Kentucky seizes 141 internet domains connected to internet gambling

Back in March, I wrote an article entitled "Don't register or host your domain in the U.S. if it's controversial" in which I showed the various ways in which either the government or private parties could use the legal system to seize your domain name and shut you down.

Today, I read an article in the Lexington Herald-Leader which tells of how the state of Kentucky comandeered 141 domain names belonging to internet gambling sites. Interestingly enough, the major gripe Kentucky seems to have with online gambling is that it competes with Kentucky's own state-sponsored gambling.

At any rate, Kentucky seems to have obtained a court order from Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate ordering the domains in question be transferred to the state of Kentucky. It is unclear from the article exactly whom the order was sent to.

Soloway comes clean — "Pure greed" made him do it

From MSNBC: ‘Pure greed’ led spammer to bombard inboxes.

One last interview before Soloway goes to prison. He comes clean about his motivation (greed), how many emails he wound up sending (over 10 Trillion), how he felt about flooding the inboxes of all those people (just hit delete), and how much he made ($20,000 a day).

No pity on my part for most of the people who lost money to Soloway — they were spammers too, and if I was in charge, I'd be thinking about bringing charges against them as well.

In contrast to this article, see an interview from last month in the Seattle PI: 'Spam King' once felt 'invincible'.

Virginia Supreme Court strikes down Virginia anti-spam law; Jeremy Jaynes will possibly go free

This just in from the Washington Post: Va. Supreme Court Strikes Down State's Anti-Spam Law

Background: In 2006, I reported (prematurely, it turns out) that porn and fraud spammer Jeremy Jaynes had lost his appeal after having been convicted under the Virginia anti-spam law which prohibited fradulent header information in spam.

Today, the Washington Post story reports that the Virginia supreme court has ruled that a person's constitutional right to anonymity overrides the anti-spam law.

Does this mean Jaynes will go free? It's too early to tell; it may still be possible to prosecute him for stock and other fraud.

More importantly, what does this do to other anti-spam laws, including CAN SPAM? It's too early to tell, and I'm not a lawyer anyway, but it seems to me that this could have repercussions on the provisions of CAN SPAM which require that the spammer provide truthful contact information.