ICANN Agrees To Handover 141 Domain Names to Kentucky State!

Now this is pretty serious stuff for ANY domain name owner or company trading online, irrespective of market, product or jurisdiction.

The State of Kentucky (actually, strictly speaking it’s a Commonwealth) has recently won a court judgement to seize control of 141 domain names that are related to gambling and shockingly, ICANN have agreed to hand over the domains! We’re not talking small companies here either. Golden Palace, Microgaming, Carmen Media and many more. This is causing serious waves in the industry, needless to say but has much more far-reaching repercussions beyond the online gambling market. Although it’s pretty straightforward for most to just switch domain names, there are two major knock-on effects of this landmark ruling which if enforced after the appeal on the 7th October, should worry many, many companies and doman name owners across all areas of industry.

Firstly, regards gambling, the residents of Kentucky are now even more open to fraud from illegal gambling operators than they were already following the debarcle of the ill-advised, vote-seeking UIGEA law in 2006. The domains being seized are of course of the top, and mainly reputable, operators that have high visibility in the search engines. With them gone, or operating on domain names that are less visible in Google, the competition to the shady operators is lessened and as in 2006, they will rise a little closer to the top. Kentucky residents should be very careful now the barriers between good and bad have been removed.

Secondly, and possibly more importantly, this sets a precedent across the whole Internet. ICANN have stated that they will comply with the law, if unsuccessfully appealed, and will hand over he 141 domain names at the heart of the case. This basically means that no-one has the right of ownership on their “.com” domain name if it is hosted or registered in the USA, irrespective of industry. If Kentucky, or any other State don’t want you trading in their State, then ICANN are happy to hand over your domain name if a court order is presented.

Truly shocking news IMO.

Incidentally, one of the odd things about all this is that no-one actually thought online casinos were illegal in Kentucky. Although it’s widely accepted that the 1961 Wire Act covers online sports gambling, Kentucky’s laws do not further outlaw playing at online casinos. Which makes this case even odder.

Or not, actually. Essentially, it’s about one politician trying to win votes, let’s be honest. Much like Senator Frist and the UIGEA, tacked onto an unrelated Bill, passed in the last hour of the last session of the term and just before he announced he was running for President! (He pulled out later - presumably because he realised he had allowed the Mafia back into the USA). Oh, and did I mention his campaign was bankrolled by Land casinos such as Harrahs? Silly me…clean forgot. There may be similariies here come to think of it…

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