The Commonwealth of Kentucky is taking another stab at getting its greasy fingers on the 141 internet domains it first tried to seize from online gaming companies in Sept. 2008. A hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 6 before Judge Thomas Wingate, during which Kentucky officials will try a new tack to justify their efforts to hijack the domains in question.
This time around, Kentucky is taking the à la carte route, requesting that the court peel off five of the 141 domains — playersonly.com, sportsbook.com, sportsinteraction.com, mysportsbook.com, and linesmaker.com – “in order to effectively manage the … determination of identification and ownership” of said sites. The case management order gives 30 days in which the owners of these five sites are to make their identities known or kiss their domains goodbye forever.
In prior court appearances, members of the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) have stood in for the owners of these sites. The Commonwealth has routinely objected to iMEGA’s claim of standing, despite iMEGA having produced an affidavit from the owners of TruePoker.com (one of the seized domains) citing their membership in iMEGA. Perhaps not coincidentally, TruePoker is not one of the five domains Kentucky has chosen to focus on this time around.
So will iMEGA produce affidavits from the owners of any of these five domains? If Kentucky succeeds in convincing the court to shut down these first five domains, will they continue on in this piecemeal fashion, or will they cite precedent and proceed with the other 136 sites all at once? Will it give Kentucky’s hard-hearted officials extra incentive to pursue their other gambling litigation/obsession, the action to reclaim third-party losses at sites like Full Tilt, PartyGaming and MicroGaming? If Kentucky loses any of these court actions, can the gambling companies compel them to surrender Col. Sanders’ secret blend of 14 herbs & spices? Tune in Dec. 6 for the answers to (probably) none of these questions.
