Seized

THE domain, Bodog.com, has been reportedly seized by the Department of Homeland Security agents. The news was allegedly first broken by Bill Beatty of CalvinAyre.com. He stated in his article: “This seizure of Bodog.com is a bit odd as the domain name hasn’t been operational for quite some time and isn’t in use for any active commerce anywhere in the world.”

He thinks it could be some sort of “revenge action” as a “punishment for its past licensing of the domain name to a company with US facing business.”

He asked publisher and Bodog Brand founder Calvin Ayre about the seizure, “Not sure what to say. BodogBrand.com is a brand-licensing organisation based outside the US. The brand left the market last year and the domain in question has been dormant globally for longer than that. We are only currently doing brand licensing deals outside the US so this domain had no place in any of our current plans.”

He thinks that other companies could be in the firing line too and it’s all part of a scare tactic: “Sportsbook.com, BetOnline.com and Merge Gaming Network (rumoured to be owned by Sportsbook.com) all use a .com for their online business. Other sites such as BetUS.com and LockPoker.com use a redirect to send their traffic to a more friendly country coded domain such as BetUS.com.pa but as we’ve just seen, the US Government will seize inactive domains in an effort to intimidate internationally licensed companies.”