A lot of this comes down to how badly the Feds want you. Another domain might buy you a thin buffer of protection, but if you're doing anything that really irks the US Government they'll go to great lengths to get you. They got the Swiss to burn a lot of their treasured banking privacy customs just to flush out off shore accounts. If you can get the Swiss to do that, you can get most any country to seize a local doma…
If you have particularly anti-US content, I would think .ru or .ch is a good bet.
Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
71–79 of 79 posts
Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
#72This is getting a bit silly. Unless you are running a gambling, torrent or porn site, just get a .com and worry about more important things in your life. Asset seizure is something that drug dealers, not startups, should be worrying about.
So, Jotform (to name just a recent one) was running a "gambling, torrent or porn site"? Right... The only thing silly here is not taking into account all business risks. US-owned TLDs are very much now a risk.
Using the Internet is a risk. So is crossing the street.
Your single biggest risk in registering a domain name relates to the business practices of the registrar you choose. This has nothing to do with the "nationality" of a TLD.
You also face risks associated with the policy of the TLD you register in, the laws of the local government and the jurisdictions of the registrar, registry and DNS provider you register with.
You also face a myriad of risks associated with the UDRP and various intellectual property law.
You can either worry yourself silly with the boundary cases and outside risks that I see most talked about in recent HN articles or you can cover 99% of your issues by finding yourself a good registrar (one with fair and reasonable policies and practices) operating under a good government (one with fair and reasonable laws and law enforcement practices) and register in a reliable TLD. And then spend the other 23.5 hours in your busy day worrying about running your startup or doing something else useful with your time.
Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
#73I've got a .co on namecheap now. No controversial plans but curious as to how safe it is.
Even i have got 5 domains with namecheap. As far as i know, there have been no negative incidents with namecheap yet.
Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
#74If you want a bulletproof registrar that doesn't bow under pressure and with competitive pricing go for http://internet.bs/ (yes they have their offices in the bahamas). Also free whois protection is included AFAIK
However, one thing you have to keep in mind, that despite actually being a fairly large registar, they are a small company in bahamas. I would imagine, if they had a large target painted on them, they could not last long.
Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
#75Can anyone explain why these domains are usually so much more expensive that .com domains? I just looked at .se and most of those run almost $40/year. It seems like demand would have .com domains priced higher than these cc-TLDs.
[1]https://www.loopia.com/domainnames/#prices [2]http://www.binero.se/doman [3]http://www.crystone.com/domainname.aspx
Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an Irish citizen I must admit I'm a little envious of how Iceland has faced down the rest of the world, even if I don't agree 100% with what they did. I think the authors criticism is primarily an economic one. Like Ireland, Iceland is economically weak and can't afford to annoy major trade partners. Would the government concede certain things if subtly threatened with sanctions, even unofficial ones, over IP etc?…
They didnt fold when the EU tried to get them to increase tax rates on companies like Google and Intel though did they.
Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
#77Obviously the exact gTLD we chose is subject to a bit of democracy, voting etc etc but I'm sure with a bit of an open forum then they'll be an interesting debate.
Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
#78Can anyone explain why these domains are usually so much more expensive that .com domains? I just looked at .se and most of those run almost $40/year. It seems like demand would have .com domains priced higher than these cc-TLDs.
Then you have looked at the wrong registrars. Loopia[1], Binero[2] and Crystone[3] all sell .se domains for around $15. (I'm not affiliated with any of these companies), [1] https://www.loopia.com/domainnames/#prices [2] http://www.binero.se/doman [3] http://www.crystone.com/domainname.aspx
Re: Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an Irish citizen I must admit I'm a little envious of how Iceland has faced down the rest of the world, even if I don't agree 100% with what they did. I think the authors criticism is primarily an economic one. Like Ireland, Iceland is economically weak and can't afford to annoy major trade partners. Would the government concede certain things if subtly threatened with sanctions, even unofficial ones, over IP etc?…
They didnt fold when the EU tried to get them to increase tax rates on companies like Google and Intel though did they.