The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) send out a “warning letter” this week to 22 companies that operate 136 sit”that appeared to be illegally selling drugs to American consumers.”
However even through its was labeled as “warning letter”, the FDA also went to the service providers of the sites and registrars of the domain names subject to the warning letter and told them “that the site illegal activities may give them grounds to terminate service to their customers.”
And according to one report the “warning letter” seems to have worked as about 90 of the sites named in the warning letter that were US based, have already been taken down.
Now I’m no great fan of these sites and actually they drive me crazy, as I get well over 5,000 spam e-mail’s everyday advertising drugs for sale.
Still I have a problem with any governmental agency unilaterally determining that your activity is illegal, without giving the site owner the opportunity of a hearing or trial and an opportunity to present a defense to the claim of illegality, going directly to the ISP and registrars asking that the site’s services be terminated.
No due process.
No hearing, no trial.
Nothing.
The fact that ISP and registrars as so willing to terminate services based on a letter from a governmental body is troubling.
As we discussed this last year in relation to the Kentucky domain seizures and the Cuba domain seizures, we believe this is further evidence that you might be safer hosting your domains and sites outside of the US and registering them with a Non-US based registrar before you wake up one day to find out some governmental agency determines your domain is “illegal”
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I agree that this is scary stuff and seems very unfair.
On the other hand, this industry has not been known for its self-regulation. In fact, this industry is known for flouting TM domains for sale and tolerating shill bidding with barely a whimper (that is, until “halvarez” was outted).
Two years ago, I (and others) warned that government intervention was inevitable, unless the industry didn’t clean up.
Well, it hasn’t cleaned up, so
Here comes the Gov, all dressed in Full Legal Armor.
Like the next person, I DISLIKE government intervention, but it’s here to stay, I fear.
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Ms.
This is not a domain industry problem, this is the government taking action on its own against whatever sites and the domains they use.
It has nothing to do with the domain industry cleaning itself up or regulating it.
Scary stuff, but easy to avoid, host your domains outside the US and get a non-US based registrar without US ties
Michael,
Your points are valid.
Guilty to proven innocent.
Even though the domains might be in offshore registrars that does not stop the U.S. govt agencies from going to Verisign, Affilas, PIR, or Neustar and ask them to freeze the domains. They might do it to prevent a lawsuit. They might figure it is better to keep the resident gov’t happy than a couple domainers.
Will they eventually tell Google and Yahoo to elliminate your ppc or adsense acct?
Will they eventually tell Mastercard, Visa, Discover and AMEX to close your merchant acct?
Will they instruct Paypal to freeze your acct?
Once, they know that some will bend to the gov’t demands they got you.
Domain
I know people keep saying these bodies can go to directly to the registry, but the case of the Kentucky domain seizure and this case they have not, they have gone just to the registrars
Mike, I recall something similar with domain travel sites being threatened due to their affiliation with travel services to Cuba. U.S. government policy seems to supercede & override certain gray areas, commerce restrictions, etc.
With the medication issue above, this has been on the U.S. radar for quite a number of years. I see the need to police it too. However, I agree with you that some formal investigation (process) should be utilized before taking down a site and/or issuing letters to registrars.
For all the legitimate reputable business sites online, there are probably twice as many scam sites. This is hard to monitor I presume.
Going offshore ? maybe. But I wouldn’t put all my eggs in the same basket.
Look at what’s happening in the UK : http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2009-10/digitaleconomy/documents.html
Re: my previous post,
the good stuff is at page 14 and al. of the explanatory notes. As it was rightly pointed out by a Namepros member, the most confusing part is that the UK Gov will feel justified to intervene in the business of registrars that permit “unfair practices” such as cybersquatting and drop-catching. You heard right, drop-catching. (section 87 of the notes)
“I know people keep saying these bodies can go to directly to the registry, but the case of the Kentucky domain seizure and this case they have not, they have gone just to the registrars.”
Which was nice because Fabulous told them to pound dirt, I’m not sure that everyone will just go the the registrars however and if they don’t just go the registrar then I think moving all your domains outside the US is a waste then, generally I think they can push legal issues in your city or the registrars city, I’m in Chicago so I would rather fly to Arizona for a Go Daddy issue then to fly to Australia for a Fabulous court case, I would recommend a few registrars for people of those countries but if your in the US I would say be cautious of sticking everything out of the US unless you have a bunch of frequent flyer miles saved up, could also be used as a strategy to file the cases in the registrars country to bleed the american domainer out of cash, as much as I prefer Fabulous I’ll be keeping my domains in my own country so I don’t need a travel loan to defend them.
While I don’t usually like alot of the decisions governments often make I think this is the fasted and most effective way of dealing with this particular problem.
The Federal Drug Administration are there on the behalf of the people to make sure any medication sold in America meets a certain quality and standard.
Some of these dodgy scammers fill their products with all sorts of crap not fit for human consumption in pursuit of the mighty dollar.
They are messing with peoples health and lives, there’s a time for talking and there’s a time for doing, I think the governments should just get on and do whatever it takes to take them out and don’t spare the horses !
ahem…you have a problem with gvt doing what?
you folks in the inter net seem to really think there is no laws that regulate anything you do what so ever is there?
Well consider the this?
The FDA, has the authroity to lock some up for violation of the nations laws with respect to the creation, sale, and distribution of pharma, and the pharma industry is very interested in seeing to it that every one else abides by the same rules the industry is held to, perhaps it is high time some of you get used to the notion the FED is on to your cohorts and are quite serious about shutting them down and using the full extent of the law to do it.
Hmmm, somehow I am not against the move of the government.
Just doing their job to protect their people.
Lesson: Don’t run illegal activities online or offline, in the US or not.
No one can escape the law. 🙂