Not Content To Wait On COICA, HSA and ICE Seize Domain Names
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This notice did not appear on our site (yet), thankfully, but about 70 sites were hit with this over the holiday weekend.
We recently posted on the pending legislation called COICA and noted that the forces that be were quickly drawing lines in the sand and standing rather firmly on their side of the line. Interestingly, Homeland Security and Immigration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement supposedly obtained warrants and seized the domain names of these sites that they alleged are infringing, either by committing copyright infringement or selling counterfeit items. As noted by this article in Techdirt, the seizure was only of the domain names and not of the equipment or other assets so some of the sites merely changed their high level domains (e.g. .com to .info), put out the word on Twitter and continued business.
Some people are worried by the apparent lack of due process in this matter and the potential for abuse. Others are worried by the level of infringement and counterfeiting and the loss of revenue as a result. This would call into question the need for COICA if HSA and ICE already possess these powers. There should be a serious discussion of this whole process as the COICA legislation progresses.
