Good evening folks!!
If I said we live in interesting times I would be minimizing the period we
are in and the storm we are about to go thru. Things will no doubt get much
worse before they get better. But I am happy to report that with all the
challenges, the domain industry remains strong and domains remain a very safe
investment.
To keep it that way I am sure most of you are aware of the 141 domains that
the governor of Kentucky has taken on himself to seize.
I think you may be interested in knowing that there is an effort online now
to boycott the state of Kentucky and blocking commercial Internet traffic from
flowing to the state in an effort to make the citizens revolt against the
governors position. This really puts the entire net at risk and every citizen
that owns their own domain name and associated business.
The ramifications of what the Governor of Kentucky has done, if allowed to stand, would set a
precedent that any municipality anywhere in the world can seize your domain
for whatever reason they deem appropriate. The very essence of the Internet is
under siege by a governor in a small state that thinks he has jurisdiction
throughout the world.
Jeffrey Reynolds Ph.D, owner of AmericanFlags.com and many others has set up a site at http://www.boycottkentucky.com in
which he is bringing attention to the 'Guv' and the companies and people in
Kentucky that are going to be directly affected by this abuse of power.
Please understand the seriousness of this issue. Make others
aware. This is a situation where a win here by the Governor could
forever change the landscape of the Internet. It would set a precedent
that completely flies in the face of free enterprise and due process.
If you are not aware of this situation, please read dnjournal.com & thedomains.com as both have been following this case along with many
others for the past 30 days.
Thanks for your time!
Rick Schwartz
October 25th 2008 update
Just Karma? Florida Gators DESTROY Kentucky 63-5 in college football. Gov, give it up bro! Isn't one embarrassment enough?
Nathan Hawks
This is an idea so good that I don’t feel the need to receive a link back for saying so ;)
I’m not sure how much of this I could say at me writing-about-domaining job so I’ll say it here instead.
There are a lot of dangerous precedents being set in the world, not just in domaining, and too many of them coming from us in the U.S.
Long rant short, far too many things have been done by old-world elites to make it difficult for people who don’t already have wealth, to achieve it. Now some hick-ass batch of smacktards think they can spin a smarmy line like”transports the virtual venue” and, like Rick’s saying, suddenly they have jurisdiction over the whole planet.
Regardless of whether or not this is going to become a trend – maybe they’re all just a bunch of cuckolds and needed to lash out, or maybe this is Kentucky’s new fiscal plan – if ever there was a time for domainers to strike out due to principle, this is it.
Because I’m a bit pissed off about this development and because I used to be a PHP programmer by trade, I’m not going to be happy this morning till I script a way to do it.
Damir
Great post Rick.
What a world we live in today where individuals in Governments should serve the people but instead they enslave them.
” There is no success without hardship.”
Sophocles
Nathan Hawks
Okay, the basics of the script are up. What I need now is a handful of web surfers who are in Kentucky right now — on any ISP and in any Kentucky location. I highly doubt that I’ll get a good sample of testing help, though I did post to the Louisville Craigslist Rants n Raves section asking for help.
Anybody who wants to help, if you’re in Kentucky, click the link on my name above and then copy/paste the result to the email address:
zanzabarfoo [at] hotmail [dot] com
(Gotta use my spam-only email because I’m sure spam scrapers can figure out [at]s and [dot]s by now…)
Also importantly, if you are NOT in Kentucky try it anyway, and let me know if you got a false positive.
If you get a false positive, or if you ARE in Kentucky and the script tells you you’re not — please get your IP address (not the 192.168.x.x address your router might give you — but your real IP from your ISP.) Google”what is my IP” and you won’t have to do any work to find this out :)
Operation: KY Jelly moves forward…
Nathan Hawks
I must have messed up the URL for the script, I hope I can paste it here in the body – if not… well fooey :)
http://thenthdoctor.com/ahostlookup/ahostlookup.php
andy kelly
Hi Rick This Kentucky issue could make the Snowe bill look reasonable, Tt’s surreal that this ludicrous case is even going through legal processes, no doubt there is a hidden agenda with this action and in my opinion it’s got a lot of big backers and a good few of them in the white house. Gambling industry lobbyists are behind this if you ask me and using this Kentucky governor as a conduit – hell even if I’m way off the mark this governor has to be on another planet to think that he can get away with this criminal action. You’re so right when you say”The ramifications of what the Governor of Kentucky has done, if allowed to stand, would set a precedent that any municipality anywhere in the world can seize your domain for whatever reason they deem appropriate. The ver y essence of the Internet is under siege by a governor in a small state that thinks he has jurisdiction throughout the world.” This is a landmark case indeed !
Jeff Schneider
We all wonder where ICANN is on this whole lawless seizure. We would think that they would be very active in protecting current lease holder rights.
As the Who’s song says I hope we don’t get fooled again. YAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Where is ACLU ? Where is SBA ? We know where the ICA is fighting this, but where is the support for rightful small business owners? I can only guess where the forefathers of our constitution are? Rolling in their graves.
Have we turned into a Bannana Republic with nukes ? Oh I guess I’m being silly and am crying wolf. Or have we heard wolf so much for the past eight years that we are in total denial ?
Amanda
Is there somewhere online where we can petition this insanity?
Kevin
Government on all levels, local, state and federal, and especially judicial, is out of control, intrusive beyond anything we’ve ever experienced, over regulating anything and everything, corrupt, wasteful, and more than anything spending insane amounts of money and the People are at their breaking point and fed up with all the BS being shoveled on us.
domain guy
as usual the domain king is ahead of the world.lets add this is not a domainer problem.this verdict will be appealed by eff..or some other powerful entity.the problem here is the entire world is in a financial meltdown and no one anywhere has one disposable dime to spend on anything.never mind expensive legal litigation.
Nathan Hawks
Well my initial attempt at providing a solution ran into trouble. If any of you domainers has a geolocation solution that is accurate, please go here and post a comment:
http://thenthdoctor.blogspot.com/2008/10/oh-yeah-regarding-kentucky-domainer.html
The solution I cobbled together relies on WHOIS data, which is going to be inaccurate most of the time when it comes to tracking down a web surfer’s real location.
If I find a better solution that doesn’t involve buying a database of IPs, I’ll continue to develop a solution and will include a how-to when it’s done.
Paul
Just another example of people who just don’t ‘get it’…
steve
What if our government concentrated on the Banks who screwed us, the Car makers who want out money, and the wars they start and never pay for that now total trillions!
No, we have to go after the domainers! They are the problem!
Jeff Schneider
ICANN is the root of a lot of problems. We have stated many times that ICANN refuses to protect the rights of current lease holders.
This is a blatant neglect of fiduciary rights of all current lease holders. The truth of the matter is registrars will sell you a lease ,but they accept no fiduciary responsibility that you will keep the lease till expiration. This is why in all the hyjacking of leases by Kentucky-and contless others ICANN has been completely SILENT, as if lease holders have no rights. Is this a problem? As Sarah Palin says ” You BETCHA “
Jeff Schneider
Here we go again. Kentucky and now another predator, this time its Go-DADDY, taking advantage of ICANNs business ethics struture. See: DomainWire.com expose
The sad truth is that Go-Daddy is conducting business within ICANNS Bylaws. Until ICANN and registrars feet are held to the fire, lawlessness will prevail in Domainer land. Its about time that the whole Domain leasing landscape be seriously overhauled.
Our industry leaders”Lease Holders” need to come together and encourage ICANN to make changes to their policies and By Laws that protect Domain name lease holders. The current structure undermines lease holders rights.
We all need to start blowing our whistles hard,for if we continue to remain silent on this issue, predators will remain rewarded and encouraged by ICANN and its many affiliates current business practices.
The current leasing bylaws are a disgrace to our industry. Instead of drawing our attention to the next hot new extension how about nourishing and protecting the hand that feeds it! SURPRISE ? yes the lease holders! NOT the registrars, which by the way also happen to be resellers, HOW COZY.
Paul Stanwick
Great information, Ive been doing some research into this, and this has helped. Thank You
Mick McGee
Why cant we organize a petition form to be added to some of our high profile websites. Power of the people usually prevails and never before have we had an easier way to petition for the people.
Surely they will listen to 200 million petitions, it just needs someone to set it up and make it easy to embed.
Just a thought…