This whole directnic locking down a domain thing
 

Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past few days, you know that directnic has locked and shut down a site that may or maynot have cp links and/or images.

If not, here is the short version. Directnic received a complaint about a site with cp. They investigated, locked the domain and wrote the owner asking for content ids. When the person didn't comply, they shut down the domain. And, it can't be moved to another registrar.

What they wanted was an clear government issued id with only the picture and birth date showing.

The FSC claims that Directnic was wrong in doing this
http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/F....asp?coid=1014

But, if you read the Directnic terms of service, you will clearly see that by entering into an agreement with them, you agree to allow them to do this. They actually had the right to just lock the domain and shut down the site without giving the person the opportunity to clear his name and domain. But, they gave him a chance anyway.

It seems at a board with a lot of posts but few webmasters, a lot of people think directnic was wrong. And many predict the downfall of directnic.

For myself, I think directnic did the right thing and was and will remain to be a stand up company. I am very happy having my domains hosted there and have no thoughts of moving.

This was one site where the person running it himself claims, "If there was cp, I didn't know about it".

What do you think?

Whether legally right or wrong, this is a slippery slope I don't think DirectNic fully thought through before taking action.

I'm no lawyer, but I'm not so sure that DirectNic can legally request third party identification, even if it says they can in their TOS. What if the webmaster resides in Canada where he'd be violating Canadian privacy laws by giving out that information?

I think justice would have been better served if DirectNic had simply passed the CP report along to proper authorities.

I think they were giving the guy the opportunity to clear his name. Legally, they could have locked and shut down the domain until authorities could look it over.

About a year ago I transferred my "main" sites to directnic.

Even though DN were more expensive. I thought my sites were "safer" there.

That's no longer the case. I'm transferring them back to godaddy.

"Safe" doesn't amount to "arbitrary"

I've got nothing to hide but I refuse to support an organisation that is clearly shitting its pants.

Oh yeah, he wasn't Canadian. So, who knows what they would have done if he were? They didn't just shoot from the hip. They looked it over before doing anything.

from what I understand, it was a teen TGP that used thumbs linked to sponsor galleries. Some of the galleries looked questionable, but they are all from reputable sponsors. Whether or not the sponsor would give out the ID info is another question. They asked for a certain # of docs and gave a deadline, then shut down the sites before the end of the deadline, which makes me wonder if it may be out of their hands now.

The other thing that came to light was that a few of his link trades were walking some very fine lines, if not totally crossing them. Whether or not he knew that, he claims he didn't and has removed them.

Although I don't think DirectNic has the authority to request documents, I would hope they had legal counsel before doing all this. I also think there is more to it than we know.

an interesting situation for sure, which could definitely impact all of us.

You cannot blame anyone for doing what they feel is in the best interest of their company, especially when it's in their tos. I'm too lazy to look, but I suspect that most registrars have similar policies. Keep in mind that none of us actually own our domains.

I don't think that anyone in mainstream is going to rule against them, it's one of those 'save the children' issues.

Isn't Mike AI one of the owners of DirectNic? Maybe someone can get him to visit this thread and comment.

All my domains are with DirectNic and won't be going anywhere else...certainly not for this event.

I did see the site in question and even though the content was probably legal (it was from known sponsors), the way it was presented was beyond questionable. And several of the trade links ended up being shut down by the Danish govt for CP. Frankly, this guy was really pushing the envelope big time...it's not a surprise that it caught someone's attention.

As to the privacy issue, DN requested redacted IDs that only showed photo and DOB. Which frankly probably wouldn't have proven much, given that the images could have been produced at any time.

However, DN ended up shutting everything down early, which happened to be about the same time that the Danish authorities started shutting down the trades. Related? Probably...

I won't even get onto my rant about folks that push the boundaries, by making legal girls look much MUCH less than legal...then promoting them as such. This "do anything for a buck" mentality makes us all look like worse than the pond scum the religious right already thinks we are |banghead|

As soon as I heard about it, the 1st thought that went thru my head was that Directnic is not just any registrar - it's one that's owned by people that have been in the porn industry for a long time (meaning that it wasn't a knee jerk reaction from a mainstream registrar)

If they got a complaint, they almost have to do something - locking the domain & contacting the webmaster was the right thing to do. If the webmaster can't (or refuses to) provide them with legit docs, then I see no problem with Directnic's actions.

I have been under a rock for the past few days. I take it the guy was hosting on their servers? I use thier name registration but host elsewhere. If he was using their paid hosting then he is a dumbass. Anyone who is in the adult industry who uses their hosting is a dumbass. Now if he was just using the name registration and hosting someplace else then I think he has a case. I cannot find anything in the TOS in using their domain name registration service that covers anything you put on your website. They seem to distance themselves very well from your site/company in that section. In fact there is another section that states they are in no way responsible for anything, links or otherwise you put on your site that are hosted by someone else. But it is a large TOS and they may have other sections that affect parts of the TOS but can't seem to find any. Jim you have that link for this story? I looked on xbiz but their site seems to be bringing up news stories on black pages that are hard as hell to read.

It appears that most if not all of the content in question is from sponsor hosted galleries, shouldn't links to the 2257 statements from said sponsors be sufficient?

No question this guy was over line in how he was promoting this stuff, but what about the next one that's not so cut & dry? Where do we draw that line? And WHO decides where that line is? I'm certainly not comfortable with my domain registar making those decisions.

Much like in the case of copyright infringement, would not those along the chain also be considered contributory in the case of cp?
That alone is incentive for anyone to remove themselves from the situation

He was using FHGs and figured he was in ok shape. He was actually starting the get that 2257 info after they gave him his warning and deadline and locked his sites. Then, before that deadline, they shut them down. I'm not sure I agree with that.

That being said, I'm not a fan of the making-them-look-as-young-as-possible approach, and I don't really mind it maybe shaking some webmasters up into getting those thumbs away. They're really (besides menstruation porn) the only ones that make me cringe.

But I do worry about where the line is drawn like you do, and about what precedents are set. DirectNIC's TOS are probably the same as everyone else's, but that doesn't mean they handled this fairly. They've had the sites running for a long time, and then they get a complaint and shut down the sites in the way they did, asking for current model IDs and not even mentioning 2257? Seems a bit unprofessional to me. Kinda harsh to really mess up the livelihood of someone who was using FHGs that were seemingly 2257 compliant, with an autocropper.

I have domains with DirectNic and I will not be moving any of them.

A few different thoughts:
1) Where's their badge, where's their warrant!
- According to FSC chairman Jeffrey Douglas, the request is illegal! Under federal law they have no right to these documents
2) Shooting yourself in the foot!
- They are immune from policing content under the law, but now by doing so they have created liability(not immune). DirectNIC is lawlessly intruding into their business.
3) Sponsor FHGs!
- Many sponsors now only provide FHGs, rather than free content, so that they do not need to pass along the 2257 info to WMs. Now if DN were to go and shut down Google images, which I am pretty sure you can find some actual CP I might be more inclined to go with alongit.

they (DN) apparently received a complaint - was the complaint about some of the thumbs on the tgp (which admittedly looked borderline) or was it about the links? Apparently some of those links were pretty bad :( I know they asked for info for the thumbs, but it's funny how once the links were mentioned he got shut down pretty quickly.

this is why it's hard to decide who's right/wrong - we don't know exactly what started it all and what's going on behind closed doors. Looking at the source for most of this info I'm taking it with a grain of salt until something official comes out.

Let me get this right:
U.S. Department of Justice wanting secondary producers to have documents = BAD.
Domain registrar with no legal authority demanding model documents = OK.

I'm not defending the schmuck whose TGP got shut down, but this topic isn't that simple.

Ok read the FSC site which before I did not want to read a ton of legal stuff just after waking up. I think DN is in some serious trouble here. They were not hosting the site. According to them it's ok for them to shut down your domain with just a received complaint. I would presume most WM here are doing the same as me. Buying the names from them and hosting them elsewhere. If that's the case then any letter of complaint to them about your site, might leed them to shut you down. They have no legal grounds to stand on.
Now I can understand their wanting to help prevent the spread of CP. But they state themselves that an investigation was commenced and that they did not find CP. If they found it then surly DN would be touting a differant horn on how they helped take down a CP site. But their TOS clearly states they are not responsible for stuf hosted elsewhere. I honestly think the company screwed itself here. Even more so if the guy gets the documents and not one person has bad ID. They are a domain naming service and do nothing but place a pointer record on your domain name. Will they be around after this? Sure. Will they most likly settle in court? I would get this out of the public eye ASAP.

In the case of Copyright infringement there is a specific statute in place, namely the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and it only passes liability to the web host upon notice, not on up the chain to registrar. There is no such statute that I'm aware of that mentions anything about culpability for domain registrars.

I don't understand why this was even reported to DirectNic. Why wasn't it reported to the web host? There's more going on here than is being stated publicly.

Mike AI has commented on it at the Zoo and I think hes said all he can at this point.

Its also a HOT thread on Oprano with a few cockholsters trying to pull in issues of spyware.

What I find interesting in all of this is no one has named the sponsors.

Feel free to post them on Oprano if anyone knows. I will risk the loss of advertising revenue to make others aware of potential issues using their content.

Even if DirectNic have made a mistake... I ain't gonna stop using a company because of one incident where they were trying to be the good guys.

Im amused at all the people proclaiming they are running to Godaddy when its well known that Bob Parsons hates this industry.

Google has delisted slicknetworks.com and all sites??
A "surfer" just posted this on Oprano
Can anyone cofirm this?
http://www.oprano.com/msgboard/showt...826#post750826

Just searching this board alone, you will find quite a few people that have had their domain stolen using godaddy. If someone has the undue need to leave directnic, for the love of god, don't use godaddy.

Gonzo, that post doesn't look like it is from any surfer. It looks like it was posted by a webmaster with an agenda.

I've always been very pleased with godaddy.

The initial registration of a domain can be a bit daunting for a godaddy-newbie, with all the add-ons and bells and whistles, but their systems seem pretty tight and efficient.

I've got no complaints.

In what way are they anti-adult?

Gonzo I assume he did a search on google using the keyword reallyeighteen - and google does show 2 removed results at the bottom of the page - leading to the standard cp chilling effects result - also a site: command does show no pages listed from that site


http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...reallyeighteen

I would say though that google still has the rest of his sites listed although I dont think any of them ever had much in the way of Google listings based on looking at the results :)

Maybe it's the DOJs way of backdooring the 2257 injunction by applying a little pressure on government regulated companies, or an example of forced government regulating similar to the thread here about illegal images.
http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...ad.php?t=36809

I guess the bottom line is how far companies without the legal authority can be allowed use business relationships to interfer with porn that the DOJ can't.
Banks vs ARS & Vivid
DN vs Slick

I hadn't heard about this until just now when I came across this thread. Without knowing all the details, I'm just gonna say that all my domains are (and have been for many years) registered with Directnic. If they (DN) where trying to step up and take care of a reported cp site, then good for them! My sites will stay where they are.

This thing gets more curious by the hour.

See Jims comment in the thread.

They *possibly* did, but may not have gotten far;

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.ADVANCEDHOSTERS.COM 207.226.173.67
NS2.ADVANCEDHOSTERS.COM 69.31.128.2

Ahhhh, dasvidanya komrad.

I tried, but found that I could not possibly agree with you more


spaz

I'm with Useless!!!!!!!!!!!

Registrars have NO, ZERO, ZILTCH rights to request legal docs.

If they have questions then fine. If they do not want to host the site(s) then fine. I applaud a registrar for taking a stance on a site and saying "hey we don't want that kind of site here". But locking it down and requesting legal docs is not right, period!!

They need to contact the authorities or the people who do have rights to ask these questions and request legal documents. They do not.

Imagine YOUR registrar requesting these docs on links you have to sponsors and locking your domain and you not being able to provide them with the docs because the sponsor says fuck you, we don't give out model IDs. And they say if someone wants to see the docs then tell the DOJ (or legal authorities) to contact us directly. Guess what? Your domain may be locked forever and shut down forever. That would SUCK!

I think what got the heebies jeebies scared out of DN is stuff like the ruling made by Austalia's court in which Australia's version of the MPAA was able to hold not just the owner of box, but his ISP legally liable for merely providing a link to box by the reasoning that anyone who helps with piracy is responsible for it. See here: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/19/0521206

Now you might argue that currently this is only occuring at the ISP level, but I say just give it time and the problem will go up the chain a bit more. Look at what happened with Research In Motion and the BlackBerry lawsuit. A Canadian company got nailed hard in U.S. courts by a bunch of patent trolls showing that screwing is an international thing. I doubt DN wants to be caught on the wrong side of CP investigation by some sort of government investigation (be it Danish or anyone else).

Registrars shouldn't need to worry about this, but the key word in that statement is "shouldn't." Currently DN "shouldn't" need to be part of any investigation (since that's the job of three letter agencies) or involved in any corrective action that is taking place, but, as both the Australia ruling and RIM case prove, exactly who is responsible for what and to what extent the international boundary stops is a very dangerous question. My thoughts on the matter is that DN took a very active action in the matter to cover its ass accordingly since CP is a more dangerous thing to be dealing with than any piracy as the definition of it is pretty much international and the liability for it is something that no one wants.

Actually - after watching all of this Im sure Directnic is just getting ready for the legislation that will probably pass in the January session of congress which will hold registrars as well as many other services accountable/responsible for content just as ISPs are right now legally - I believe the bill is being introduced as another child-protection bill by J McCain

Gotta love how the "for the children" argument suddenly makes everything permissible. Now anyone can take anybody, no matter how remotely involved, to court or at least get them involved via a supponea as a material witness. All laws do is broaden the spectrum of who can be jailed and sued. Anyone ready for the day that they get called to court for linking to a blog that links to site that somehow links to another site CP on it?

The only time that I think the spectrum was narrowed was the time Clinton signed an executive order officially acknowledging the existing of Area 51, but permanently denying the right to any information about it (FOIA or otherwise) which absolves the government of answering anything about it (see nasty polution problems and worker problems caused by it) ever. Enough said. Draw your own conclusions.

First post here - long time lurker that has gotten tired of the other boards that don't talk business anymore.

Jim, I've always read your posts here with great interest as you've given some incredible advice and insight over the years. I was a bit surprised at your stance on the issue considering the overwhelming stance of the adult industry on 2257 inspections on secondary producers. It seems a bit hypocritical to say the government has no right to ask for them, but the registrar does.

I think DirectNic overstepped their boundaries on this issue. While I feel they have every right to tell the individual that they don't care to be their registrar anymore, I don't think they should be locking down a domain and holding it hostage. They should tell him to transfer it out immediately or they will drop it. This leaves them with no liability.

It just seems like a bad road to go down if registrars start taking the law into their own hands. While CP is a major issue, it's an issue that should be dealt with by the authorities. If you receive complaints, you should demand them to transfer the domains and contact the authorities. Playing judge on something that registrars don't have experience in is opening the door to abuse, theft, and witch hunts.

I'm not sure if the posts supporting the decision are posts supporting having registrars be in charge of checking records, or just supporting an old friend.

I dont believe they (while I dont support the idea/law) did anything different than what is being discussed in the new bill before congress - they may have jumped a little, but I would think that they are just covering their ass in advance:

Heres the people the new law applies to :

the term `online service' includes any--

`(i) Internet content hosting service;

`(ii) domain name registration service;

`(iii) Internet search service;

`(iv) Internet social networking site, chat room, message board, or any other similar service using the Internet;

`(v) Internet service that provides e-mail, instant messaging, or any other similar service using the Internet;

`(vi) electronic communication service;

`(vii) Internet service provider (including any wireless carrier that provides Internet access);

`(viii) Internet image or video sharing service; and

`(ix) remote computing service; and

`(E) the term `remote computing service' has the meaning given that term in section 2711


This is all from the new S.4089 which amends Chapter 110 of title 18 sect 2257 and others - it makes it a crime for these providers to have the stuff and not report it (of course the keyword being "knowingly") but if theyve had it reported to them then I guess they "know"

The other important part of this is that it applies to "2252B. Misleading domain names on the Internet" - the new law that was enacted last year - so registrars would already have been "knowingly" breaking that law