Court Of Appeals Overturns Kentucky Gambling Domain Seizure

from the good-ruling dept

Wed, Jan 21st 2009 3:13am — Mike Masnick

Back in September, the state of Kentucky tried to seize over 100 domain names, claiming they violated a local state law against "gambling devices." None of the domains were run or hosted in the state of Kentucky, which made this quite a stretch in legal terms. While many of the domain names were for gambling websites, some were merely parked domains. The politicians who ordered the seizure were quite open that this was an attempt to "protect" local gambling interests -- but it seems like an incredible legal reach to claim that because of local protectionist laws, the state somehow has the right to seize domain names from around the world. The domain owners complained, but a local Kentucky state court ruled in favor of the government. However, an appeals court quickly told the state to hold off seizing the domains until it could review the case.

That court has now overturned the lower court ruling saying that a domain name is clearly not a gambling device, and is not covered by the law. However, this does potentially leave the door open for Kentucky politicians to change the law to include domain names... at which point we'll need to go through this whole silly legal battle all over again.

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Filed Under: domain names, gambling, governor, kentucky, online gambling

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 3:58am

and people wonder why kids don't seem to have much common sense. Seems to me that even the most foolish, un-common sense kid has as much common sense as many of our politicians tend to display.
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Matt, 21 Jan 2009 @ 4:48am

Re:
uh what? Politicians are old, a generation or more behind, mentally and technology wise. It's not the kids that are ignorant.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 4:56am

Re: Re:
Nope. We'll just be ignorant in the future about something non-technology related.
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eleete, 21 Jan 2009 @ 4:56am

Re: Re:
I tend to agree with AC. They're saying that they should set examples for our children Often the examples don't make any sense.
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Lonnie E. Holder, 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:18am

Re: Re:
uh what? Politicians are old, a generation or more behind, mentally and technology wise. It's not the kids that are ignorant.

The youngest member of Congress is 27 years old. If that is your definition of old, you must be about 10. And what do you mean "mentally"? Did you just insult everyone over the age of 27? Nice job.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:25am

Banjo Music
Can you squeal like pig ?
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 7:19am

Re: Re:
This is WAY off topic so feel free to skip and hate me for all this text.

I believe this notion that age has much to do with anything is just a cultural misnomer. I would go so far to say the time to start treating children like adults is when they ask adult questions. "Where do babies come from?" I gave my kid a sex education course until he got bored with it. I didn't tell him a freaking stork comes, blow him off, or tell him some other asinine lie. You want to raise an adult, treat them like an adult. Teach them to be responsible for their actions before the state says "yea, they are an adult now and will be tried as one." Sure you can make a solid case that pre-puberty they are not fully developed physically or mentally and you need to use some kid gloves, but not flat out lie.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Jan 2009 @ 11:42am

Huh?
since when can people in Kentucky read . . . sounds like witch craft to me!
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Dan, 21 Jan 2009 @ 9:21pm

Kentucky seems to think they have international jurisdiction. The problem seems to be that the politicians are technological and legal morons with only the instincts to find money, food and occasional sexual gratification. Higher function escapes their genus.
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gamblig junkie, 5 Aug 2009 @ 6:50am

Re: Re: Re:
were to far away if we don't get related with the new technology..
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Find Domain Names, 8 Feb 2010 @ 3:57pm

I'm glad to see that they weren't able to take any legal action against them. It's hard enough to find good domain names today, let alone trying to ensure you don't select anything that someone may come and try to take from you.
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