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Kentucky circuit court Judge Thomas Wingate has ordered owners of 141 domain names to appear at a November 17th forfeiture hearing, and demonstrate that they are blocking traffic from Kentucky. If the domain owners do not appear, or if they do not screen Kentucky traffic, the domains will be forfeited to the commonwealth.
In issuing his ruling, Judge Wingate misapplied several existing Kentucky laws - in particular, the law defining “gambling devices” - and long-standing principles regarding his court’s jurisdiction over the matter. The judge even reached back to law that was revoked more than 30 years ago to shoehorn the definition of domain names into a so-called definition of gambling devices.
“This decision must not be allowed to stand, because of the threat it poses to the Internet as a whole,” said Joe Brennan Jr., chairman of iMEGA. “Judge Wingate has ignored the clear laws of his own state in coming to a decision that essentially green-lights any jurisdiction - in the US and abroad - to ignore our rights and abuse their power to do away with competition or speech or content with which they oppose, regardless of the law. This is a dark day for Internet freedom.”
Given the jeopardy in which not only i-gaming but the entire Internet industry has been placed by Judge Wingate’s short-sighted ruling, iMEGA’s legal is already preparing it’s challenge to the ruling in both the State and Federal courts.
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