French Court Orders ISPs To Block Gambling Websites

from the hello,-censorship dept

Thu, Aug 12th 2010 10:10pm — Mike Masnick

While there's a lot of attention being paid to the French "three strikes law," and the organization, Hadopi, that is planning a system for implementing it, it appears that another form of internet censorship is happening via the courts in France. Reader JJ sends over the news that ISPs in France are being ordered to block access to certain "unauthorized" gambling websites. The country's gambling regulator, Arjel, ordered the ISPs to block certain gambling sites, and after a court battle, it appears Arjel has won. Effectively, the court has ruled that the French government can order ISPs to censor the internet, which seems like the sort of story that should be getting more attention.

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Filed Under: blocks, france, gambling

16 Comments

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NAMELESS.ONE, 12 Aug 2010 @ 11:40pm

move to a more democratic country
france, the UK and th eUSA are all fucked
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2010 @ 1:32am

nothing wrong here, if they are illegal in the country or dont have proper paid license's to operate, block them, if a physical brick and mortar store tried to open and didnt have legal permits, it would get shut down, this is no difference

just because its on the net doesnt make make some holy site that no country can regulate or block
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Matt (profile), 13 Aug 2010 @ 2:12am

Re: move to a more democratic country
The UK won't block sites except for copyright reasons, too many UK based online gambling servies (mostly bingo, but have you seen UK advertising breaks?)
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2010 @ 2:27am

I want to see France block encryption that would be funny.
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AJ, 13 Aug 2010 @ 4:05am

WOW
"nothing wrong here, if they are illegal in the country or dont have proper paid license's to operate, block them, if a physical brick and mortar store tried to open and didnt have legal permits, it would get shut down, this is no difference

just because its on the net doesnt make make some holy site that no country can regulate or block"

lol... as if blocking them will do anything. With all this blocking and censorship, it's only a matter of time before the average user is using encryption, and has proxies in several countries....
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senshikaze (profile), 13 Aug 2010 @ 4:39am

Wait, doesn't the US do this for gambling too?

(i'm not being a smartass, I actually don't know)
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PaulT (profile), 13 Aug 2010 @ 5:44am

Re: move to a more democratic country
Care to clarify?

The UK-based (actually mostly Gibraltar-based) online casinos have a relatively small footprint in the French market anyway. My company's implementing the block today, and we doubt anybody will really notice outside of a handful of regular customers. Those companies actually targeting the French market (mainly based in Malta) will probably already have licences.

If you're talking about the implications for free speech, the French have always had their own way of doing things and I doubt that a block on unlicensed entities in an already heavily regulated industry will make much difference to any of the countries you mention. At the end of the day, this is simply the French being the French and doing things their way. It's a little silly, but it won't affect the rest of the world.
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PaulT (profile), 13 Aug 2010 @ 5:56am

Re:
I think you'll find that the comments are more about how utterly ineffective the blocks are likely to be rather than any moral or legal criticism.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2010 @ 6:53am

The French have always been weird. So what? They don't really care about liberty, they never did. It was just an excuse to go crazy and kill the Aristocrats. They love to be told what to do.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2010 @ 7:09am

This is a cheese full of holes.
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DenisMoskowitz, 13 Aug 2010 @ 7:23am

Re:
The US prevents online gambling (or attempts to) by making it illegal for banks to deal with gambling organizations, not by telling ISPs what sites to block.
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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Aug 2010 @ 8:39am

Re: Re: move to a more democratic country
PaulT - Are you at an ISP in france? Would you like to challenge 3 strikes in the EU court system? If you do, have one of the TechDirt admin give you my e-mail address.
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chris (profile), 13 Aug 2010 @ 9:31am

Re: Re:
The US prevents online gambling (or attempts to) by making it illegal for banks to deal with gambling organizations

but all that really does is create a market for "teller" and "booker" services.
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PaulT (profile), 13 Aug 2010 @ 9:39am

Re: Re: Re: move to a more democratic country
Nope, gaming company in Gibraltar. I would absolutely challenge any 3 strikes law, but so far none have been passed that would affect me.
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Hephaestus (profile), 13 Aug 2010 @ 11:35am

Re: Re: Re: Re: move to a more democratic country
I am trying to find an ISP in France to request legal clarification on Hadopi from the ECOJ. Its basically me hooking them up with an EU lawyer that wants to run with this.
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Mundo Hoje, 17 Aug 2010 @ 2:02pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: move to a more democratic country
This is a cheese full of holes. [2]
Visit: Mundo Hoje
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