A few days before the launch of Cyber Monday, the US government is reportedly cracking down on a number of web sites that have been labeled to be selling pirated software or counterfeited merchandise. Torrentfreak.com reports that over the last day or so it has found that over 130 web sites have been taken over by the government. So far there"s been no official word from any government agencies about these actions, although it"s possible that they are waiting until Cyber Monday to make the official announcement.
The article lists the web sites that have been taken over, and most of them appear to charge people to use their businesses. From the list, it looks like the vast majority of the web sites had online store fronts that sold counterfeit sports apparel items. One of the sites, autocd.com, did apparently sell pirated software items.
The article points out that the federal government took control of over 82 web sites under similar conditions nearly one year ago including some web sites that distributed free music and movie downloads and a web site devoted to finding torrent-based files. The government, including the Department of Justice, called the efforts "Operation In Our Sites." However it doesn"t appear that software download sites were the targets of this latest operation.