U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will continue to seize domain names suspected of engaging in copyright infringement.
John Morton, ICE director, said the Operation In Our Sites initiative would continue through 2011 and beyond.
Morton told TorrentFreak that the department’s efforts are successfully disrupting the ability of criminals to transfer copyrighted materials illegally over the Internet.
“In addition to the domain names that are seized through this operation, evidence suggests that the operation has a deterrent effect,” Mr. Morton stated.
“In fact, following Operations In Our Sites v. 1.0, ICE was notified that 81 of the most active websites that had been offering pirated material voluntarily shut down.”
He added that domain names are only seized under Operation In Our Sites in accordance with ongoing criminal investigations into violations of federal law.
Last month, it was reported that UK domain name registrar Nominet is considering introducing U.S.-style domain name seizure policies to .co.uk domain names.