UK Police want to Shut down Illegal Websites

[ParamouR]

UK domain registrar Nominet has been approached by British police in a bid to take over domains of “Illegal Websites” and shut them down it has emerged.

The domain giant has said it received a request from the UK policing board to implement a system in which they would be allowed to seize a domain and shut it down.

The current registrant Terms & Conditions do not state (at least not clearly) that domains may not be used in an unlawful way. Interestingly Nominet agrees with the request and noting that other registries including .org have a similar process already in place.

If (or when) this is implemented, Nominet will be notified assumingly by a UK law firm of the activity under a specific domain name. Nominet will then be able to suspend a domain it believes could possibly be committing a crime under UK law.

Having a system in place to take down so called “illegal websites” is all well and good, but what exactly “illegal” will include leaves a lot to be desired. Especially when it comes to the way file sharing is being handled in UK law.

Source : UTC

[slikrapid]

Having a system in place to take down so called “illegal websites” is all well and good, but what exactly “illegal” will include leaves a lot to be desired.

no its not good, since they can take down a site without a proper legal process, involving a trial & court order - the intent here is to avoid the legal hassle and transfer the deciding process/authority onto lower levels, so they can be the judge-jury-executioner all-in-one, closing websites at will, as some wannabe law firm or content provider or their associates demand it, without the need to even prove their claims:

it believes could possibly be committing a crime under UK law.

yeah? how about proving it, where's the warrant, then?

not to mention the term 'illegal website' is ridiculous in itself, since the site alone cannot be illegal (unless it was first created through an illegal process, which is highly unlikely), rather the contents of it or the activities on it may be illegal, but as said before, all these things have to be proven first, in any decent society, that is