On 28 July 2026 17:47:41 CEST, Tom Beecher via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
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.
Generally yes, but there are exceptions. There are certain claims that are exclusively in the federal jurisdiction , and state courts cannot hear them. There are also instances where if a state law says its courts do not have to hear a given matter, they cannot be forced to hear it on federal grounds, unless the federal statute expressly requires it. ( Douglas vs NY, NH & HR , 279 US 377 (1929 ) )
.Violent agreement with you that risking default in any case, even if it seems absurd, is a bad strategy.
Getting back to the technical issue though, all these things do is reinforce the thought that if you are using a domain for commercial purposes , you probably want to strongly consider one managed by a non-US registrar if possible, as long as the legal environment is such that any state AG trying to make hay can just yeet you offline on a whim.
On Mon, Jul 27, 2026 at 11:13 PM John R. Levine via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
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
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_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/6DAHEFBA... Note: As I understand it, a non-US registry isn't sufficient - it must be under another country's ccTLD, as all gTLDs sign a contract with ICANN to enforce US law.
Many ccTLDs are also, unexpectedly, run by US entities or entities associated with the US, as we saw recently when a partially US-owned registry seized t.me from Telegram.