You might be right. We may not know for sure until and unless the root servers are moved out and the courts decide.

On the other hand if the Root servers are allowed to be moved, looking long term and the Verisign contract is up in 2012, my guess would be a non-US company maybe awarded the new contract.

Currently I’m thinking that even if the root servers are outside the U.S., non-U.S. registrants can still have legal issues with their .com domain names, for instance, as long as the .com Registry remains in Virginia or whatever jurisdiction it’s in. Dell locked out BelgiumDomains et al, though that’s limited to trademark infringement and not necessarily every other matter.

Then again, that depends on the type of legal issue, and domain registrants may not necessarily be affected themselves other than losing their domain names. *knock on wood*

I think if you read some of the cases US courts have given jurisdiction to US courts based on the root servers being based in Virgina, with jurisdiction in Virgina.

Verisign can manage the servers no matter where the servers are located.

If he did let the root servers leave the US then the jurisdiction that US courts have taken over non-US domain registrants would disappear and asssuming you were non-US based and you used a non-US based registrar, you would not longer be subject to US laws.

I think something’s being confused here. While Obama might “let go” of the root servers, the authoritative Registry of the domain name extension might still remain in U.S. soil.

Last I checked, VeriSign is contracted to manage 2 of them. But that’s (probably) separate from their contract with ICANN to manage the .com and .net Registry.

Unless I’m missing something…

I agree but you would have to strongly assume the US government would only give up control to a country like Switzerland with the servers sitting in Gevena and would not agree to let Beijing have them.

U.S. courts can hurt, but they can also protect you.