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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

#91

Post by bmelton »

walrus01 wrote: post #82
bmelton wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you feel about GDPR?

I worry about it about as much as I worry about getting extradited to Thailand to face court for violating a law insulting the Thai king. I am unaware of even a single person of my nationality who has been extradited to Europe to face some kind of GDPR tribunal. If I were running a business that had any operations or clients whatsoever in Europe my opinion on this topic would be different (in terms of legal liability…

Thanks for the answer! It wasn't a gotcha, I was genuinely just curious.

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

#92

Post by AdieuToLogic »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #66
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]

> Of course it has business operations in TX.

It does not, as explicitly stated in the court's decision found here[0].

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...

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

#93

Post by odo1242 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #35
regecks wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need it, they've migrated to motherless.xxx.

> Stuart Lawley, the CEO of ICM Registry--the company behind the XXX top level domains, says XXX sites should help empower parents to keep their kids away from adult content. https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/man-behind-xxx-domains-say...

Well that's kinda the whole idea of having an "adult content" tld; it's so you can block all .xxx domains instead of having to create a blocklist of sites. Like an opt-in nsfw flag for the internet, basically.

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

#94

Post by applfanboysbgon »

bmelton wrote: post #90
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDPR doesn't try to remove anything from the global internet. You're free to not serve your site in the EU. Texas is free to block sites in Texas. But Texas trying to remove the ability of Europeans to access European websites is a completely different matter.

> The GDPR doesn't try to remove anything from the global internet GDPR Article 17 expressly requires the removal of things from the global internet > You're free to not serve your site in the EU Geoblocking is functionally impossible

> GDPR Article 17 expressly requires the removal of things from the global internet

...as part of compliance with GDPR, if you choose to be compliant. Please name one instance of the EU suing and successfully removing an American website from the internet under this article, or any part of the GDPR? Considering we're talking about an actual case of the US seizing the domain of a European website, whataboutting a hypothetical with the GDPR which has never done the reverse despite being in force for 10 years is incredibly disingenuous.

---

Rate-limit edit:

> Are you saying that you don’t think that the GDPR text is written to apply outside of the EU, or that it does say that but it’s not relevant because it’s not viable for anybody to enforce that?

The GDPR is European legislation, written for the territory the EU has legal jurisdiction over. Why would anybody think it's meant to apply outside of the EU? Plenty of businesses choose to operate by two sets of privacy policies, one where they continue fucking over their American users and one where they adhere to the GDPR for European users, and that is perfectly acceptable. There is no "think" about it, the legislation obviously does not apply outside the EU, nor is it intended to.

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

#95

Post by jasonfarnon »

walrus01 wrote: post #71
jasonfarnon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is known to have servers, offices, employees, bank accounts, business licenses in texas?

Why do you think that is necessary for jurisdiction? It's doing business with TX customers every time it serves an ad to someone there. The law governing sufficient contacts for internet companies has been pretty well established since the 2000s.

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

#96

Post by TurdF3rguson »

abraham wrote: post #45
TurdF3rguson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it's pretty easy to comply. Pornhub and others don't have any problems complying with TX.

According to this pornhub is blocked in 25 states including Texas. https://mashable.com/article/pornhub-blocked-states-2025

Right, because they complied. Which was easy for them to do.

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

#97

Post by walrus01 »

jzb wrote: post #70
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a huge overreach to say that any individual US state has authority over a domain registrar, and even more specifically over .COM as a TLD, given its history with VeriSign and the US federal government.

There exists a well defined process, precedent and prior case law in US federal court to seize a .COM domain name by a court order issued to VeriSign. Doing this at the state level is entirely new.

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

#98

Post by jasonfarnon »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #86
bmelton wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you feel about GDPR?

The GDPR doesn't try to remove anything from the global internet. You're free to not serve your site in the EU. Texas is free to block sites in Texas. But Texas trying to remove the ability of Europeans to access European websites is a completely different matter.

"But Texas trying to remove the ability of (for instance) Europeans to access websites is a completely different matter."

I fail to see the difference in principle from the federal government doing this for copyright violations.

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

#99

Post by thegrim33 »

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…

So, you feel the same about stuff like the GDPR then, right?

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

#100

Post by toomuchtodo »

monksy wrote: post #74
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.…

Today I learned that a foreign government operates in Texas. I didn't know that Texas is supporting and promoting the North Korean government: http://naenara.com.kp/main/index/en/first I wonder why they aren't being called out for anti-American terrorist groups.

Not a .com domain, so out of reach. Anything within US reach, individuals or entities, is fair game from a US judicial system perspective.

Everyone learns this the hard way, it seems.

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