internet website domain-name tonga
Why Tonga domains (.to) are not legally shut down, for websites tolerating piracy?
<p><strong>UPDATE</strong>: due to lack of clarity in the initial question, I have completely revised it. I, hopefully, made it more comprehensible now.</p>

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<p>I often see sites which illegally distribute copyright-protected content (torrents and alike) using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.to" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>.to</code></a> domain name (which belongs to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Kingdom of Tonga</a>). </p>

<p>This makes me curious to know:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Why aren't this domains legally seized from their owners and/or shut down? </p>

<ul>
<li>As <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ICANN</a> is located in the US, I'd expect it to operate under the US laws. Does it's authority is restricted, when dealing with other country's domain? </li>
</ul></li>
<li><p>Are there any special "<em>Total internet freedom</em>" laws in Tongo, or they just do not care that their TLD is used (<em>?abused</em>) in such way?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I do not want to link to exact sites here (I believe for obvious reasons). But I know a number of content-sharing sites, which were legally deprived of their domain name, and had to move to another one (not all of them, but some moved to <code>.to</code> domain). With that said, I have never heard <code>.to</code> domain to be legally taken away, in alike cases.</p>

<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ICANN</a> operates under US law, but that is irrelevant to <code>.to</code> (Tonga's domain). ICANN does not run <code>.to</code>. As for  Tonga itself, they presumably could prosecute these piracy sites, but why bother? The cost would fall on Tonga, but none of the benefits.</p>

<p>Taking control of the registered domain of a site would require multiple organizations to coordinate and would ultimately be a mostly pointless exercise, since the site would just move to a new domain name.  ICANN (and all entities in the DNS infrastructure) have no control over the real servers hosting the (allegedly) infringing content, which is what law enforcement or rights holders would try to attack.  There's no requirement that a site registered in Tonga has its servers in Tonga, so the fact that the domain is registered there at all is meaningless.</p>
