It's Official: Registrars Cannot Hold Domains Hostage Without a Court Order 112
Stunt Pope writes "Back when the City of London Police issued those 'takedown requests' to domain registrars, most complied. However, as previously reported here, easyDNS didn't. A bunch of the taken-down domains wanted to move to easyDNS. One problem: their registrar wouldn't let them. It took awhile, but easyDNS fought it. They've finally gotten a ruling (PDF) under the ICANN policy that ordered the hostage domains transferred."
There's money at stake (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of us, of course, can all go to hell as far as ICANN is concerned.
Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
how about like when whole domains are being used for malware, phishing, or fraud?
do we have to go thru a court ....
How about when Anonymous Cowards like you are murdering babies? Do I have to go through the whole judicial thing to stop it? Shouldn't my word just be enough to come over and judicially execute you and have all your property transferred into my name as compensation for my time? I think all this "judicial stuff" is just getting in the way of my killing off idiots^W^W^W protecting the family.
Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should he registrar be responsible for content? Is the phone company responsable for publishing phone numbers of unscrupulous businesses? The responsibility for mal-content is that of the host, not the directory.
Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Better 100 idiots without a scanner installed get infected than one innocent site get shut down by an asshole with an agenda.
Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Protecting the good guys from abuse often protects the bad guys to some degree.
Its all about what kind of internet you want to deal with: One where someone can trivially take your content down, or one where you know that theres bad stuff out there.
Re:hmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Registrars can takedown domains for net abuse, the main thing is their terms of service are between them and their registrants, they enforce their policies.
The easyDNS Plain English terms of service state domains will be taken down for net abuse, but if you want to compel a takedown from the outside because *you* say it's illegal, you need a court order.
Re:hmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Registrars can voluntarily do something when asked, so no, you don't have to get a court order to get a registrar to do something. They are absolutely supposed to let people move their domains when people want to also, but some of them weren't following the rules. Having them follow the rules is a good thing.
If, however, you want to force a registrar to do something which isn't part of the rules, then yes, you should have to get a court order.
Did you like the scenario where companies don't have to follow the rules you both agreed to? Most of us don't.
Re:hmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod parent up.
Not saying I haven't wanted to bypass the legal system myself from time to time, but given the choice, don't you want to live in a world with laws?
Sure, I'd like to live in a world that doesn't need laws, but since ours does need them, then having people forced to follow them is the best we can hope for.
Re: hmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you break the law then, to quote you, it's your own damn fault.
How can you tell if a website is breaking the law? An illegal activity in the United States may be legal in the country that the website is located in. Thus making it a legal website.