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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

#61

Post by markdown »

15155 wrote: post #26
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> obtained a court-ordered writ directing Verisign, the company that maintains the “.com” domain registry, to place the domain “motherless.com” on a registry lock, hold, or similar status. So they're using the fact that Verisign is a US company and can therefore be leaned on. I'm not sure how I feel about this. What do other countries do who don't have Verisign to lean on? US companies really don't like being told wh…

> What do other countries do who don't have Verisign to lean on? They lean on their ISPs, see Spain and the La Liga controversy.

That's the correct way, because it applies only to residents of that jurisdiction. Texas should be able to prevent their local ISP's from showing illegal content, but not control what people see in other parts of the country/state.

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

#62

Post by wizcaps »

15155 wrote: post #33
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that, more appropriately, only affects internet users in that country (ignoring the cloudflare network blocking that causes various other sites to also be blocked). This appears to basically wipe the site from the entire internet, for all countries.

When you create the infrastructure, you make the rules. If a party doesn't like those rules, they are free to create their own replacement infrastructure and obtain global buy-in. ccTLDs already exist and their respective countries have sovereignty over those TLDs: the UK can disappear any .uk domain name it wants from the global internet. The .com TLD is American, and is therefore subject to American legal proceedin…

I think you know how absurd it sounds to say in response “well you can go and create your own internet”

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

#63

Post by fwip »

pixl97 wrote: post #36
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All speech does not deserve the same protection, certainly not unlimited protection, says SCOTUS. Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce law requiring age verification and parental consent on apps - https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/07/supreme-court-allows-texa... - July 6th, 2026 Supreme Court allows Texas’ law on age-verification for pornography sites - https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/court-allows-texas-law-on... -…

Right, that's why speech by white Christians males should be protected, and not any of those Muslims or gay people. Now, I say this mockingly, my neighbors (yes I live in Texas) say such things with a steadfast belief. Which is really weird to me because they keep electing adulterers and rapists.

I don't see the disconnect you do - they are voting for white Christian men to protect white Christian men. The rape and adultery was hurting women (or gay guys).

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

#64

Post by what »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #4
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #2

I don’t understand - was this site or company based in Texas? Otherwise the general idea seems absurd that an individual state could freeze a domain impacting for the whole Internet… (EDIT: I won’t lose any sleep at the loss of such scum but the general principle seems a bit strange.)

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

Nonsense.

There is no reliable way to not serve your content to people in Texas. If anything, Texas should compel ISPs to not serve it to their Texas customers.

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

#65

Post by bmelton »

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…

How do you feel about GDPR?

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

#66

Post by jasonfarnon »

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…

[flagged]

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

#67

Post by walrus01 »

wolpoli wrote: post #60

Honest question: what is the ultimate end game if at some point a court in another country orders a domain be reinstated? Do we end up with a domain registration system per country?

I think given the history and "ownership" of the specific TLD of .com by verisign and verisign's relationship with the US federal government, it then proceeds to ignore any court orders to reinstate the ownership issued by a court in any other country that is not the USA.

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

#68

Post by jmclnx »

Well the site does not present Texas in a good light. Their .gov site presents me with this. Looks like they need to worry about their own site instead of worrying about out of state sites.

>Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead

> Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to www.texasattorneygeneral.gov. If you visit this site, attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details.

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

#69

Post by monksy »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #14
pixl97 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All fun and games till religions get in battles and shut down websites talking about gods and beliefs they don't like.

Indeed. Does this mean Texas can shutdown other websites in other states that provide abortion support? I’m sure there are those who would argue such to be harmful to children…(not to mention the fetus)

Yes. With what they just did.

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

#70

Post by jzb »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #52
rblatz wrote: post #11

Default judgement, absolutely meaningless at this point as to how a court would rule against a plaintiff that actually showed up, respected the court’s authority, and defended itself.

So if I don’t do business in Texas, have no operations in Texas or otherwise deal with Texas in any way a state court should just be able to order a company to suspend my whole domain? I’m Canadian and Texas courts have zero authority over me so they can f*ck off.

But they do have authority over the domain registrar, so you’re vulnerable there no matter where you live.

I don’t agree with the premise of age verification, but of course a prosecutor would go after the assets they can reach if enforcing local laws. They’ve done this for years when it comes to copyright infringement.

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