[declan@well.com: FC: Ogrish.com's hosting firm replies to Politech, starts boycott]

[Deepak Saxena]

Thought this might be of interest to everyone.

----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> -----

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 23:32:36 -0500
To: politech@politechbot.com
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: FC: Ogrish.com's hosting firm replies to Politech, starts boycott
Reply-To: declan@well.com

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04447.html

---

From: "Theodore Hickman" <ted.hickman@prohosters.com>
To: <declan@well.com>
Subject: Fw: Emailing: statement021203-2230.txt
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 23:07:25 -0500

<http://prohosters.com/joker.html>http://prohosters.com/joker.html

They aren't Joking...

A formal response from our CEO regarding the actions of Joker.com

Before you register a domain name you should know about this:

On January 11th 2003 the German registrar Joker.com disabled the domain 
ogrish.com (a gruesome online photo gallery depicting real-life) and listed 
the reason as 'Disabled by Government.' The domain ogrish.com is hosted in 
America and complies with all American laws. When asked why the domain was 
disabled the only thing Joker.com would say is, 'We had an order from the 
government to disable the domain.' The domain is presently owned by an 
American.

Some may question the content of the domain however the domain obeys all 
local, state and federal laws. What right does a German registrar have to 
disable a global domain that is hosted in America?

What is shocking to us is that a global domain may be disabled by a 
Nation's government based on their laws when the content is hosted in a 
nation where the content is permitted. Even more shocking is the fact that 
the registrar has the right to refuse a transfer to an American owned 
registrar.

Does this mean any domain registered in a foreign country can be disabled 
without appeal, if the government of that country deems it unacceptable? 
Why does a registrar have the right to enforce content laws? Isn't a domain 
supposed to be judged by the content of the domain name and not the content 
of the site to which it links. Certainly Joker.com's intent is to disable 
ogrish.com's content not domain name. Knowing full well that the domain has 
name recognition, Germany's Government is trying through Joker.com to cause 
the greatest amount of damage to ogrish.com by disabling the domain at a 
registrar level. Could they not have just disabled access to ogrish.com 
from within Germany alone? Doesn't this better solve the problem with a 
Nation's laws? What gives them the right to police the content worldwide?

Pro Hosters has temporarily linked ogrish.com to ogrish.prohosters.com. 
Does this mean that TotalNic a foreign owned registrar can disable the 
domain prohosters.com for a small portion of the content contained within? 
How does this apply to sub domains?

We are told the domain is in the middle of the transfer to Network 
Solutions however they cannot tell us whether Joker.com will release it to 
us, that is Joker.com's decision.

What rights does ogrish.com have in this process? How can they reestablish 
the income that has been depleted by Joker.com's actions? There is nothing 
clearly documenting the procedure to appeal the decision of a registrar 
with either ICANN or Network Solutions. Are we to assume that all they can 
do is be at Joker.com's mercy, and not register domains with Joker.com in 
the future?

More importantly, one must begin to ask oneself; Is this the first of many?

We ask for your assistance in getting our message through by either posting 
of the animated gif we have created or writing the contacts at the 
information given below.

Thank you.

Network Solutions
http://www.networksolutions.com
Customer Service
U.S. and Canada: 1-888-642-9675
Worldwide: +1 703-742-0914
E-mail: Click here to send e-mail

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
http://www.icann.org
Phone: +1.310.823.9358
FAX: +1.310.823.8649
E-mail: icann@icann.org


Joker.com
CSL Computer Service Langenbach GmbH
d/b/a joker.com
Rathausufer 16
40213 Duesseldorf
Germany
E-mail: Support form
Phone: +49 211 8676741
Fax: +49 211 8676710

Also, we highly recommend the following registrars:
Network Solutions
Register.com
DomanNameSystems.com
SRSPlus




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----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Deepak Saxena - dsaxena@plexity.net

How much do you value your freedom? Would you trade your freedom for some
illusion of security? Freedom is something that dies unless it's used.

   - Hunter S. Thompson -