Texas Court Orders Domain Lock for Non-Compliant Porn Site
Texas wins court order to suspend domain name for violating age-verification law
I secured a landmark court order to lock the motherless.com domain after Kick Online Entertainment refused to comply with Texas age-verification laws. This victory establishes a powerful precedent, proving we can strip domains from foreign operators who ignore the law and expose minors to harmful content. By forcing a $9.14 million bond for reinstatement, we demonstrate that protecting children requires more than just penalties; it demands shutting down non-compliant sites.
This affirms that protecting children from pornographic content is not only about collecting a penalty but also shutting down websites that refuse to obey the law.
- walrus01
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 revoked.
.com in particular has also been well proven over the past 5 to 10 years to be vulnerable to federal court orders to seize domains at the registrar level. That's not really anything new. It's a known risk for anyone building a corporate brand/identity around a specific .com domain name. What's new is this is being done from the state court level. (Edit: To be clear, in my opinion, a US State court completely lacks jurisdiction on this matter).
- monksy
This kills their operations in other states that do not have this.
Not sure how this does not violate interstate commerce.
Contact your congress criter: https://www.congress.gov/
BTW:
Kick - Melborne, AU. US Operations: SanFran CA.
Registar: Verisign - Reston, VA.
- rblatz
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.
- throwaway81523
The domain name is motherless.com if that's what you wanted to know. It's a porn site.
- NDlurker
Isn't motherless a European website? What the ffff?
Update: yeah
- wolpoli
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?
- rurban
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.
- 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.
- iamnothere
If you publish controversial material, better start embracing onion backup domains now. Most people don’t know how to use them yet, but I get the feeling there will be a turning point soon.
- tamimio
So, what’s the safest domain tld that’s safe from all that craziness out there?