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Is anyone else not very outraged that these poker sites have been shut down (or at least domains seized)? They were indeed knowingly selling their services to U

Is anyone else not very outraged that these poker sites have been shut down (or at least domains seized)? They were indeed knowingly selling their services to US customers despite that being illegal. They could have used GEO IP blocking to stop people from countries were online gambling is illegal from using the site, but they didn't -- instead they chose to create an elaborate scheme with shell companies used to hide transactions from prying eyes (which all came undo when Tzvetkoff talked). Whether or not you agree with online gambling being illegal in the US is not the point. I don't think there should be speed limits, but there are, and so I have to deal with the consequences of ignoring those laws. Why the outrage?

wladimir 16y ago
Very simply, because the domain blockade also affects people in countries where it is legal. They don't care whether it is illegal in the US and shouldn't have to care. Many people regard '.com', '.net', etc as country-neutral international domains. This will obviously change now.
- RuadhanMc 16y ago
  I agree that many people regard .com, .net, etc, to be country neutral -- and I personally would prefer it if they were -- but that isn't really the way they've been used for the past couple of decades. I think most people would agree that .COM domains at the very least have been associated with US organizations or foreign businesses who want to do business in the US. Though granted, it's not black and white obviously, there are German language only sites (and many others) that have .COM domains and are only targeting Germans speaking peoples. It's a messy situation... made messier by the fact that the US has significant control over the Internetz.
tybris 16y ago
If a law is so silly that it makes criminals out of millions of regular people, you expect it to be changed, not enforced. Several European countries where online poker became popular are legalizing it.
- RuadhanMc 16y ago
  It looks like Congress did look at changing the law in 2010, not sure what happened to this, NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/politics/29gamble.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/politics/29gamble.html Banning online gambling doesn't really make sense if you still permit gambling at a state level, so I think this law is probably going to be toast in the long run.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Banning online gambling is essentially protectionism of the state-level gambling industries. A number of countries and WTO denounced the US a number of years ago for this policy, but the US just ignores WTO when it's convenient and uses it as a hammer against other countries when it is convenient.
- eru 16y ago
  If only that reasoning applied to file sharing.
dpatru 16y ago
The legitimate purpose of law is to protect rights, or at least to benefit society. Eg, speed limits should be in place for safety. What makes people angry is when the law is used for plunder. When speed limit laws are used to raise revenue, ie, when tickets are issued not because people driving unsafely, but simply to extract money from them, people get upset. Governments who do this are acting more like mafia than protectors.
- RuadhanMc 16y ago
  In this case the banning of online gambling has actually resulted in the Government receiving less revenue from tax because the online gambling sites have moved offshore. So I'm not sure in this case that the law has been used for plunder. I think there was probably some significant lobbying efforts from casinos in the US that contributed to the 2006 federal ban. So someone has been a plundering for money, I just don't think it was the Gov in this case.
jrockway 16y ago
The legality in the US is uncertain. If it were not online, it wouldn't be gambling, so proving that online poker is online gambling in court is not going to be easy. Geo IP wouldn't have made a difference. You can buy an anonymous VPN account in Europe very easily, defeating the geographical lock. As with anything on the Internet (and in real life), people do what they want to, not what the law prescribes.
- RuadhanMc 16y ago
  Using Geo IP wouldn't have been foolproof as you've pointed out, but it would have at the very least shown an intent to comply with the laws in the US. The poker sites did not use Geo IP because they did not want to lose the revenue stream from the US, not because they thought it was technically insufficient... and thus the problem (or part of it).
eli 16y ago
Should pornography sites block countries where viewing pornography is illegal? What about a site with essays critical of Islam?
- RuadhanMc 16y ago
  It's not that the poker sites failed to block countries where online gambling is illegal, it is that they allegedly committed bank fraud (and money laundering) by masking payments from gamblers in the US as non-gambling related items so as to avoid the attention of the banks and authorities. So for example, instead of a credit card statement showing a $100 payment to PokerStarts.net, it showed a $100 purchase of a teddy bear from a shell company. They were not passively enabling US based people to break local laws, they were actively assisting.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - eli 16y ago
    Fair enough, and they probably deserve to have their US assets frozen. But a .com shouldn't automatically be a US asset simply because the .com root happens to fall in US jurisdiction.

wladimir 16y ago

Very simply, because the domain blockade also affects people in countries where it is legal. They don't care whether it is illegal in the US and shouldn't have to care. Many people regard '.com', '.net', etc as country-neutral international domains. This will obviously change now.

RuadhanMc 16y ago
I agree that many people regard .com, .net, etc, to be country neutral -- and I personally would prefer it if they were -- but that isn't really the way they've been used for the past couple of decades. I think most people would agree that .COM domains at the very least have been associated with US organizations or foreign businesses who want to do business in the US. Though granted, it's not black and white obviously, there are German language only sites (and many others) that have .COM domains and are only targeting Germans speaking peoples. It's a messy situation... made messier by the fact that the US has significant control over the Internetz.

tybris 16y ago

If a law is so silly that it makes criminals out of millions of regular people, you expect it to be changed, not enforced. Several European countries where online poker became popular are legalizing it.

RuadhanMc 16y ago
It looks like Congress did look at changing the law in 2010, not sure what happened to this, NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/politics/29gamble.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/politics/29gamble.html Banning online gambling doesn't really make sense if you still permit gambling at a state level, so I think this law is probably going to be toast in the long run.
- pyre 16y ago
  Banning online gambling is essentially protectionism of the state-level gambling industries. A number of countries and WTO denounced the US a number of years ago for this policy, but the US just ignores WTO when it's convenient and uses it as a hammer against other countries when it is convenient.
eru 16y ago
If only that reasoning applied to file sharing.

dpatru 16y ago

The legitimate purpose of law is to protect rights, or at least to benefit society. Eg, speed limits should be in place for safety. What makes people angry is when the law is used for plunder. When speed limit laws are used to raise revenue, ie, when tickets are issued not because people driving unsafely, but simply to extract money from them, people get upset. Governments who do this are acting more like mafia than protectors.

RuadhanMc 16y ago
In this case the banning of online gambling has actually resulted in the Government receiving less revenue from tax because the online gambling sites have moved offshore. So I'm not sure in this case that the law has been used for plunder. I think there was probably some significant lobbying efforts from casinos in the US that contributed to the 2006 federal ban. So someone has been a plundering for money, I just don't think it was the Gov in this case.

jrockway 16y ago

The legality in the US is uncertain. If it were not online, it wouldn't be gambling, so proving that online poker is online gambling in court is not going to be easy. Geo IP wouldn't have made a difference. You can buy an anonymous VPN account in Europe very easily, defeating the geographical lock. As with anything on the Internet (and in real life), people do what they want to, not what the law prescribes.

RuadhanMc 16y ago
Using Geo IP wouldn't have been foolproof as you've pointed out, but it would have at the very least shown an intent to comply with the laws in the US. The poker sites did not use Geo IP because they did not want to lose the revenue stream from the US, not because they thought it was technically insufficient... and thus the problem (or part of it).

eli 16y ago

Should pornography sites block countries where viewing pornography is illegal? What about a site with essays critical of Islam?

RuadhanMc 16y ago
It's not that the poker sites failed to block countries where online gambling is illegal, it is that they allegedly committed bank fraud (and money laundering) by masking payments from gamblers in the US as non-gambling related items so as to avoid the attention of the banks and authorities. So for example, instead of a credit card statement showing a $100 payment to PokerStarts.net, it showed a $100 purchase of a teddy bear from a shell company. They were not passively enabling US based people to break local laws, they were actively assisting.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- eli 16y ago
  Fair enough, and they probably deserve to have their US assets frozen. But a .com shouldn't automatically be a US asset simply because the .com root happens to fall in US jurisdiction.