The commonwealth of Kentucky issued a seizure order on September 18, ordering 141 domains be taken from their registrants.

order-of-seizure-of-domain-names (adobe Reader Required)



“”The Domain names shall be immediately transferred by their respective registrars to an account of the Commonwealth of Kentucky “”.

The seizure was taken after the Commonwealth found that the “domains were being used in connection with illegal gambling activity”.

However some of these domains are simply parked domains not sites taking bets.

The domains seized include: (the full list is on the adobe file)

fulltiltpoker.com

indiancasino.com

bet21.com

allslots.com

bodoglife.com

bookmaker.com

SportsBook.com

SportsBetting.com

superslots.com

pokerstars.com

doylesroom.com

GoldenPalace.com

As far as I can tell, no notice of this action was given to any of the registrants, nor was any hearing held giving the registrants an opportunity to appear

The order does talk about the court holding a hearing sometime in September to for registrants who want to claim there domain “qualifies for return”

Obviously a very scary tactic taken by one state.

Another reason you might want to consider moving your domains to a registrar outside of the US, as this order is to the registrars of the domains, not the central registry.

Whether this move can stand legal challenge is highly questionable.

The order did state that the “domain configurations shall remain unchanged”, so the domains should continue to resolve to the registrant’s sites. This may be an attempt to greatly limit the commonwealth damages in the event this “order” is overturned.

What is another state decided tommorow to seize adult domains, because they contained illegal obsence material?

This will not cause the registrants to hire legal representation, go to Kentucky and try to get their property back.