Do the websites allegedly selling counterfeit products have any way to defend themselves? Or does the copyright holder just say, this is mine and they get shut down without any verification.
Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
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Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#12Not sure what they achieved. Tomorrow the same people will register another 132 domain names and continue operating as usual.
But they're down today, on the (if you believe the hype) biggest online shopping day of the year.
It's like busting the drug dealer on the corner. Taking down small level offenders, doesn't solve the problem.
Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#13Why not take down eBay then? I'm sure officers could easily fulfil the same criteria of being able to buy "counterfeit" goods from there. Amazon too no doubt.
Letting authorities get away with this sort of shoot-first approach is a very slippery slope. The Dot Com debacle is simply a bigger version.
Sure - these may be bad actors, but we don't really know that do we. Where is the due process? Where is the investigation uncovering a warehouse full of goods? Can any of us trust our business to a .com domain name any more?
Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#14Why not take down eBay then? I'm sure officers could easily fulfil the same criteria of being able to buy "counterfeit" goods from there. Amazon too no doubt. Letting authorities get away with this sort of shoot-first approach is a very slippery slope. The Dot Com debacle is simply a bigger version. Sure - these may be bad actors, but we don't really know that do we. Where is the due process? Where is the investigati…
eBay has its own takedown process and follows US law because they are US-based. They only seize domains for sites that are outside the US (but their domains are registered in the US) and do not respect US laws. There are still huge due-process concerns, though.
Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#15> It is the third straight year that the government has seized websites on "Cyber Monday"...
Did not know this.
> ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit coordinated with officials from Belgium, Denmark, France, Romania, the United Kingdom and the European Police Office to take down the sites.
A great example of mission creep. Counterfeit goods have nothing to do with terrorism.
Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#16Once seized, they generally point them at the server at 74.81.170.110 which hosts their seized image. Thus using a simple reverse IP lookup we can see a list of all seized domains: http://viewdns.info/reverseip/?host=74.81.170.110
Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#17> It is the third straight year that the government has seized websites on "Cyber Monday"... Did not know this. > ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit coordinated with officials from Belgium, Denmark, France, Romania, the United Kingdom and the European Police Office to take down the sites. A great example of mission creep. Counterfeit goods have nothing to do with terrorism.
ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#18Why not take down eBay then? I'm sure officers could easily fulfil the same criteria of being able to buy "counterfeit" goods from there. Amazon too no doubt. Letting authorities get away with this sort of shoot-first approach is a very slippery slope. The Dot Com debacle is simply a bigger version. Sure - these may be bad actors, but we don't really know that do we. Where is the due process? Where is the investigati…
eBay has its own takedown process and follows US law because they are US-based. They only seize domains for sites that are outside the US (but their domains are registered in the US) and do not respect US laws. There are still huge due-process concerns, though.
eBay has plenty of foreign sellers, but yes, they work with the authorities, not against them. So, I have to say, did MegaUpload and Kim DotCom. What's a foreign business to do?
The underlying issue is that a .com domain name is no longer safe, and I suspect the new top level domains will be in the same bucket.
Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#19As part of the operation, federal law enforcement officers made undercover purchases of products such as sports jerseys, DVD players, clothing and jewelry from websites suspected of selling counterfeit products. If the copyright holders confirmed that the products were unauthorized, ICE obtained a court order to shut down the sites. I am confused due to the way this is worded. Does this mean that sites selling second…
If they were selling them as "new", sure.
Re: Federal officials take down 132 websites in 'Cyber Monday' crackdown
#20Do the websites allegedly selling counterfeit products have any way to defend themselves? Or does the copyright holder just say, this is mine and they get shut down without any verification.
They can sue to get the domain back, but it's usually not worth it. Or if you're lucky they'll give the domain back after a year: http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?company=dajaz1