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On July 7th 2011, Verisign issued a statement declaring that all .com, .net, .org and many other domain names would become under United States (US) jurisdiction. Websites containing these domain names, which were registered outside of US, have encountered various implications for multiple reasons. Firstly, although these websites are registered in a country other than the US, they are subjected to US law despite the fact that the registrar might be living in a country with differentiating laws. The Bodog.com case is a clear example of this. Secondly, the US now has authority to actually seize a website and hold the website’s registrar accountable if their website is deemed to be illegal under US laws. Lastly, this is a clear case of the US abusing its power and acting as a sovereign nation over other countries. The citizens of a particular country have the right to follow and abide by their country’s own rules and in no way should be subjugated to the laws if another country. Domain names, such as .com and .org, are widely used across the world and US jurisdiction is causing non-US users to face several repercussions.
A major implication resulting from the US having jurisdiction over commonly used domain names is the fact that all individuals who are registering their website in a country other than the US will have to abide by US laws and regulations, even if those laws do not apply to the country that they are living in. The Bodog.com case, for instance, shows multiple implications due to US internet jurisdiction. Bodog.com was a free online sports gaming website that was registered in the Canada by Calvin Ayre. The website was known to have limited access to US citizens and was thus seized by Homeland Security for conducting i...

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...ations that would otherwise have no effect in other countries. In the UK, it is not illegal to create a website that hosts links to pirated material as long as the website does not contain the pirated material itself (U.S. Claims Global Jurisdiction of .net and .com Web Sites: Is .edu Next?) and should therefore have not been an issue for O’Dwyer but this newly declared US jurisdiction proves otherwise. Another case was brought up with Canadian website rojadirecta.org, which was also seized by the US. This website was found legal under Canadian jurisdiction, but was subsequently seized by a US seizure warrant. This questions Canadian power over its citizens and the influence of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom as opposed to US jurisdiction.

Furthermore, instead of making illegal content inaccessible to its US citizens, it is seizing the websites entirely

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