incrediBILL - 2:29 am on Mar 8, 2012 (gmt 0)

Actually I would defend the site. Because it is not up to pannels or burocrats to administer justice. This is not due process.

I see.

If someone running a phishing site that was destroying other individuals, his rights are more important than the rights of all the other individuals being destroyed.

Garbage.

Anyone familiar with the teachings of Spock from Vulcan know logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

I would agree with you on almost any other kind of site, but when individuals are being preyed upon, scammed and cheated, I'd rather the site go down in the short term and limit the victims. Let them sort it out in the end as it's easier to give restitution to one and the domain can always be released but it's much harder to undo the countless damage to the victims.

Besides, the government usually has a decent case before going to such extremes. They just don't head over to Google and search "criminals online" and click "I'M FEELING LUCKY" to find a site to seize.

If corporations could do the same, then I'd be really worried.

FWIW, seizing a domain is virtually meaningless, unless it's a big brand, as most scammers could have a new site up and running anywhere in the world in hours on another domain which is exactly what the gambling sites did. It's not like seizing a building and boxing up someone's business, it's just shutting down a single domain name which is pretty toothless on the internet. Domain names are cheap and bad boys usually already have a backup plan and pop up faster than the little critters in that whack-a-mole game.

Spamford Wallace was a good case study of online resilience despite the many attempts by corporations and government to shut him down over and over and over again so due process doesn't work either.
[en.wikipedia.org...]

The simple fact is if you register a domain that doesn't fall within the jurisdiction of Verisign then the US can't touch it. Smart scammers will start moving to those non dot com domains ASAP, they'll do some 301 redirects and cut their ties to the dot com.

Now how's that for freedom?

Freedom of choice, avoid the dot com and avoid being seized!

Sheesh.