An appeal against the US government’s domain name seizure policy has been rejected, it has been reported.
Over the past year, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has assumed control of a number of websites used to support suspected illegality.
One of the affected parties – Puerto 80, the owners of Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org – sought to challenge the seizure of its domain names in the federal court.
The firm was using the domain names to provide links to live sports streams, violating the rights owners’ copyright in the process, until the ICE intervened in February 2011.
However, the US law enforcement policy has been upheld by Judge Paul Crotty in the US District court for the Southern District of New York.
“The main purpose of the Rojadirecta websites…is to catalog links to the copyrighted athletic events,” he stated.
“Any argument to the contrary is clearly disingenuous.”
Justifying its enforcement approach, the ICE recently said that seizing domain names used for illegal purposes may dissuade individuals from engaging in criminality over the internet.