Uncle Sam: If It Ends in .Com, It’s .Seizable

[HTMLBasicTutor]

...the U.S. government says it’s gone that route hundreds of times. Furthermore, it says it has the right to seize any .com, .net and .org domain name because the companies that have the contracts to administer them are based on United States soil, according to Nicole Navas, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman.

The controversy highlights the unique control the U.S. continues to hold over key components of the global domain name system, and rips a Band-Aid off a historic sore point for other nations. A complicated web of bureaucracy and Commerce Department-dictated contracts signed in 1999 established that key domains would be contracted out to Network Solutions, which was acquired by VeriSign in 2000. That cemented control of all-important .com and .net domains with a U.S. company – VeriSign – putting every website using one of those addresses firmly within reach of American courts regardless of where the owners are located – possibly forever.

The government, Navas said, usually serves court-ordered seizures on VeriSign, which manages domains ending in .com, .net, .cc, .tv and .name, because “foreign-based registrars are not bound to comply with U.S. court orders.” The government does the same with the non-profit counterpart to VeriSign that now manages the .org domain. That’s the Public Interest Registry, which, like VeriSign, is based in Virginia.

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[ScriptMan]

It was a good read. The simple fact is as stated in the article, if the TLD is under US control so also are all the domains issued under it. The same should extend to all the other TLD's.

As long as due process is followed I have no problems with it. If and when the government of any nation disregards the law and does a unilateral shutdown for whatever reason then it has gone too far.

Disagree if you like. I have a thick skin.