Slashdot Mirror
Search Engines Break AU Online Gambling Ban?
An anonymous reader writes "According to a ZDNet report, authorities in Australia are investigating Google and a few other search engines for possible breach of the country's online gambling laws. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits advertising of gambling services on Web sites where 'it is likely that the majority of that site's users are physically present in Australia'. Banned services include online casino-style gaming services such as roulette, poker, craps, online poker machines and blackjack. Breaching the Act carries a maximum penalty of AU$220,000 ($168,000) per day for individuals and AU$1.1 million ($843,000) per day for corporations."
Google should just close down their .au site until Australia respects freedom of speech. To an American, this law seems absurd.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
You don't have the freedom of speech to solicit someone to perform an illegal act
...Such as, oh, say, soliciting someone to say
"big brother double plus bad"?
Either you have freedom of ALL speech, or you have no freedoms at all.
And no, I don't naively believe that Americans have "real" freedom of speech, either. No truly free society has ever existed on this planet, and probably never will. But don't try to excuse laws against certain kinds of speech by pointing to other laws making it illegal - That reduces to the tautology "X breaks the law because X has a law against it", not to any basis in physical reality.
any more than you can say "Come here and buy heroin!"
Why can't I? Now, if I actally sell heroin, I've broken an entirely different set of laws (with which I also strongly disagree, but I'll stick to one ran per post). But to just say it?
Baa-aa-aa.
As for laws against gambling - Another poster already made the only point that needs saying - Every government in the world has state-sponsored "lotteries" of some sort. The criminals-in-power simply dislike competition.