The Registrars Who Shut Down Websites After Demands From City Of London Police Likely Violated ICANN Policy

from the not-how-it-works dept

We recently wrote about the City of London Police ordering various registrars to shut down a list of websites based on the City of London Police themselves deciding they must be illegal. That is, without a court order or any judicial oversight, the police just decided the sites were illegal and needed to be taken offline. On top of that, the police force's new "IP Crime Unit" threatened registrars that if they didn't obey, then they might lose their accreditation from ICANN. This was based on a total misreading of both copyright law and ICANN's rules.

In fact, Mark Jeftovic, the head of EasyDNS, the one registrar that appears to have both refused the City of London Police's demand and also spoken out publicly about this terrible attack on due process, is now noting that all of the other registrars who complied with the orders are almost certainly in violation of ICANN's policies because they obeyed the police. The main issue is that part of the demand from the police was that the registrar not only redirect the site to a propaganda page, but that it also "freeze the whois record" to block any further changes.

But, as Jeftovic points out, ICANN has very specific rules about these things, and because some random police force demands it is not an approved reason to do such a thing:

Since there were no charges against any of the domains and no court orders, it may be at the registrars' discretion to play ball with these ridiculous demands. However – what they clearly cannot do now, is prevent any of those domain holders from simply transferring out their names to more clueful, less wimpy registrars.

If any of those registrars denied the ability to do that, then they would be in clear violation of the ICANN Inter-Registrars Transfer Policy.

Section 3, Obligations of The  Registrar of Record clearly spells out the reasons why a registrar may deny a transfer-out request, and they are limited specifically to cases of fraud (the domain was paid for fraudulently), a UDRP proceeding or, hey, get this one "Court order by a court of competent jurisdiction", as well as some administrative reasons (like the domain was registered less than 60 days ago).

What is conspicuously absent from the list of reasons why a registrar that actually complied with this lunacy can now deny a transfer-out request is "because some guy sent you an email telling you to lock it down".

Jeftovic further notes that the registrars who folded upon receiving the police threat have now opened themselves up to significant liability problems, because the sites that got taken down can respond via the Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy (TDRP), which could mean that the registrars will have to pay "substantial" fees for blocking the transfer without a valid basis.

It certainly would be interesting to see the full list of sites the City of London Police decided to censor, as well as who the various registrars are, and how they reacted. While such a list doesn't appear to be out yet, I imagine it's only a matter of time.

Filed Under: city of london police, copyright, freezing, registrars, whois
Companies: easydns, icann

DailyDirt: Simple Kitchen Techniques

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some people freely admit that they have trouble boiling water when it comes to cooking techniques. But some seemingly simple tasks aren't so easy to do if your standards are set high enough. The proliferation of cooking shows doesn't quite help because every TV chef has his/her own way of creating the same dish -- so there's no consistent method. Here are just a few examples of some "easy dishes" to prepare.

• A perfectly fried egg is cooked in a small pool of olive oil over medium-high heat. But in this particular demonstration, the perfect egg might be a bit more runny than some people like their eggs. [url]
• Freezing water might not sound like a tricky task, but if you want optically-clear ice cubes without any annoying bubbles or haziness in them -- there are a few tricks to it. When water freezes slowly, fewer air bubbles get trapped inside -- so cool your water down slowly in an insulated container. [url]
• There are plenty of tips on how to properly cook a hard boiled egg. Start with room temperature eggs, cold water and remove them from heat about a minute after the water boils... but there are no guarantees on how easy those eggs will be to peel. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: boiling, cooking, eggs, food, freezing, frying, ice, kitchen