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Comment by malfist

5 hours ago

Since when does a judge in NY get to tell Greenland they can't have their registrar sell to Anna's Archive?

30 comments

malfist

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dewey  4 hours ago

This is nothing new. Remember when the US pressured Sweden into taking down the pirate bay (Very unsuccessfully)? Using global influence to get countries to do something that they would not do on their own has always been the case.

  • boxed  4 hours ago

    Pretty successfully I would say. Armed police raided the server hosting provider scaring the shit out of some dudes who were just monitoring the power basically. And people went to prison.

    • dewey  3 hours ago

      Depends on your definition of successful. If the goal was to take down the website that didn't work as it was back online hours after and is online to this day even if the organization behind it probably changed.

jubilanti  4 hours ago

> Since when does a judge in NY get to tell Greenland they can't have their registrar sell to Anna's Archive?

Since September 30, 1998, when ICANN was founded in the US.

  • aaomidi  4 hours ago

    cTLDs do things very differently

    • gmueckl  2 hours ago

      But the authoritative root server set is maintained by ICANN, so they have ultimate control (for now) and can essentially dictate terms for all TLDs.

      I wonder whether we wventually see some other power establish their own root servers which mirror only the parts of ICANNs DNS that are politically convenient to whoever does this.

philistine  1 hour ago

ICANN is a US-registered company. National registrars are in a relationship with ICANN. Ultimately, if you dig deep enough, the Internet's trust layer is US-owned infrastructure.

advisedwang  1 hour ago

Per the article:

> However, most of the intermediaries are foreign entities. Whether they voluntarily comply with a U.S. court order remains to be seen. While some foreign companies have taken action following U.S. injunctions, others have historically ignored them, citing a lack of local jurisdiction.

AnimalMuppet  4 hours ago

There is a long history of judges thinking that they can render judgments internationally. (Not just in the US, either.) I suspect it's more performance art than an actual expectation that the judgment will do anything.

  • Aurornis  4 hours ago

    It’s not as weird or US-specific as always assumed. If someone brings a case in a US jurisdiction the judge isn’t going to say, “Sorry, they’re international, they’re free to commit those crimes.” They issue a judgment according to the law and leave the enforcement to the limits of jurisdiction.

    These judgments aren’t always pointless. Many Internet companies and services intersect with the US in some way, so there could be an angle where this impacts them.

    Businesses operating strictly in other countries don’t need to comply with foreign laws except in cases where they need to do business with those countries, at which point it becomes complicated and they may choose to comply to avoid problems or sanctions.

  • wat10000  4 hours ago

    Performance art is a huge part of the justice system. That's why there's the funny clothes and titles. A major function of the system is to convince people that its authority is real and its actions are fair. It has the power of the state, but it still needs most people to obey it willingly in order for it to function.

    Crazy judgments happen because they give the impression of impartiality. An accused murderer with $10 to his name gets held on a $1 million bond. What's the point, why not just hold them without bail? Because the rules say you do it this way and shrugging and saying "it doesn't actually matter so who cares?" doesn't make people feel like the system has the proper attitude.