How To Stop Domain Names Being Seized By The US Government

in Commentary / on February 5, 2011 at 12:34 pm /

As the United States authorities continue with their domain name seizure policy, file-sharing, streaming and link site operators around the world are looking for ways to mitigate this aggressive action. To this end, an Internet engineer and website operator has put together a guide that might just help site owners avoid a whole heap of inconvenience in the future.

This week, an ever more familiar picture started to emerge, the third such situation in well under a year. US authorities had begun another round of domain name seizures, this time against sites connected with sports streaming.

The domains seized included HQ-streams.com, HQ-streams.net, Atdhe.net, Firstrow.net, Ilemi.com, Iilemi.com, Iilemii.com, Channelsurfing.net, Rojadirecta.net and Rojadirecta.com.

These latest seizures were the final straw for one angry TorrentFreak reader.

“First they came for the Napsters, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Napster. Then they came for the Torrents, and I didn’t speak out because I didn’t use Torrents. Then they came for the file-sharers, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a file-sharer,” the email began.

“And then they came for me and for my sites, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

These words come from SearchFreak, an internet engineer and chief executive of an Internet business that provides services to millions of users. Outraged at the seizing of domains, in particular those connected to the twice-ruled-legal Rojadirecta, he told TorrentFreak that he’d deliberately built on the famous words of Martin Niemöller to inspire people to stand up for themselves on the Internet.

“Niemöller’s reasoning is why I am going to provide a simple list of actions that should serve as a guide for any internet business looking to stay safe in light of ever more harsh copyright measures, born only for the interest of a small group of (mostly) American companies,” SearchFreak explained.

So, without further delay, here they are. Continue reading…

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