Why Did The US Gov't Take Down A British Travel Agent's Websites?

from the jurisdictional-questions dept

Wed, Mar 5th 2008 11:41am — Mike Masnick

Over the years, we've seen a ton of jurisdictional questions raised by the internet. After all, since the internet is available just about anywhere, and content on it may break laws in some countries, but not others, how do you handle the jurisdiction question. Some courts have determined that it doesn't matter -- and they'll claim jurisdiction for whatever they want. Others suggest that evidence needs to be shown that the content is directed at and was seen by many people within the jurisdiction. Others have held that it needs to be created by a local resident or hosted on a local server. However, with all that said, it's not clear what jurisdiction the US government seems to be claiming over a bunch of websites created by a British travel agent. The websites all advertise trips to or information about Cuba. The websites were designed for European travelers to plan trips to the island nation. Now, it's well known that US citizens are not allowed to travel to Cuba, but that's not true of people from other countries. So, this guy clearly was not breaking any laws.

No matter, though. Since he had registered the domains for his various websites through eNom, an American company, the US Treasury Department had them pull down his sites and to refuse to release them to another registrar. There's no doubt that if the sites were targeting Americans or was run by an American travel agency, you could understand these actions. But to take down a UK-based website that was aimed at European travelers, offering them perfectly legitimate trips to Cuba, seems to go beyond any reasonable jurisdictional claim.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: cuba, domain names, jurisdiction, politics, travel agent, websites

53 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 11:51am

What people just do not seem to understand is that .com is a US registration of a Web Server which makes it subject to US law.

If the web site had been registered as a Spanish site then it would not have been subject to US law and would not have been taken down.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DanC, 5 Mar 2008 @ 12:06pm

Re:
"which makes it subject to US law."

No law was broken, so there shouldn't be any issue.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 12:51pm

AMERICANS JUST BEING GAY THINKING THEY RUN SHIT
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 12:53pm

Re: Re:
If you read both the snippet and the article, you would see that he was breaking a law by offering travel to Cuba.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
away in a manger, 5 Mar 2008 @ 12:57pm

dot com nonsense
The .com domain is meant to signify a business or corporation, it use or issue is not limited to the USA. The US government has no jurisdiction in this matter.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ima Fish, 5 Mar 2008 @ 12:58pm

Q: Why Did The US Gov't Take Down A British Travel Agent's Websites?

A: The British Travel Agent "had registered the domains for his various websites through eNom, an American company."

Any other questions?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:06pm

Re:
That might explain the takedown but not the release to another registrar.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dave Zawislak, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:14pm

Yes, the US likes tol show how a free democratic society can repress its citizens as well as Cuba can.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Matt Bennett, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:16pm

Re:
So, regardless of all the other issues here, I would like to point out that Americans do indeed mostly "run shit."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
udamdirtyape, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:22pm

We are the chickenshittiest of bullies.
Why can't an American travel to Cuba anyway? Why is the big, bad U.S. of A so scared of this little banana republic? Just because we dont own and exploit Cuba anymore? The USA is to Cuba what China is to Taiwan... Um excuse me, Chinese Taipei.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
udamdirtyape, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:27pm

correction
"steal shit" and then "run shit."
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DanC, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:34pm

Re: Re: Re:
According to the U.S. Treasury Dept.:

"U.S. travel service providers, such as
travel agents, who handle travel arrangements to, from, or within Cuba must hold special authorizations from the Office of Foreign Assets Control to engage in such activities."

It is therefore illegal for a U.S. travel agent to offer travel to or from Cuba without meeting this requirement. However, the travel agent in question is an English (UK) travel agent living in Spain, and as such is not required to meet the U.S. requirements for offering travel to Cuba.

He is simply not subject to U.S. law, because he isn't a citizen. No law was broken.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
SSG, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:39pm

Flexing Muscle
We run it because we have big military muscle. The government can do what it wants when laws are violated through a American company. They did the right thing by letting everyone know we dont play.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Matt Bennett, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:44pm

Re: correction
Did you want to justify that?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Scott Gardner, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:55pm

Re: dot com nonsense
That was my impression as well, but now that I think about it, the only non-US-based corporations that use the .com top-level domain seem to be the ones doing business in the US. For instance, www.sony.com is the *SONY USA* site, not the main company site. Likewise, it's only the North American Hitachi site that uses ".com" for its top-level domain. Their other gateways (like www.hitachi.com.cn" don't use ".com" as the top-level domain. Or, www.bmw.com is the website for BMW North America, not the website for the German parent company BMW AG.

And the only ICANN-accredited registrar for the .com domain is Verisign, which is a US company. I guess Verisign can sublet out their rights to registration companies like eNom, but it still boils down to the fact that it appears that *all* ".com" addresses are by definition registered through an American company (either directly by Verisign, or though some company like eNom that been "blessed" by Verisign).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Big Gay Bob, 5 Mar 2008 @ 1:58pm

Re:
Gay or not they do "run shit."

ICAAN, InterNIC, these are "independant" organizations, they are supposed to be unbiased and neutral. But they are founded in and run from the US. Something the US Government has no problem taking advantage of.

Other countries have 2 choices, fall in line with US controlled rules regarding DNS, or develop an alternate, uncontrolled name system. If they were smart they'd impliment their own.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Heywood, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:01pm

Re: We are the chickenshittiest of bullies.
You're going to have to explain yourself if you want anyone to buy that comparison. Otherwise, you just come off as yet another "US SUX BU$H LIED" jerkoff.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DanC, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:02pm

Re: Flexing Muscle
"The government can do what it wants when laws are violated through a American company."

That would make sense, if any laws had been violated.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
MORRIS, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:04pm

FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS
THE USA GOVERNMENT UNDER BUSH/CHENY CONTINUE TO ERODE OUR 1ST AMENDMENT RIGHTS, NOW THEY ARE TRYING TO IMPOSE THIS DENIAL UPON UK COMPANIES AND CITIZENS. WHEN WILL IT STOP !!!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
darrylxxx, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:05pm

"If you read both the snippet and the article, you would see that he was breaking a law by offering travel to Cuba."

If you read the article you'd see he wasn't targeting Americans so was not breaking any law, US or otherwise. It is NOT breaking the law to market to the rest of the world.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
darrylxxx, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:11pm

Re: dot com nonsense
Nonsense. I live in the UK. I have many .com addresses. Some are with US registrars some with European. This action by a US agency is chilling - I will think twice before registering in the US again (though it's too much bother to move my YANKIESGOGUANTANAMO.COM domain)...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:12pm

Re: Re: Flexing Muscle
The law in question here appears to be that a non-US company cannot use a US-registered website to offer goods or services that a US-based company could not legally offer.

It appears that by booking trips using a US-registered website, the UK-based company is subjecting themselves to the same rules as "the U.S. travel service providers" mentioned in post #12.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
GHynson, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:13pm

Waving Dick Cheneys
My dick is bigger then your dick.

That's what it's all about.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:19pm

Re: Re: dot com nonsense
Can you give an example of a non-US corporation that doesn't do business in the US and has a .com address? I bet if you follow the chain of registrars upstream, it will lead back to Verisign.

Here's the link to the ICANN website listing the accredited registrars for each TLD:

http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

As you can see, .om is operated solely by Verisign Global - a U.S. company.

So, if you were to use one of your .com sites to sell Cuban cigars to other UK residents, I suspect you wouldn't be doing it for long...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Joe, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:19pm

The real issue
The real issue is that a US company (eNom) is profiting (although indirectly) from the sale of trips to Cuba. This is similar to the US fining the Discovery channel for getting money from selling advertising to gambling websites.

I would think that the proprieter of the website might have a WTO claim to the domain names.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:20pm

Re: Waving Dick Cheneys
LOL nuff said
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Fushta, 5 Mar 2008 @ 2:33pm

Laws Broken?
It's not like the travel agent, himself, is in trouble.

The US Treasury Department just made the ISPs unavailable. He is free to continue to operate his business, just not on those domains.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:01pm

This is why you can not have one country to be in charge of domain names.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dijital, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:05pm

Re: Re: Re: dot com nonsense
Try [Link] (wikipedia.org) "Intended use: Commercial entities WORLDWIDE" The US has no more jurisdiction over .com than any other country. However since the website was hosted by an American company, they can take action against that particular company
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Greatest Country on Earth!, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:10pm

Enough America Bashing
Since the obviously oblivious people from whichever S*** country you're from seem to think Americans are "just being gay, thinking they run S***," why dont you look back into the anals of history and see how many times we've saved, brought a profit to, or just left alive your stupid ignorant asses. Thanks for making a complete fool of your county's historical education in a worldwide audience. See you in Iraq
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Greatest Country on Earth!, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:10pm

Enough America Bashing
Since the obviously oblivious people from whichever S*** country you're from seem to think Americans are "just being gay, thinking they run S***," why dont you look back into the anals of history and see how many times we've saved, brought a profit to, or just left alive your stupid ignorant asses. Thanks for making a complete fool of your county's historical education in a worldwide audience. See you in Iraq
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:20pm

Re:
If he was posting on his web site that he was offering travel to Cubia or North Korea and that web site was registered with a US domain name ie.com then he was breaking US law.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:35pm

Re: We are the chickenshittiest of bullies.
Good question.

It goes back to when Castro and the Communists took over Cuba and the US/Soviet Union missle chrisis.

What really happen is official US, Cuba, Russia official secret as is most of the real events of the cold war. What is publicly known does not add up or explain the issue. Judging from sequential events the US and the Soviet Union must have reached a secret agreement part of which is that the US would have nothing to do with Castro, Cuba, and the Cuban Communists.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jack Sombra, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:46pm

Contrary to popular opinion...
Contrary to popular opinion .com is NOT the US TLD rather .us is

.com is an open generic TLD for use by anybody, though it was originally intended for commercial entities only (com is short for "commercial" not company as most people think)

The agents mistake was registering with a US registrar, which gave the US authorities the ability to flex some Internet muscle even though he was breaking no US law (American cannot make laws controlling the travel of non americans to and from non US territories). If he had registered his .com with a non US based registrar they would not have been able to touch him

Refusing to release the domain so he can move it is the American government being it normal childish bitchy self.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:51pm

I bet shortly after the sites shutdown, and this media posting, their business just increased by 500%
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2008 @ 3:59pm

Re:
The US does run things and if your sissy country forgets that we can come and kick your ass just to remind you.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
giff, 5 Mar 2008 @ 4:13pm

Re: Enough America Bashing
Ha ha ha "anals of history" priceless!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jake, 5 Mar 2008 @ 4:22pm

Would the jingoistic chest-beaters please go and play somewhere else and let us have a serious discussion? Please? Thank you.

Anyway, one CAN make a case that the travel agent in question was violating the letter of the law; like it or not, the USA has de facto possession (and arguably jurisdiction) over the .com domain name. However, this strikes me as an extremely flimsy justification to take summary action; all they had to do was write to him and inform him that he was technically in violation of US law by employing a .com domain name, and could he please do something about this within a reasonable period to correct it?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DanC, 5 Mar 2008 @ 4:36pm

Re: Re:
Which law? The embargo and travel restrictions make no mention of it. You seem to be sure of yourself, so I'm assuming you have some reference.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DanC, 5 Mar 2008 @ 4:45pm

Re: Re: Re: Flexing Muscle
"It appears that by booking trips using a US-registered website, the UK-based company is subjecting themselves to the same rules as "the U.S. travel service providers" mentioned in post #12."

Except there doesn't seem to be any law that actually spells this out. If it's illegal to do business with a foreign travel agent offering travel to Cuba, then the registrar is the guilty party, and the domain names should be released back to the owner. There should also have been some type of notice of this restriction when the travel agent registered the names.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
RF Engineer, 5 Mar 2008 @ 5:26pm

here is the real story
The U.S. Air Force accidentally sent e-mails that were meant to go to its base in Mildenhall, England to a tourism Web site with a similar address.

Gary Sinnott had created a Web site, Mildenhall.com, in the 1990s in order to promote his hometown. But not long after that, he reportedly began to be bombarded with e-mails from Air Force members who were trying to contact people on the base, according to the BBC.

Sinnott contacted Air Force officials, who told him not to be concerned about it and assured him they would tell their staff to use the correct address. But what started off as some personal e-mails and jokes later devolved into some pretty classified information, including military procedures.

At one point, Sinnott received information about a presidential flight, so he contacted the Air Force again and an official, as expected, "went nuts," he told the BBC.

Sinnot has since closed down the Web site to avoid receiving any more of the e-mails.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mike (profile), 5 Mar 2008 @ 7:19pm

Re: here is the real story
The U.S. Air Force accidentally sent e-mails that were meant to go to its base in Mildenhall, England to a tourism Web site with a similar address.

Er... which we wrote about two days ago:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080303/154948419.shtml

I'm not sure why you're posting it in the comments here and now.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
opit, 5 Mar 2008 @ 8:38pm

US
The US seems to be carrying out a campaign of harassing people worldwide on any pretext or none at all.
The requirement that all passengers on European planes divulge personal information down to the blood type of their maiden aunt would be a case in point. It's the old "One - Two" : dominance and making it as intrusive as possible.
I don't see any difference between this internet registration b.s., illegal spying and government hacking : it's part of a pattern of overbearing effrontery.
It's not a case of the particulars of the law so much as the particulars of the cover story.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
SaveUsFromYankieMorons, 5 Mar 2008 @ 10:58pm

Re: Enough America Bashing (#31) and #36
"why dont you look back into the *anals* of history and see how many times we've saved, brought a profit to, or just left alive your stupid ignorant asses"

"The US does run things and if your sissy country forgets that we can come and kick your ass just to remind you"

It was anal-retentive, stuck-up, illiterate, ignorant (throw in favourite epithet here) morons like you who elected Bush and Dick. "See you in Iraq", eh? What an effin' joke! High time you ran along back to mommy. Run, jackass, run!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
darrylxxx, 6 Mar 2008 @ 1:54am

Re: dot com nonsense
My company for instance. It is UK registered and doesn't currently do business with the US. Not sure what your point is. Anyone in the world can have a .com address. The fact that all roads lead to a specific registrar in the US does not mean that it is 'owned' by the US since .com addresses are worldwide. However the reality is that the US use this method to command and control anything they don't like... still doesn't make it right.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
darrylxxx, 6 Mar 2008 @ 1:55am

Freedom of speech
What ever happened to 'freedom of speech', or is that only for US citizens who toe the line?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
darrylxxx, 6 Mar 2008 @ 2:13am

Re: Re: Re: dot com nonsense
Are you saying that the US has the right to censor or block any .com domain they feel is counter to their interests?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2008 @ 4:29pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: dot com nonsense
Are you saying that the US has the right to censor or block any .com domain they feel is counter to their interests?

Damn right.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2008 @ 5:35pm

Re: Contrary to popular opinion...
When you register a car in Spain and drive it in France with UK insurance you are subject to Spanish law on that car just as you are subject to US law when you register your domain in the US where it is illegal to go to or do business with Cubia.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Mar 2008 @ 6:54am

If he didn't want to be subject to USA laws, He should have used a UK domain service - DUH!!!!!!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Mar 2008 @ 2:59pm

Re: Re: Contrary to popular opinion...
When you register a car in Spain and drive it in France with UK insurance you are subject to Spanish law on that car just as you are subject to US law when you register your domain in the US where it is illegal to go to or do business with Cubia [sic].

Bullshit. You are subject to the traffic laws of the country in which you operate a vehicle. Just because you take your UK registered vehicle on holiday with you to France doesn't mean that you can drive it on the left while there.

What an idiot.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Mar 2008 @ 3:14pm

Re:
If he didn't want to be subject to USA laws, He should have used a UK domain service - DUH!!!!!!!!

Following that line of thinking, they should have been following US law and filing US Federal income taxes as well. In fact, that would make every foreign company that registered a domain name through a US company would be liable for US taxes. Do you think the IRS is going after them? No, because even the IRS knows how stupid that idea is.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
tom scanlan, 19 Apr 2008 @ 8:18am

Re: Re:
Matt Bennett... if you're 53 and grew up in torrance, ca please contact me.... we were buds way back when. Tom
[ link to this | view in thread ]