An interesting story in Slate.com last night highlighting the site Art.sy, but more generally the problem buying, registering 0r renewing an domain name with the .Sy extension, if your subject to US law.
.Sy is the ccTLD for Syria which is run by an agency of the Syrian government, NANS.
“On Aug. 10, 2011, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Commercial Bank of Syria a Specially Designated National (SDN) and froze all property and assets of the bank. ”
“This prohibited U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions including payments, transfers, and “other dealings” in which the bank had an interest. A week later President Obama announced Executive Order 13582, which prohibited “investment in Syria by a United States person, wherever located.”
“Penalties for each violation could include OFAC civil penalties of up to $250k or twice the value of the transaction. DOJ may also pursue criminal penalties, up to $1m and 20 years in prison.”
The representative of Art.sy told Slate.com that they purchased a domain through a third party Marcaria.com, a seller of international domain names with headquarters in the British Virgin Islands. ” prior to the Executive Order which made it immune to the order.
“With annual subscription fees being paid to NANS through the Commercial Bank of Syria, Art.sy appears to have been, quite by accident, breaking both the OFAC ruling and the executive order.”
The article quotes “Clif Burns, a lawyer who works on economic sanctions matters in the Washington office of Bryan Cave LL who said Art.sy’s problem is not the buying of their name”:
“The problem comes up on annual renewal. ”
“The sanctions that are in play here have been longer than a year [since Art.sy last renewed its domain name in April 2011], so that’s going to be trouble for everybody. ”
“There’s a general provision that would prohibit any financial transactions with the Syrian government. And that’s going to be in both OFAC rules and the executive order.”
“But could this really be prosecuted? “Yes, if somebody made the payment and didn’t get a license, this could be prosecuted,” Burns says. “After all, they chase people for Cuban cigars.””
It’s not too late to make the move to artsy.com
I think I can live without registering any .SY.
It would be interesting to see if/how that was enforced, in the case of owning a .sy domain name here in the States. Up to 20 years in prison? Crazy. Certainly the US government has better things they should be worrying about.