My old Kentucky Homepage, part four: Don't Go Daddy

The parties in the case of Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) v. Keisler et al have presented arguments to judge Thomas Wingate in the US Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit, Kentucky. So now we wait.

Thankfully, though, the wait in this particular part of the process isn’t too too long; just one week will pass before the ultimate final legally-binding decision is made. Probably. Maybe.

Rich Muny, Kentucky’s local representative of the Poker Players Alliance lobbying group, was quoted as stating that “I’ve seen Judge Wingate twice. Nothing of what I’ve seen lends credence to bias one way or another. He seems like he’s gathering up all of the information that he can.” Therefore, the Os Man has an unfortunate lack of prognosticative ability on the outcome; the bias, of course, is along the party line that the Kentucky seizure of 141 internationally-used domain names is unconstitutional.

Another chink in the armor of the state’s case would appear to be lie with a website that did not appear on Governor Steve Beshear’s blacklist: One TwinSpires.com. Twin Spires is a website owned by Kentucky-based Churchill Downs Incorporated; though the ‘site is naturally focused on horseracing, Twin Spires also offers quite the poker offering – a poker offering high-profile enough to have recently worked a deal with household name Phil Hellmuth. Certainly, argued pro-online gambling attorneys, the exclusion of Twin Spires in the domain-name seizure action represents unfair competition practices.

Certainly, Tuesday’s biggest loser was GoDaddy.com. Recently made ubiquitous in the media was the fact that Go Daddy had, based on a court order, coughed up domain name certificates from DoylesRoom.com and at least three others. Go Daddy’s reputation should be duly besmirched thanks to this cowardice, ironically in direct opposition to the company’s brave stand on censorship in a fake court of law.

Unfair practices and selling-out aside, Wingate’s decision will ultimately be based on the state of Kentucky argument that a domain name is a “gambling device” as defined as illegal and thus the basis for the seizure.

In the meantime, we’ll be crossing our virtual collective fingers while awaiting next week’s decision.

Next: The decision. Maybe. Probably.