According to Tom Beecher via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org>:
My concern, and this is where I think the law could stand improvement, is that the court co-opted a distant third party in its remedy for the dispute. They interfered with a contract between Verisign and one of its registrars, neither of which was a party to the lawsuit about Kick's behavior, neither of which was accused of any wrongdoing, and neither of which was more than tenuously operating within the court's geographical jurisdiction. That doesn't seem like something the law should allow, at least not of a state court.
I agree. But I don't think it's a case of the law needing improvement. This is a problem with the Texas state courts ruling on things that seem to be very clearly a federal question , which they have been doing with increasing regularity in the last decade or so.
That's the way courts work in the US. If someone files a case in a state court, the court will assume it has jurisdiction unless the defendant argues otherwise. That's why it's such a bad idea to default: the court's not going to make your argument for you. I have my concerns about Texas courts, but I believe in this kind of situation any state court would have done the same. R's, John -- Regards, John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly