Registrars? Not so Fast. — Fleeing U.S.

Kentucky ruling brings up old debate regarding switching to offshore registrars.

A blog post over at Wall Street Journal today titled “Online Businesses Subject to Local Laws…Everywhere” discusses the Kentucky gambling domain seizure. It mentions that the businesses who have had domains seized don’t have any presence in Kentucky.

One commentor wrote “…just time to quit using US-based Registrars”

I don’t think this is the solution. It may cause more problems than it solves, depending on where you move your domains too.

First, just since the registrar is outside the U.S. doesn’t mean the person/court/entity going following the domains can’t claim U.S. jurisdiction. They can claim it since Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) is located here. Or since ICANN is. In fact, geo-domainer Skip Hoagland won a case over Amman.com when he pulled ICANN’s registrar agreement into the mix.

You ought to be very concerned regarding overseas laws if you move your domains to non-U.S. registrars. At the GeoDomain Expo over the summer, Hoagland states he keeps all of his foreign city geo domains inside U.S. firms and leases them to his foreign subsidiaries.

In the case of Amman.com, the domain was transferred to a middle eastern domain registrar. Laws in many middle eastern states could allow governments to seize any domain related to gambling and adult entertainment. Or perhaps a court would get a wild hair and try to seize a domain related to mortgages (charging interest is against social rules in some countries) or womens’ rights. Or democracy, anyone?

I don’t have a good answer for people worried regarding jurisdiction issues and U.S. registrars. But I believe at the end of the day — which may be a long day — your domains will be in better hands if under the jurisdiction of U.S. law.