Flight of the Domain Names

The US government's department of internal security has been arbitrarily seizing domain names at the behest of America's entertainment industry, even though such seizures violate Fifth Amendment rights of due process and even threaten economic damage to America's domain registrars as foreign companies and individual Web site users flee to their own or other countries to re-register their Web site addresses.

When the US government suddenly decides that it can simply take your domain name with no warning, no due process, no adversarial hearing and no regards to whether or not the site is actually legal in the country it's targeting, that seems like a pretty clear warning sign that it's time to find a safer domain home. If I were a US domain register or registrar, I'd be pretty pissed off at Homeland Security for promoting the fact that the US government has no problem censoring websites it doesn't like. It's only going to serve to drive people away, and perhaps open up a huge opportunity for a new TLD to become a standard from a country that really believes in due process and free speech.

It could be worse: Domain registrars may well decide that it is no longer worth it to allow American citizens or corporations to register (or re-register at expiration) domain names of entertainment sites, whether they belong to a Hollywood studio or to a group of fans — unless they pay tre multa mono as a legal expense deposit. When that happens, the number of Web sites will drop like a rock off the top of K2; and the entertainment industry will scream like a shocked monkey for something that it itself brought about.

I am not too worried about having my own domain seized. The only part of my Web site with copyrighted material is the Caitlin Clarke Page; I am redesigning the site so that the copyrighted material will be removed. I already warned that this will come about, probably by the end of this month.