In an interview with the popular magazine Wired (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/feds-seize-foreign-sites/),
Nicole Navas, spokesman of ICE (Immigration and Customs Department for the USA),  admits that the Obama administration has already seized, in recent years, a total of at least 750 Internet domain names, thus preventing access to the
relevant webpages.

The methodology, developed with expertise from the US State Department, is
actually very simple: through a complex bureaucratic maneuver, in 1999 the company Network Solutions acquired the management of “key” domain names  (basically, the most part of domain names ending in. com or. net). In 2000, Network Solutions was acquired by VeriSign, one among the most famous
validation and certification company of the web, based in the States, who was already active in the domain registrar busines: this operation granted VeriSign a quasi-monopoly situation on .com and .net domains; the company also manages and sublets these domains to other registrar companies around the globe.

This architecture ensures that, to obtain seizure (but also cloaking) of a website
using the domain name “.com,” the US State Department, in 90% of cases, be the website infringing or not, just has to file a motivated request to VeriSign, regardless if the domain itself has been registered through the main company or via one of its international partners/licensees, thus bypassing all traditional (and international) barriers to the operation.
The operation would be so simple and so immediate effect to be achieved with record numbers, during the Obama administration; this clearly explains why many popular websites performing “unorthodox” activities, including the well-known ThePirateBay, have gradually abandoned the suffix “.com”, opting for domain registrars which are different and unrelated to VeriSign.