Apparently, some guy in the US who was awarded a patent for something to do with taking bets online filed a lawsuit against Bodog awhile back. Bodog didn’t respond because they are not a US company. So a judge awarded a default judgment of 50 million.
Yesterday, the guy with the judgment used it to seize control of Bodog’s domain names from Enom. Almost all of their sites are now offline, and now they are going to loose all of their SERPS.
Over at the BodogBeat blog, Bodog founder Calvin Ayre acknowledges the issue and says:
“We are fighting this dispute and are confident that we will win,” says Ayre. “I sincerely apologize to any customers affected by our interruption.”
On NewBodog.com, a temporary site set to continue serve customers, founder Calvin Ayre explains further:
Welcome to the new (temporary) Bodog. As you may know by now, Bodog.com is experiencing a technical issue impacting our players’ ability to access our website.
This is the result of a legal dispute over the ownership of the Bodog.com domain name. We are fighting this dispute. We are confident that we will win, but until all is settled, I do not want our battle to interrupt your play.
So, I present you with newbodog.com. You won’t notice very many changes: same website, same brand, same product, and same service. Just a new domain name.
We are working to resolve any remaining issues on the temporary site as soon as possible, and fully expect to have our original site back up shortly.
I sincerely apologize if you were affected by our interruption and assure you that I will update you soon.
Regards,
Calvin Ayre
Further coverage at Canada.com and other news sources.
A lesson to all those other gambling and misc. sensitive operations, either own your own registrar or have your domains with a registrar outside of the U.S.
This is simply mind boggling to watch a billion dollar international operation goes completely offline simply because a U.S Registrar, acting on a U.S legal judgment, had to deactivate (or transfer?) their domain.
This is the kind of thing we’re going to see more of, leading to international courts and ultimately loss of US control of ICANN. Can’t really blame Enom though, a US company receiving a US court order has to comply.
It would have been interesting to see this go all the way - if the domain had been registered overseas what influence if any would have been put on ICANN or Verisign to do this it a root level?
People can choose to use an overseas registrar, but Verisign themselves are still a US company and I would imagine would also have to comply to a US court order.
—-ANSWER—-
Very true. We discussed it earlier today on Rick’s private board, also on ShoeMoney’s blog, see comment by Andrew Bell.
We have two solutions to this problem at Rebel.com.
Solution A: Rebel.com is a Canadian based registrar and doesn’t have to act on US court orders. When we receive such a request we would not act and we would ensure our client is informed of the issue.
Solution B: Our MyRebel.com lease your own registrar program allows you to control the registrar. controlling the registrar means you receive the communications your registrar normally would. In this case the owner of Bodog.com would have received the request to take down the site as they would be operating the registrar. Our leased registrars are also based in Canada and would not have to comply with the US court order.
—-ANSWER—-
Can you elaborate on the idea that .com, the registry, is operated from Virgina? Wouldn’t they have to abide by U.S laws for U.S judgment?
Thanks in advance,
Sahar
“Can you elaborate on the idea that .com, the registry, is operated from Virgina? Wouldn’t they have to abide by U.S laws for U.S judgment?
Thanks in advance,
Sahar”
Hi Sahar,
To answer your question, yes the registry would have to act on the judgment handed down by a US court if the judgment was addressed to them. The fact is most suits and judgments are not addressed to the registry, they are addressed to the registrar. I’ve even seen cases where the attorney for the complainant has been instructed to have the judgment addressed to the registry in order to have the domain awarded to them and yet they continue to contact the registrar and not the registry.
While complainants continue to go after the registrar instead of the registry it would add as an additional layer of security to the registrant to manage their domains outside the US.
—-ANSWER—-
Got it, thanks.
Sahar
Hi All
I’m currently doing a research project on exactly this topic. Could anyone shed some light on the following question (that has already been asked..):
If a domain has been registered overseas what influence would a US court order have on ICANN or Verisign to deactivate/transfer at a root level?
Thanks
Oli