U.S. Treasury Department Shuts Down Foreign-Owned Domain Names

Kevin Drum, regarding this story in today’s Times about an English travel agent whose domain names were shut off by the U.S. Treasury Department:

So that’s that. Register your domain name through a U.S. company and your business goes kaput if the U.S. Treasury Department decides it doesn’t like you. It doesn’t matter if you’re based in Britain, your servers are in the Bahamas, your customers are mostly European, and you’ve broken no laws. No warning. Just kaput.

Solution: make sure your business has as little connection to the U.S. as you possibly can. I’m sure the rest of the world is getting this message loud and clear.

★ Tuesday, 4 March 2008