Last year the government of Kentucky seized 141 domain names related to online gambling. You can read the whole article about the seizure here.
Now the court has made a final ruling. There was decided that the government of Kentucky doesn’t have jurisdiction over domain names because domain names are not “gambling devices” as prohibited by the Kentucky statute.
This is a good and a bad decision. It’s good because the owners of the seized domain names get their names back. It’s also a bad decision because the ruling only talks about the state of Kentucky. Questions such as: ‘Are domain names subject to state jurisdiction? Can domain registrars located outside a state are still be subject to that state’s jurisdiction? Can a registrant located outside a state still be subject to that state’s jurisdiction?’ remained unanswered.
You can read the court decision here.
Posted under Uncategorized
This post was written by lieve on January 21, 2009
