back to article Site appeals feds' unprecedented domain seizure

The Spanish operator of a website related to sports has petitioned for the return of two domain names seized by the US government in an unprecedented campaign that confiscates the addresses without first giving owners a chance to defend themselves in court. Puerto 80, the owner of rojadirecta.com and rojadirecta.org, said in a …

COMMENTS

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  1. Mark 65

    Pricks

    "ICE officials have claimed the Rojadirecta website violated US sports teams' copyrights and trademarks by offering links to sites that offered unauthorized live streaming of games."

    I look forward to them seizing google.com

    1. Eddy Ito

      Never happen

      Doesn't the GOOG have a cabinet position in the White House? Nice thought though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        No, Google

        LEASES Cabinet positions in the White House to others, especially the current nominal landlord.

    2. BristolBachelor Gold badge

      @ Mark 65

      "I look forward to them seizing google.com"

      No you forget. The American government is there to serve the (American) corporations. Google.com is an American corporation, and the government is a servant of them (although paid). Meanwhile Rojadirecta is from an axis of evil* country.

      *Axis of evil means not America or under American control (yet).

  2. Disco-Legend-Zeke
    Pint

    Summary Execution...

    ...of your domain name seems a bit unconstitutional. Beyond free speech. They are being directly harmed financially without benefit of jury.

    On the other side of this two headed coin, if it is legal in Spain, their .es version of the name should continue working.

  3. Daveh
    Megaphone

    Oblig

    Team America! FUCK YEAH!

  4. BristolBachelor Gold badge

    World DNS?

    Why does the world DNS have to follow America?

    What would happen if the DNS servers in other countries started ignoring all the land-grabbing going on over there? (Rhetorical question)

    To be honest, I don't understand why international TLDs like .org and .com are still under the control of the American government. They can have .US and play with that all they want.

    1. Ray Simard
      Meh

      @world dns

      I hear ya, but the question is, who would run it? Everyone operates within some governmental jurisdiction or another. A supra-governmental, apolitical agency running the non-country-code TLDs is a sweet pipe dream, but there's just about zero chance that could ever have come to be, and even if somehow it might have sometime in the past, it sure couldn't now.

      We may see the day that enterprises in the U.S. start registering domains under foreignTLDs as a matter of course, much as businesses now establish operations in foreign countries for the sake of more favorable tax or regulatory climates.

      1. Dave Bell

        "foreign" TLDs

        American corporations have been using them for years. OK, it's mostly obvious things, such as TV companies using the .tv TLD, but it's possible that some of these TLDs are still based within US jurisdiction.

      2. TeraTelnet
        Joke

        I know!

        Sealand, your time has come.

  5. poohbear

    The Queen (in profile)

    @BristolBachelor: I once asked a similar question of some net elites, and got an answer along the following lines:

    1. the USA invented the Net

    2. as such, the 3-letter TLDs were originally USA-only, and there was no .us attached for the same reason that the UK does not put their country name on their postage stamps, while every other country does: they invented it.

    3. the problem arose when typical American greed reared its ugly head and they allowed non-USA entities to register in the 3-letter TLDs. If they had not, then we would not be having these problems now.

    Everything since then has been crisis management :-)

    I quite agree that the 3-letter TLDs should be phased out and replaced with country-specific 2-letter TLDs. Possible exceptions are things like international organisations like United Nations, IMF, WHO, etc. but these are truly international.

  6. XMAN
    Stop

    Really getting annoyed

    I'm really getting annoyed with The United States of assholes hijacking DNS records to "confiscate" domains. AMERICA YOU DON'T OWN THE WORLD. GO F* YOURSELF

    1. Tom 13

      No problem, but first

      you'll have to shoulder the cost in both treasure and blood to maintain some international peace such as it is. I'd suggest a good place to start would be in not depending on us to knock off that tin pot from Africa who has so annoyed you all recently that we've been drug into a third war.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Facepalm

        Wow!

        Since when is "wreak havoc, kill and bully to reach self-interested goals" synonymous with "maintain some international peace"? Since 9/11 1973?

        Who would have thought language was so flexible?

  7. Jacqui
    Thumb Down

    Team USA's off switch

    When this was originally planned the merkins said they would only use it in a dire emergency.

    These days a upcoming football game is a good enough reason to cut off parts of the net.

    As pointed out elsewhere relying on .com and .org is brain-dead. There have been other cases of domain theft and fighting this in the US is nigh on impossible so stick to EU based domains where at least you have a chance at legal redress.

    But surely US law is fair you say...

    In the emirates the pecking order is locals, camels then foreigners - and this is NOT a joke!

    In the US the order is different its merkins, horses, foreigners and then (in the northen US) the "despised" english. Yes folks, places like NY state and mass *still* think the IRA are true blue heroes and raise a drink to them every St pats day! A brit in a legal battle in those states has almost zero chance of a fair trial. New yorkers still quaff a pint glamourising the bombings in london and birmingham even after "twin towers" taught them what terrorists really do.

    Jacqui

  8. Ray Simard
    FAIL

    "Linking sites..."

    A question I'd like to ask: When the Feds have raided brick-and-mortar enterprises trafficking in some amount of counterfeit merchandise, some of those shops have been in malls. Would the operators of the malls hosting those outfits also get whacked because they operated "linking sites" to the criminals--in the form of directories within the malls listing the names of the rogue operations and their locations within the malls? After all, isn't that what a link is: the name of something and a pointer to its location?

    Hmm...?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @BristolBachelor

    ".... the government seizes domain names issued by or under the control of US-based registrars or webhosts...."

    Isn't this why they were able to block the .org and .com addresses. Not because they simply where .org / .com addresses?

  10. Apocalypse Later

    Si Se Puede!

    What is Homeland Security doing in copyright disputes anyway? Yet another reminder that allowing governments to take draconian powers because you have been frightened is not going to make you safe; it is only going to lose you your freedom.

  11. Harry
    Thumb Up

    Sidestepping .com would be a great idea for most companies.

    One of the most irritating things about the web is that you type in something like www.xyz.co.uk and it insists on diverting you unsolicited to www.xyx.com

    And then ... because it has now forgotten that you wanted the UK site ... insists on you picking your country from a tiny dot on a map, which still only takes you to a dropdown showing all the countries in Europe ... which finally takes you to a page like www.xyx.com/uk

  12. g e

    In a terse response, the Whitehouse replied

    We're the USA.

    Fuck you.

  13. Sam Therapy
    Facepalm

    US Gvt officials overstepping their authority?

    Gee, who'da thunk it?

  14. joe.user
    FAIL

    Overzealous US

    More paranoia crap from the USA. My homeland is turning into the Gestapo!

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