I'm fully aware of the 1200 domains taken down.
Okay. Good.
I should actually correct my original statement because I think it was 1800, and not 1200! However given that you are aware of the take down of all of those domain names, back in 2009, would you agree that this isn't simply "straight off the back of the wiki leaks hysteria"?
Also, have you heard or read anything from anyone that claimed to be connected with any of the domain names that were taken down in 2009? Have you read any complaints from their Registrants or read about any domain names being reinstated if, perhaps, mistakes were made?
However I absolutely don't agree with you that the police acting alone should have these rights as already stated. I'd prefer a society where the rule of law is enforced by the police, not decided by the police.
Surely, though, if the police had to make an application to the court before doing
anything to counter suspected illegal activities, many such activities would outpace the police's abilities to stop them quickly?
At the moment the police don't have to apply to a court to seize counterfeit DVDs or other goods from traders at a car boot sale. However, in the case of the Internet, if they want to shut down web sites selling counterfeit goods they need to apply to a court. What makes selling counterfeit goods on the Internet more illicit, is that those doing so have much more of an ability to purport to be legitimate outlets rather than obvious counterfeit outlets. If someone is standing at a car boot sale selling Addidas trainers at knock down prices, there's more likely to be an assumption by all that they're either stolen or counterfeit. Spend a few hours making a decent web site, with a legitimate sounding .co.uk, and many more people might not realise.
Do you appreciate my points here?
Look at the fiasco that is the digital economy act, rushed through by mandy and his cronies at the behest of lobbyists acting on behalf rights holders. Unquestionably in the eyes of a lawyer with a brain parts of this bill do not pass the legal test. The act itself is under judicial review and for sure will end up in ECHR if left unchanged in the UK courts and I know where my money would be on the outcome of such a decision. Scumbags like ACS law can only attempt to abuse the rights of the public when ill conceived laws are rushed through parliament.
The Digital Economy Bill doesn't really relate to this consultation. I agree that there are flaws in that bill. However I don't believe it is correct to muddy the waters by linking the two. Nominet is not the former Labour Government.
As for the 1200 offending domains, even if every one of those was proven to be a scam site it is nothing to the number of people scammed via Ebay. Do you think the police will be calling Nominet to have ebay taken down? Never going to happen.
Ebay already has very reasonable take down procedures. Example: I wanted to buy an iPhone 4 a few days before going abroad to travel, last year. Apple.com said 3 weeks so my only option was eBay UK. I monitored several sales for SIM free, sealed iPhone 4's and I set AuctionSniper to bid on one. Just before the auction ended, eBay pulled it. They suspected fraud for some reason. I ended up bidding on another auction, or maybe it was a BIN (I forget), and got the iPhone 4 as advertised the next day. Also, several years ago, for some unknown reason, eBay locked my account because they thought I was somehow linked to someone they suspected was doing something naughty (I've forgotten as it was 5 years ago). They'd only unlock my account after I communicated with them and faxed a copy of my passport to prove I actually existed/was real. I did that and the account was unlocked very quickly. I've still no idea what the original issue was but they obviously jumped on something they didn't like.
Given eBay has take down procedures, and actively polices their site, there is no need for the police to consider taking the site down as a whole. Those domain names related to obvious scammer run sites which had no such self policing procedures because, by the very nature of them being scammer run sites, they had no interest in policing themselves!
As you point out the police do not have powers to ask Nominet to take down sites and I hope it stays that way. In exceptional circumstances, eg. an open and shut case of paedo sites, few people would argue against this. However a carte blanche law that simply states "the police have the right to ask Nominet to shut down websites" I believe to be plain wrong.
I believe the point of the consultation is to debate this so it isn't so open and shut. There have to be rules and procedures before the police can act. Reasonable evidence of criminal activity?
If all it was about was shutting down fraudulent websites they could work with / tweak existing law, eg. fast track court orders after panel of police, Nominet and a lawyer have deemed the sites as most likely illegal.
I don't doubt that the list of domain names wasn't looked at by Nominet's legal department before a decision was made. Given they deal with domain names every day of the week, who else involved in the legal profession would you suggest is
more qualified to make decisions about this?
It is always the sledgehammer approach taken and invariably opens the door to abuse. Curtailing free speech on .uk domains would be entirely possible if the police were to have the powers to shut down any website.
It seems, to me, that you're perhaps the one who is jumping to quite large conclusions over what this consultation means. The point of the consultation is to consult over the issue and try to define a structure whereby certain sites can be quickly pulled based on yet to be defined appropriate criteria. Do you really think it has to be an all or nothing situation (i.e. any power given is too much, so therefore give none)?
The joke of it all is the scammers will just move to another extension. While they'd prefer a .uk they can still scam UK consumers with other tld's and all that will have been achieved is a new law that allows the police to decide what website can be up or down.
Sure they can. But I'd rather they did it from anything other than .uk. I don't want my interests in that devalued.