The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that the owners of 141 domains hosting web sites violating the state’s gambling laws will have to show up in court if they don’t want the state courts to order the registrars to transfer the ownership of the domains to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Back in 2008, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear sued in Franklin Circuit Court to give the state control of 141 domains that had been regarded as if they were gambling devices like slot machines.
The Circuit Court scheduled a forfeiture hearing during which only the owners of the domains could prove their points against the seizure. And later the gaming trade association which claimed to have amongst their members the owners of most of the 141 domains obtained from the Kentucky Court of Appeal a writ that prohibited the forfeiture of the domains.
According to the latest ruling of the Kentucky Supreme Court, trade groups like the iMEGA and the IGC lacked standing to pursue the writ as they never revealed which domain owners they represented.
“The cyber-age status of their members does not let IMEGA and IGC escape traditional standing requirements” reads the ruling. “IMEGA and IGC lack standing and therefore their writ petition should have been denied.”
Kentucky’s Justices then added: “This is not to say that the failure to establish standing in this writ action completely forecloses relief by a way of writ in the future.”
In other words: if the domains owners come forward, the writ petition to block the forfeiture could be re-filed with the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court would then accept it “as the merits of the argument have already been briefed and argued before it.”
Read the entire Kentucky Supreme Court ruling
