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Bookmaker is now Bookmaker.eu or Bookmaker.com was Bmaker.ag and is now Bookmaker.eu. Need a scorecard?
The oldest established North American facing online bookmaker is following the trend of others in the sector to move to the more recognizable .eu domain extension.
The European Union has backed the online gambling industry whereas the United States made it clear they don’t want these establishments using the .com extension, which comes under the authority of the US Government.
The DOJ has aggressively seized online gambling, counterfeiting and sports streaming websites.
In June, one of Spain’s most popular sports streaming websites, Rojadirecta .com, appeared before a New York federal judge. This is believed to be the first challenge to “Operation in Our Sites.”
Commenced last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has seized as many as 208 domains the authorities claim are linked to intellectual-property fraud.
Puerto 80, which claims the Rojadirecta site sports 865,000 registered users, said it has committed no copyright infringement.
“The government has not shown and cannot show that the site ever was used to commit a criminal act, much less that it will be in the future. By hosting discussion forums and linking to existing material on the internet, Puerto 80 is not committing copyright infringement, let alone criminal copyright infringement,” (.pdf) according to the site’s legal filing, first reported by TechDirt.
The U.S. government is taking .com, .org. and .net domains with court approval, under the same civil seizure law the government invokes to seize brick-and-mortar drug houses, bank accounts and other property tied to illegal activity, Wired.com notes.
The Firefox browser supports an add-on that redirects seized domains. The browser’s maker, Mozilla, declined the government’s request to remove it.
Bookmaker.com’s domain was seized as part of an expansion to these efforts.
“We are going to see a big change when it comes to Internet domains and a total restructuring in the coming years,” an expert told Gambling911.com. “There will come a time soon when the .com’s and .org’s will no longer have much significance.”
The vast majority of Internet gambling sites catering to the North American market have begun shifting to the .eu extension.
- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
