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Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

texasattorneygeneral.gov

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Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#231

Post by inigyou »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #220
inigyou wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN ignores GDPR, in particular Article 17, and it hasn't been taken down from the internet or even blocked in the EU.

I'm curious - what kind of PII does HN make available and has it ever refused to remove it when asked by the individual concerned? I can't recall HN asking/requiring PII from me in any fashion, so I don't see the relevance. If a commenter published some PII about me, then I wonder if HN would remove the comment if I complained to them about it. As I see it, HN isn't acting as a data controller.

You can post your home address in a comment and then you can't delete it.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#232

Post by inigyou »

Scaled wrote: post #225
inigyou wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every TLD that is not a ccTLD is effectively a US ccTLD. This has always been the case, and perhaps the US has tricked us into becoming complacent. If the world was fair they would all be underneath .us. I want to see other countries start rejecting the ICANN root and forcing all the US domains under .us, but it will never happen. It would break their vhosts for one thing. Doing it at the browser level could avoid th…

I vaguely recall some crypto project that was 'blockchain for domain names'. I scoffed at it at the time, but maybe there is a real need for something like that after all. (Or some other system for domain names you truly own and can't be rugpulled.)

Probably Namecoin, but there are several now. Probably ENS (Ethereum name service) is the most notable.

But keep in mind Zooko's triangle - you can't have all three of secure, human-readable, and decentralised.

In Zooko terms, blockchains are secure, human-readable, centralised registries - there is only one, and you have to stay connected to it. Onion domains (which are public key hashes) are secure, unreadable, and decentralised. Petnames (as used in I2P) are insecure, readable, and decentralised.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#233

Post by 15155 »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #84
walrus01 wrote: post #49

The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. I don't care if you like the porn site in question or not, or condone or endorse its content. This is a slippery slope towards every regional tinpot dictator legislature attempting to censor the internet by having an entity's domain name rev…

> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. Two things of note regarding this. First, note the office of origin: Texas Attorney General, which is currently occupied by Ken Paxton who is running for a tightly contested seat in the US Senate. Second, a state court does not have jurisd…

> Second, a state court does not have jurisdiction beyond its borders for entities not operating within same.

Where did you come by this information?

Article IV, Section I

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#234

Post by 15155 »

walrus01 wrote: post #119
jasonfarnon wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what your point is. Courts generally follow precedent, not your opinion about what is or isn't logical. Do you want me to explain to you the nature of extraterritorial jurisdiction, extradition treaties, etc., distinguishing your hypothetical from this case? I don't have a dog in this fight. If you really want to understand what's going on I would suggest you simply look up the complaint this AG filed, w…

There's also more than ample legal precedent that only the US federal government has the authority to regulate inter-state commerce, which is clearly what .COM is as an entity run by VeriSign, and internet traffic/telecommunications traffic that crosses state borders. There's such a vast body of law in telecom law that the federal government regulates long distance telecommunications traffic that I could paste citati…

> International internet traffic from an entity whose servers aren't in Texas isn't subject to Texas jurisdiction.

Besides the United States Constitution entirely invalidating this argument:

Does Verisign sell and/or provide services to Texans?

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#235

Post by 15155 »

rurban wrote: post #212

A big blow to the Texas hosting industry. Some of the world's largest hosting sites are in Texas. They'll likely move out to more liberal states.

Are those states somehow exempt from the United States Constitution's requirement to uphold "judicial Proceedings of every other State?"

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#236

Post by 15155 »

profmonocle wrote: post #103
toomuchtodo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It operates in Texas if it is serving Texas users. > Kick Online, which openly describes itself as a “moral free” company, ignored the lawsuit and refused to comply with the court’s order. It continued publishing and distributing harmful sexual material that was accessible to minors in Texas. This is the same website with a forum with millions of users trading information on how to assault their partner. https://www.…

> It operates in Texas if it is serving Texas users. What do you mean "serves"? Does that just mean not actively blocking users from Texas? Allowing your web site to be accessible regardless of user location is, and always has been, the default way to run a web site. Your assertion would mean that web site operators are beholden to the laws of all jurisdictions on the planet if they don't actively block those users.…

> Think about what a bad precedent that would be. Some countries criminalize promotion of pro-LGBT+ content. What if those countries suddenly demand extradition of people who run pro-LGBT+ blogs because the web sites are available there?

Simple: a local court having jurisdiction over those individuals would utilize their own laws and discretion to decide if they are required to extradite these people.

If a country chooses not to comply, political consequences may ensue - this is basic international diplomacy. Russia doesn't seem to care about demands to extradite Snowden: they don't have to, they have the resources and political will to ignore these demands. Someday, perhaps to curry favor, they might comply.

Smaller, weaker countries don't have the luxury of noncompliance, nor do they have the same ability to have their various legal proceedings enforced extraterritorially.

Might makes right.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#237

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

inigyou wrote: post #231
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious - what kind of PII does HN make available and has it ever refused to remove it when asked by the individual concerned? I can't recall HN asking/requiring PII from me in any fashion, so I don't see the relevance. If a commenter published some PII about me, then I wonder if HN would remove the comment if I complained to them about it. As I see it, HN isn't acting as a data controller.

You can post your home address in a comment and then you can't delete it.

That seems a bit contrived, but it would be similar to if someone else posted your home address in a comment. Presumably emailing HN to request its removal would be the correct thing to do and I wonder if HN would remove the PII.

Edit: it's covered by HN Privacy policy which is available here: https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/

TLDR: email privacy@ycombinator.com for privacy concerns which should cover removing comments.

In my opinion, that seems compliant with GDPR.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#238

Post by rurban »

15155 wrote: post #235
rurban wrote: post #212

A big blow to the Texas hosting industry. Some of the world's largest hosting sites are in Texas. They'll likely move out to more liberal states.

Are those states somehow exempt from the United States Constitution's requirement to uphold "judicial Proceedings of every other State?"

Texas? They'll rather call for the military to protect their "freedoms" (of calling arbitrary court decisions).

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#239

Post by walrus01 »

15155 wrote: post #233
AdieuToLogic wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that a state court in one particular state can enforce such an absurd law against a company that likely has no business operations or servers in the state is ridiculous. Two things of note regarding this. First, note the office of origin: Texas Attorney General, which is currently occupied by Ken Paxton who is running for a tightly contested seat in the US Senate. Second, a state court does not have jurisd…

> Second, a state court does not have jurisdiction beyond its borders for entities not operating within same. Where did you come by this information? Article IV, Section I Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.

If this was true in factual implementation, then Washington state's assault weapon ban would apply nationwide, which it decidedly does not. Or some particularly red state laws on abortion bans or abortion medication would apply in the other 49 states, which it does not.

Or the court decision obligating the city and state of New York to issue concealed pistol permits to people who go through a process (even for non residents) would apply in Washington DC or Chicago, which it also does not.

Re: Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law

#240

Post by walrus01 »

15155 wrote: post #235
rurban wrote: post #212

A big blow to the Texas hosting industry. Some of the world's largest hosting sites are in Texas. They'll likely move out to more liberal states.

Are those states somehow exempt from the United States Constitution's requirement to uphold "judicial Proceedings of every other State?"

Do you actually think that an elected state attorney general in Washington or California or New York would shut down a hosting company that, for example, hosts the website of a medical office that ships abortion medication to Texas? That they would send the WSP to a colo in Tukwila near Seattle to pull the plugs on the servers? I highly doubt it.

If the Texans don't like something in another state and want to attempt to shut it down, they can bring an action in federal court.

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