As some of you may know not to long ago September 08 a court in Kentucky seized over 140 gambling related domains in regards to a civil complaint filed by the state officials of Kentucky to the Franklin Circuit Court last year
saying that the domain names were being used for “unregulated, unlicensed illegal Internet gambling with disregard for, and in violation of, Kentucky law”
the court allowed the seizure of 141 domains.
Well it made it to appeals court Tuesday January 20 2009
and was a success for the domainers and webmasters worldwide
the domains were returned to their rightful owners!
after a judge agreed that a domain is just like a phone number or street address its not the person that answers the phone or what resides at the house its just a name or location not a machine witch the law defines a gambling device as a “machine … manufactured primarily for use in connection with gambling.”
the whole phone translation was my translation
the lawyers for iMEGA The Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association said “that domain names are nothing more than billboards for Web sites and not mechanisms for gambling,”
I personally don’t own any gambling related domains or live in Kentucky but i think this could have had a negative affect or domain owners world wide!