The U.S. Department of Justice and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has shut down 82 websites which are accused of selling and distributing counterfeit goods like handbags, shoes, sports materials, sunglasses, illegal copies of copyrighted DVDs, softwares or music. 

As a part of 'Operation in Our Sites 2.0'  82 domain names seizure announcement was made on 'Cyber Monday', a day dedicated for online shopping. This operation coincides with online shopping season with the intention of reminding customers to be aware of illegal offers or discounts offered online. 

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder explains that "With today's seizures, we are disrupting the sale of thousands of counterfeit items. We are cutting off funds to those looking to profit from the sale of illegal goods and exploit the ingenuity of others. And, as the holiday shopping season gets underway, we are also reminding customers to exercise caution when looking for deals and discounts online. To put simply, if a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is."

The sites shut down by these two agencies have a notice displayed on their home pages with a message saying that "Willful copyright infringement is a federal crime that carries penalties for first time offenders of up to five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution. Intentionally and knowingly trafficking counterfeit goods is a federal crime that carries penalties for first time offenders up to ten years in federal prison, a $2,000,000 fine, forfeiture and restitution."

A very important point to be noted in this issue is that if an order is obtained from the court allowing Department of Justice to seize a domain name for copyright or trademark infringement and if a federal prosecutor is able to convince a federal magistrate about the probability of law violation the judge then has the power to seize a domain name 'without giving a prior notice to the site owner'.

Apart from websites like jerseyclubhouse.com, mycollects.com, lifetimereplicas.com, sunglasses-mall.com and many other .com sites, the Department of Justice and ICE has also shut down BitTorrent search engine Torrent Finder. 

Mike Masnick, founder of TechDirt blog unhappy with this move reacts by posting that "Some of the sites taken down appears nothing more than search engines, which did not host any content and did not host any trackers, but simply acted as perfectly normal search engines. For anyone who understands how the internet works (i.e. clearly not Homeland Security) this is a massively troubling move, suggesting that if Homeland Security doesn't like how your search engine works, it cam simply seize your domain and put up a really scary looking graphic, claiming it has taken your website." further adding "Within hours, many new sites have popped back elsewhere. The whole thing seems highly questionable."

Whereas Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) president, Bob Pisano applauded the move by saying that "These 'worst of the worst' rogue Web sites, which cloak themselves in respectability yet traffic in counterfeit and stolen goods, victimize not only the buyers of these products, but more than 2.4 million hardworking Americans whose livelihoods depend on healthy motion picture and television industry."

Not too long ago, Burst Net terminated more than 70,000 blogs with an vague explanation of 'history of abuse' due to which thousands of bloggers lost access to their accounts.