Re: New DNS vulnerability: political overreach

[Rich R via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

You're not wrong. It's written in article 3 of the US constitution

On Sun, Jul 26, 2026 at 7:56 PM William Herrin via NANOG <
nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 19, 2026 at 4:05 AM Kevin Tillery via NANOG
> <nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> > A Texas court has suspended the .com domain of a Dutch porn site
> > which doesn't have any business presence in Texas, because it
> > doesn't comply with Texas rules about porn (which are extremely onerous):
> https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-secures-landmark-legal-victory-lock-pornographic-website-domain-and
> > Clearly the US is not fit to manage top-level domains
> > (other than .us of course) even though it ended up with
> > them by historical accident. It worked for a while but now
> > it's not working any more. Has anyone come up with any
> > plan to solve this and make the DNS more neutral?
>
> Hi folks,
>
> Here's my take on the matter:
>
> First, the law impacts network operations. Just as the "wild west" was
> tamed, the law's long arm will reach us more and more. So long as we
> can stay focused on the operational issues, I think that discussion is
> fair game here. And I think that includes discussing how we, as
> engineers, would like the law to evolve to better support network
> operations.
>
> Regarding the specific incident: .com is operated by a U.S. company
> and the web site operator (Kick) was sued in a U.S. court. If you want
> to continue doing business with a U.S. company, directly or
> indirectly, you can't ignore lawsuits in U.S. court. You have to
> respond. If you don't, the "prima facie" case goes unrebutted as do
> the proposed remedies. This is not unique to the United States. No
> matter which flag the .com operator flies, .com registrants will have
> to answer legal challenges in that flag's jurisdiction.
>
> Had Kick availed themselves of the U.S. legal process, the first thing
> they'd have done would have been to have the case removed from Texas
> court to Federal court. Paxton's case would likely have fallen apart
> from there. Kick didn't and "default judgements" bite hard.
>
> That said, I think it's an operational problem that federal law does
> not require orders compelling action from _TLD domain operators_ to go
> through federal court, regardless of the outcome of a state or local
> level case. The TLD operator is fundamentally international in scope.
> Under the U.S. legal system things that are fundamentally
> international in their nature are supposed to be exclusively in
> Federal jurisdiction. Am I wrong?
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
>
>
>
> --
> For hire. https://bill.herrin.us/resume/
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-- 
“You know, that might be the answer – to act boastfully about something we
ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail.”


― Joseph Heller, Catch-22 <https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/814330>
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