In a landmark ruling, a U.S. federal court has agreed with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that the country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) are not property subject to attachment and thus overruled an attempt to seize Iran's, Syria's and North Korea's domains as part of a lawsuit against those countries' governments.
"We are pleased that the court ruled in our favor on the grounds that the ccTLDs are not property, subject to attachment", said John Jeffrey, ICANN's General Counsel and Secretary. "The court's ruling demonstrates a technical understanding of the DNS, and the role of ccTLDs in the single, global, interoperable Internet."