Kentucky Governor Seizes Online Gambling Domain Names
from the can't-have-competition-for-horse-racing dept
It's always fascinating to watch US politicians act as complete hypocrites when it comes to gambling. They talk about moral issues on why they need to stop online gambling, but allow their own personal favorite types of gambling, such as horse races and lottery. Kentucky, of course, is a big horse racing state, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that the state has strict anti-online-gambling laws. These laws are so strict that the state's governor is using them to seize 141 domain names of sites that the state claims are used for illegal gambling. Of course, it appears that many of the domains aren't online gambling sites at all, but parked domains. The state doesn't seem shy about the fact that it's doing this to "protect" the horse racing business, but of course, throws in the moral argument as well:"Illegal Internet gambling poses a unique threat to our Commonwealth. For individuals - particularly our youth - it is tantamount to a virtual home invasion. For some of our vital and most venerable legitimate enterprises, it undermines their exemplary regulatory compliance and siphons away their constituents."Home invasion? Really? A parked domain is the equivalent of a home invasion?
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Filed Under: domain names, gambling, governor, kentucky, online gambling
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I wonder...?
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Home Invasion
and seeing tits will ruin a child's mind forever...
and playing video games will make you emulate them...
(it's true, I emulate Tetris all the time).
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Re: Home Invasion
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Re: Re: Home Invasion
But then, it gets easier as I get older.
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Re: Re: Re: Home Invasion
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Re: Re: Home Invasion
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I wonder if the EFF will step in on this.
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and whether their techniques are effective or useful is one thing. But he specifically said "Illegal Internet gambling poses a unique threat to our Commonwealth. For individuals - particularly our youth - it is tantamount to a virtual home invasion..." He didn't refer to a specific site or set of sites or even the ones that he seized...I wish you'd stop twisting peoples words.
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You wish I would read and comprehend "stuff" - I wish you could possible keep up.
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Those sites will dramatically increase in value if they do. State will hold on to them for a while, then when gambling is legal again, auction them off (in a auction that no one but the governors cronies will know about of course), and the winners of these auctions will flip them to gambling companies that donate heavily the governor and party at a greater profit (thou still below market value). Thus neatly side stepping any "bribery", lobbyist or campaign funding debates
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It's never a good idea to call out a whole state
The quote actually says "asking the court to force the sites to block access to Kentucky users or give up control of their domain names." block access or give up control. Big difference there.
It's still a stupid, hypocritical idea from my governor, but then I have no illusions about what my state will do to protect horse-racing. Which, btw, is a lot more fun than online gambling. I highly recommend it having done both on a fairly regular basis.
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Re: It's never a good idea to call out a whole state
You make a good point, but this quote from the original article does indicate that "seize" is appropriate...
"Kentucky is the first state to bring action against Internet gambling operators that has resulted in the seizure of domain names. By seizing the domain names, Kentucky can require the illegal casino operators to block their domains from being accessed in the state."
This makes it sound like they are actually seizing the sites, but that they are doing so in order to block access from KY. Perhaps a web techie can help out here, but I didn't think you actually had to own the domain (which is what is implied by seizure) to block certain locations (or, more specifically, ranges of IP addresses).
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Re: It's never a good idea to call out a whole state
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Beshear
Nice try, though.
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Ha Ha Ha
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Yeah, doesn't happen with Horse Racing gambling either, for sure.
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"Seized"?
This is both better and worse than Mike reports.
Better, because he hasn't actually seized the domain names. He has filed legal action to force them to block users from the state.
(I can't help but wonder where those domains are registered. I'll bet most of them aren't registered to companies in Kentucky. For that matter, I'll bet most of them aren't even in the US.)
Worse, in that if this goes any farther, it will legitimize this tactic. And it's actually in the realm of possibility that the court might side with the Governor - which is a frightening thought.
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Re: "Seized"?
The proud new owner is the Commonwealth of Kentucky Justice Cabinet's Eric Lycan.
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Missing a big one...
It seems to me that if someone wants to risk their money, and has to decide between stocks, horses, and poker, poker could be a safer bet in some instances...
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"Siphon" Is the New Term For 'Compete'
Yeah, the same way Pepsi siphons away the constituents of Coke. But in that case we call it competition.
Hooray for goverments making our consumer choices for us! Here's to goverment supported monopolies! Up with the one-product-per category regime. Long live Brezhnev!
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But then we all know that everything these guys do is to protect the big money interests, in this case real world casinos and horse racing. It's hypocrisy and the voters of Kentucky should recall this scumbag.
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After he was elected Beshear casino gambling went down big because it was so tainted by the money the gambling interests has put into the election.
http://www.kentucky.com/329/story/283928.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-23-3450829309_x.htm
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Beshear's BS
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onlinegambling
So,in this case what are the responsibilities of the registrars? I look forward for your answer.
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Total BS
I think Will Smith has exactly the right response to this kind of nonsense:
ahh, ahh, AHH-CHOO!
I'm sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit.
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This is what KY does.
/end rant
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