UK Court Says Kentucky Has No Right To Seize Gambling Domain Name
from the not-that-it-cares dept
We've covered the bizarre legal battle in Kentucky, where the governor tried to have a long list of gambling-related domain names (none of which had anything to do with the state of Kentucky) declared "illegal gambling devices" so that the state could seize the domain names. The governor has been pretty open that this has nothing to do with any moral issue over online gambling, but is a blatant attempt to help protect local gambling establishments in the state. Of course, it's ridiculous to think that a state governor could claim the right to seize domain names that are not based in Kentucky at all, and after a lower court (that didn't seem to understand the issue) sided with the governor, an appeal court overturned that ruling. Rather than recognize how silly this campaign is, the case is going to the state Supreme Court.But, apparently the lawsuits aren't just happening in Kentucky. Michael Scott points us to the news that one of the companies targeted by Kentucky brought a lawsuit both against Kentucky and its own registrar in the UK to get a ruling that it is not subject to the whims of Kentucky politicians. The state of Kentucky ignored the proceedings, which resulted in the court agreeing that Kentucky has no right to seize the domain name. Of course, the state of Kentucky probably couldn't care much less about what a court in England thinks (which explains why it didn't even bother to respond), so the victory may be somewhat meaningless. However, at the very least, if Kentucky somehow wins its case in the US, perhaps the registrars in the UK can point to this ruling to refuse handing over the domain names.
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Filed Under: domain names, gambling, kentucky, uk
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why are we having this discussion in the first place
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Re:
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It's Tip ONeal's paradigm of local politics.
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Jurisdiction
> couldn't care much less about what a court
> in England thinks
Which I'm sure will also be the attitude of the British courts toward Kentucky, should they try and seize a domain name belonging to a British citizen in the UK.
If Kentucky thinks it can ignore the rulings of a British court on a matter concerning British citizens in Britain, I'm not sure why they think anyone's going to give two flips what the Kentucky Supreme Court says about it.
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