Homeland Security Seizes Spanish Domain Name That Had Already Been Declared Legal

[Kludge]

"It appears that Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division, and their incredibly sloppy domain seizure operations, have moved on to the next phase -- as was promised by both ICE boss, John Morton, and IP Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel. The timing on this one is particularly bizarre -- and politically stupid.

That's because the the domain seizure is for the Spanish streaming site Rojadirecta. Yes, ICE seized the domain name of a foreign company. And it gets worse. Rojadirecta is not just some fly-by-night operation run out of someone's basement or something. It's run by a legitimate company in Spain, and the site's legality has been tested in the Spanish courts... and the site was declared legal. The court noted that since Rojadirecta does not host any material itself, it does not infringe.

So, a full-on trial and legal process that took three years in a foreign country, and involved a series of appeals leading to a final judgment.... all totally ignored by a bunch of US customs agents.

You might think some folks in Spain would have a pretty serious issue with this move.

And the timing is especially ridiculous, given that the US has been pushing very, very hard for Spain to implement a new copyright law, driven in large part by Hollywood. With many in Spain already furious about US meddling in their own copyright laws, I can't imagine that having US customs agents reaching across the Atlantic to just out and out seize a Spanish company's domain name is going to go over very well.

Imagine if a Spanish law enforcement agency did that to a US company? How quickly would we see American politicians screaming about this "international incident." Yet, here we have Homeland Security reaching out to seize the domain name of a foreign company that has been explicitly declared legal, after going through a lengthy trial and appeals process in its native country. And, in typical Homeland Security fashion, no one bothered to contact the company and let them know or express its concerns. Instead, it just seized the domain.

..."

Full story, reference links, and comments @ http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110201/10252412910/homeland-security-seizes-spanish-domain-name-that-had-already-been-declared-legal.shtml

[Kludge]

A federal US judge claimed that the ICE seizures of domains owned by foreign companies who operate legally is not a "substantial hardship" and thus the site owners are not entitled to receive their seized domain back. The USG is holding the domains until the site's owners submit to not link to ANY US content on ANY of their websites, which is unprecedented and outrageous.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/judge-says-domain-name-loss-is-not-a-substantial-hardship.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Te chnica+-+Featured+Content%29

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

lol wut our government owns the internet now? Think China and Russia would like to have a word..

[Kludge]

lol wut our government owns the internet now? Think China and Russia would like to have a word..
The USG really does control the Internet. The Internet as most know it is basically a list of addresses which point to servers hosting content (the list being a "DNS," or Domain Name System) managed by a "private" US firm called ICANN. ICANN is supposed to be unbiased and objective, but the USG essentially took authority over ICANN by ordering these domains seized. Cryptoanarchist Sociocyphernetic Jellyfish Cluster Telecomix and some other organizations are allegedly working on decentralized DNS networks to get around problems in the current Internet.

That doesn't mean there aren't easy (but underutilized) alternatives to the USG-controlled Internet, now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root

[DamianTV]

A federal US judge claimed that the ICE seizures of legal foreign domains (at least in the case of Rojadirecta.com) is not a "substantial hardship" and thus the site owners are not entitled to receive their seized domain back. The USG is holding the domains until the site's owners submit to not link to ANY US content on ANY of their websites, which is unprecedented and outrageous.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/judge-says-domain-name-loss-is-not-a-substantial-hardship.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Te chnica+-+Featured+Content%29

The US now acts as if it owns the entire Internet.

[cindy25]

not a Spanish domain unless .es is at the end.

these companies have to use domains in free countries (for example demonoid.me can't be seized)

.com; .org; etc are USA domains

[Kludge]

not a Spanish domain unless .es is at the end.

these companies have to use domains in free countries (for example demonoid.me can't be seized)

.com; .org; etc are USA domains
Sorry. I intended to say the company owning the domain operates in Spain.

[LibForestPaul]

So ICANN put in the tech to seize the domain?
Does this affect people say in England trying to access Rojadirecta?
Does Europe's DNS work off of ICANN's list as well? I thought there were seven or more servers scattered throughout the world?

[RideTheDirt]

http://twitter.com/#!/rojadirecta


@Facebook has reactivated the @Rojadirecta page on FB(10 days disabled).They didn't give us any explanation but have provided a solution
FB working with DHS?
What a surprise:rolleyes:

[Kludge]

So ICANN put in the tech to seize the domain?
Does this affect people say in England trying to access Rojadirecta?
Does Europe's DNS work off of ICANN's list as well? I thought there were seven or more servers scattered throughout the world?
ICANN *IS* the world's DNS service. Just about everyone in the world uses ICANN (though I think Iran said something about starting their own Internet) because that's what everyone else uses. If people were to use other DNS services, there'd be conflicts, because there's nothing to stop another DNS service handing out .com or .es domain names. Other DNS services exist like the ones in the Wikipedia article I posted, but they aren't widely used because businesses aren't interested in using alternative DNS services next to nobody uses. A common misconception is that TLDs like .es are run by Spain. That's false. ICANN created and manages these country-coded TLDs. They alone have the authority to grant and revoke every domain name commonly used on what most consider The Internet.

In Windows, AFAIK, you're by default only allowed to specify two DNS servers to use. I believe routers generally allow you to use three or more depending on the firmware on it. This allows you to use an ICANN DNS IP address (like Google's 8.8.8.8) as the primary name-resolver, and then use alternative DNS services (like OpenNIC @ 69.164.208.50) to resolve names not listed on ICANN, like sites ending in .free, .bbs, or .geek.

[KingRobbStark]

America doesn't own anything. All we own is debt and more debt.

[eOs]

The USG really does control the Internet. The Internet as most know it is basically a list of addresses which point to servers hosting content (the list being a "DNS," or Domain Name System) managed by a "private" US firm called ICANN. ICANN is supposed to be unbiased and objective, but the USG essentially took authority over ICANN by ordering these domains seized. Cryptoanarchist Sociocyphernetic Jellyfish Cluster Telecomix and some other organizations are allegedly working on decentralized DNS networks to get around problems in the current Internet.

That doesn't mean there aren't easy (but underutilized) alternatives to the USG-controlled Internet, now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root

indeed