6

If SOPA is passed, it is obviously going to cause a lot of trouble for sites such as those part of the Stack Exchange network.

Being a European resident, I'm thinking that, if SOPA becomes a law, moving your business out of the US and stop using .com/.net/.org/etc. addresses for your site should make it available for internet users outside the US, even if it becomes censored in the US.

Am I right in this? Or are there technical implications of SOPA that I don't understand? Obviously I realize that US based internet companies would like to remain US based and that there are economical elements to SOPA, but if you were to consider this question from a purely technical viewpoint, will SOPA affect non-US users of sites based outside the US not using .com/.net/.org/etc. addresses?

| improve this question | |
  • 6
    sorry buddy, you missed the upvote train ;) – Lorem Ipsum Nov 30 '11 at 7:30
  • Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/114085/… – phwd Nov 30 '11 at 7:43
  • 1
    ...and stop using .com/.net/.org/etc. addresses for your site should make it available for internet users outside the US. Huh? What's that supposed to do? I'm a private person living in Austria and I own a .org domain for my private website. – Time Traveling Bobby Nov 30 '11 at 8:12
  • Bobby: as far as I understand, .com, etc. are regulated in the US meaning they could shut down the name resolving of aforementioned addresses. But, please, correct me if I'm wrong? – David Nordvall Nov 30 '11 at 9:11
  • phwd: Yeah, I've read that question but it's not really the same question and the one answer it has gotten doesn't apply to my question as it doesn't look at it from a technological viewpoint. – David Nordvall Nov 30 '11 at 9:13
  • 1
    @David If you're sure this isn't a duplicate of either 114085 or 114005, I'm not sure it is on-topic here. It seems like you are asking about all sites in general, not just SE sites. – Jason Plank Nov 30 '11 at 10:34
  • 1
    I guess it applies to sites in general, not sure where to post it though. Superuser? Stack Overflow? – David Nordvall Nov 30 '11 at 11:48
  • @DavidNordvall: I don't think so. I've never heard that the domain-name matters, only where the server and/or company is. The real problem is not revoking domain names (which can only be done with a court order afaik), but removal notices against the company, and if they don't react, shutdown notices against the ISP/Serverprovider. – Time Traveling Bobby Nov 30 '11 at 12:08
  • @JasonPlank, this is ultimately a legal question that happens to touch on technology. Since the OP is interested in how the proposed law would affect Stack Exchange specifically, I think it's okay here. – Pops Nov 30 '11 at 15:07
  • 1
    Well you need to change your title and starting statements @David, it's misleading at least to me. Your last paragraph is asking about something different which in my opinion has nothing to do with StackExchange specifically. "will SOPA affect non-US users of sites based outside the US not using .com/.net/.org/etc. addresses?" No, not currently until your government pushes their own version of SOPA. But this is off-topic for here honestly. – phwd Nov 30 '11 at 20:34

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .