The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency have seized 307 domain names for allegedly selling counterfeit merchandise, ahead of the NFL Super Bowl.
According to Ars Technica, ICE Agents are using civil forfeiture laws (usually invoked in narcotics cases) to force domain name registrars Verisign and the Public Interest Registry to hand over the domain names of websites selling counterfeit merchandise.
Because Versisign (registrars for .net and .com domains) and Public Interest Registry (registrars for .org domains) are based in the US, they are subject to US intellectual property and civil forfeiture laws.
The news comes against the backdrop of increased public interest in US online intellectual property laws in the aftermath of the Wikipedia blackout.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
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