Island could?