ALL .com, .net and .org websites are subject to U.S. laws

The Internet is, undeniably, a global community. Anybody from anywhere all across the world can start up a website and start producing content. Well, it turns out that, even if the website is owned an operated outside of the United States, the U.S. government probably still has control over it.

Now that SOPA and PIPA are effectively dead and their big brother ACTA has emerged, people are getting more an more conscious of just who governs the Internet these days. Thankfully, the U.S. government has made it all abundantly clear: It does.

The three most popular URL endings (.com, .net and .org) are all within the U.S.'s sphere of control. How is this possible, you might ask? A report by the good folks over at Wired lays it out. 

It turns out that, if you have a website on prime Internet real estate (a .com or .net ending), then a company based in the state of Virginia called VeriSign is managing it. VeriSign has possessed the contract to manage all this content for 12 years, and it is this reason that the U.S. can affect any website with certain URL endings. 

Take Bodog.com for example. When the government wanted to take it down, it didn't go after the site directly, it went to VeriSign. It didn't matter that Bodog was based in Canada with a Canadian registrar. With a court-mandated seizure, the U.S. still had power over it. This has reportedly happened with over 750 websites, most of which are registered with a foreign registrar. 

In Bodog's case in particular, the website was shutdown because it allowed online gambling and payoff, which is generally illegal by federal law in the U.S. While this is not illegal worldwide, the U.S. federal government was still able to dismantle this site, possibly forever. 

The U.S. may also shut down websites with .org URLs, as they are managed by the Public Interest Registry, a Virginia-based non-profit company. 

Recently, the U.S. performed a similar lawful takedown, that of MegaUpload.com, shortly after the defeat of SOPA and PIPA in Congress. This was not done in the same manner, however, as MegaUpload was based in the state of Washington. 

This is not the first time concern has been raised about this issue, either. The UN has been seeking to hand VeriSign and the Public Interest Registry's responsibilities over to a more global division since 2005, but the U.S. has not supported this.

This control over the Internet prime real estate is one of many reasons why some websites are opting out of the up-to-now standard .com endings. For example, The Pirate Bay has switched over to a site with a .se URL, the ending for sites based in Sweden. 

Since the .com URL ending is still nearly synonymous with "website," it would be hard to orchestrate a mass migration to other endings, but this could be a trendsetting move. At the very least, it'll be something to consider when creating new websites.