California District Court Injunction against Dynadot, the WikiLeakS.org Domain Registrar

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Here is the text of the Injunction against the WikiLeakS.org Domain Name Registrar Dynadot LLC.

Below, via a Wikileaks Cover Name URL, is the text of the Injunction - see the WikiLeakS Dynadot-injunction.pdf page for the original:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION

BANK JULIUS BAER & CO. LTD, a
Swiss entity; and JULIUS BAER BANK
AND TRUST CO. LTD, a Cayman Island
entity,

Plaintiffs,

vs.

WIKILEAKS, an entity of unknown form;
WIKILEAKS.ORG, an entity of unknown
form; DYNADOT, LLC, a California
limited liability company; and DOES 1
through 10, inclusive,

"DOES" means "John Doe(s) " i.e. a person or persons unknown

Defendants.


Case No. CV08-0824 JSW
ORDER GRANTING
PERMANENT INJUNCTION

The word "PROPOSED]" is crossed through in the .pdf image

The Court, having considered the stipulation between Plaintiffs JULIUS BAER & CO. LTD and JULIUS BAER BANK AND TRUST CO. LTD. (collectively “Julius Baer” and/or “Plaintiff’s”) and Defendant DYNADOT LLC (“Dynadot”), the complaint, and other papers, evidence, and arguments presented by the parties, and finding that immediate harm will result to Plaintiffs in the absence of injunctive relief,

What "immediate harm" can a Domain Name Registration do to anyone ?

If the name itself was, obscene, defamatory or infringed on the plaintiff's registered trade mark, or the control or ownership of the name was in dispute i.e. the usual legal worries about domain name registrations, then perhaps, but these are plainly not in question with WikiLeaks.org

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:

1. Dynadot shall immediately lock the wikileaks.org domain name to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar, and shall immediately disable the wikileaks.org domain name and account to prevent access to and any changes from being made to the domain name and account information, until further order of this Court.

2. Dynadot shall immediately disable the wikileaks.org domain name and account such that the optional privacy who-is service for the domain name and account remains turned off, until further order of this Court.

3. Dynadot shall preserve a true and correct copy of both current and any and all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account.

4. Dynadot shall immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court.

5. Dynadot shall immediately produce both current and any all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account, including, but not limited to, all data for the registrant; billing, technical and administrative contacts; all account and payment records and associated data; and IP addresses and associated data used by any person, other than Dynadot, who accessed the account for the domain name, to the extent such information is maintained by Dynadot.

6. Plaintiffs shall immediately upon entry of this order file a dismissal with prejudice in favor of Dynadot. Notwithstanding the foregoing, plaintiffs and Dynadot stipulate and agree that the Court shall retain jurisdiction to enforce this order.

Why did the Judge order the Plaintiffs to "file a dismissal with prejudice in favor of Dynadot", but not Wikileaks or Wikileaks.org or the "John Does(s)" ?

A "dismissal with prejudice" apparently means that the claim that is dismissed may not be brought again in any court.

Dated: February 15 , 2008

Jeffrey S. White
United States District Judge

Why is a Californian Court meddling with matters which are outside of its jurisdiction i.e. a Swiss Bank, its Cayman Islands tax avoidance / money laundering subsidiaries and alleged documents on web servers physically and legally located in Sweden ?

There is no mention of the actual alleged documents being under an injunction.

Bank Julius Baer and its shyster lawyers Lavely & Singer are only going to get bad publicity and widespread ridicule from this vexatious llitigation harassment, which has done nothing to suppress the alleged documents they are pretending to be worried about.

Surely there is a case for suing Bank Julius Baer and Lavely & Singer for malicious prosecution under California's anti-SLAPP legilation ?

See Wikipedia article on California Anti-SLAPP Project

2 Comments

It appears to me that Dynadot simply gave in to Baer's demands and "stipulated" or agreed to the order drafted by one or both parties, probably in order to avoid the possibility of paying any damages or having to pay lawyers to defend the company. It looks like the judge simply rubberstamped what the two parties had agreed to. He had jurisdiction because Dynadot is in California. He dismissed the case with prejudice against Dynadot because they apparently agreed to do what Baer wanted. Since Wikilieaks and the "John Does" apparently had nothing to do with this and didn't agree to anything the case would still be open against them.

@ anonymous - Dynadot LLC only charge $6.99 per year for a .org domain name registration, which is not a lot of profit with which to fund expensive lawyers.

However, the litigious attack on what should be the neutral Domain Name System infrastructure may well come back to haunt Julius Baer and their lawyers Lavely & Singer.

How many people who would never have noticed or been interested in the allegedly leaked documents will now read them and even mirror copies of them around the world ?

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Recent Comments

  • WikiLeak: @ anonymous - Dynadot LLC only charge $6.99 per year read more
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