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Quebec Bill Would Force Internet Firms To Block Access To Online Gaming Sites (montrealgazette.com)
New submitter rotoblobule writes that in order to help Quebec's lottery service fight against illegal gaming sites, "the Quebec government is currently passing bill 74, which will impose mandatory banning by internet providers of a list of online gaming sites." Here's stories about the pending legislation in French and English, and a relevant excerpt from the bill itself: "To monitor online gambling, the Consumer Protection Act is amended to require Internet service providers to block access to illegal gambling sites entered on a list drawn up by the Societe des loteries du Quebec, which must report...if service providers fail to comply with the Act."
What will be the date of the next news post on http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/index.html
Put me down for $50 on April 7th, 2016.
But no, they're not gaming, they're just money holes. Pay money. Maybe you get more, oh wait, no you don't.
Steam may siphon funds out of my wallet like a Hoover on steroids, but at least they're somewhat ethical.
"to block access to illegal gambling sites entered on a list drawn up by the Societe des loteries du Quebec,"
Seems Loterie Quebec isn't making enough money anymore.
"Internet firms"? "Online gaming?" What a misleading headline.
The law books are full of unenforceable laws. This one is nothing new and won't be the last. In Canada, local regulations are trumped by Provincial acts, which are trumped by Federal acts, which are trumped by the constitution.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They would have to classify VPN's and proxies as ISP's and block all know non complaint ones. That's a hard problem unless you clamp down on speech like in China where they will eventually more or less block everything that isn't whitelisted. It is just not a problem that can be solved.
What you can do is invalidate financial transactions legally which will require the gamblers to send money ahead of time which means they won't get into credit card debit as easily. You can also try to track payouts back to people and take the money but really there is no point that since gamblers always lose in the end; it would be an expense to police and there wouldn't that much money coming back.
Quebec Bill Would Force Internet Firms To Block Access To Online Gaming Sites
"To monitor online gambling,
"Gambling" is not the same thing as "gaming."
Can some editor do their job and fix this?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Will they Crack down on western union? and other places used to move the funds to the sites?
I do not mind the lottery's continuing existence as a tax on people bad in Math. But I do resent the government monopoly on this particular business. Those "gaming sites" are not inherently evil — they are only illegal, because they compete with the state's offering...
And while the private casino slot machines pay back between 82% and 98% of the money wagered by players, the state lotteries pay back from 49.5% to 73.6% (sorry, can't find a similar table for Canada)... If I ran such a racket, I'd try to smother the competition too, I suppose...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Ohh that's right we also have copyright, 'hate' speech, and other content they want to censor. We might as well just give up our internet connections altogether. In the countries which censor the direction has always been leading to more political even if unpopular speech being censored. It doesn't matter if we're talking China, Europe, the United States, or Canada. Each country has its own methods of censoring its population. Canada has a 'voluntary' system where all the major ISPs were pressured into adopting. Similar systems were forced on ISPs in other countries. The UK for example that adapted it to add copyright, porn, and other types of sites and speech some within (and outside) its boarders didn't like.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/quebec-bill-would-force-internet-firms-to-block-access-to-online-gaming-sites-1.2843255
"Critics say the Internet-censoring legislation -- unprecedented in Canada -- is a way for Quebec's state-owned gambling authority to block competition and could lead to governments across the country deciding what citizens can and can't view online."
"I think the (Quebec) government doesn't understand the Internet and frankly doesn't understand the importance of an open and free Internet," said the University of Ottawa's Michael Geist, a renowned online-law expert.
Gaming site does not mean what you think it means.
my issue with any kind of State Level Blocking is how is the list edited (and by whom??).
Sure you might want to block
CP
Hate Sites
AP (for those that are not Adult)
"Snuff" sites
Otherwise Criminal Sites
ect
but im sure the SlashMind could come up with some edge cases where something might LOOK LIKE a "blacklist" worthy site but isn't.
and thats not getting into the "Oops we blocked %otherparties% site at a critical time" type issue or the Admin being bribed to include/exclude a given site ie the op for
wwwdotpoupéesprÃtespourleplaisirdotfr wanting to not be blocked bribing some admin with say "product" (because you know what kind of person lands up doing the admin on this kind of thing)
For one split second I thought Quebec was contemplating banning online video games as a whole.
This is typical, with VPNs and proxies, this law will never work. I can't believe that those that thought up this law are so technically incompetent. Come on Quebec, catch up to at least the 20th century.
Another assinine law written by a group of politicians who simply do not comprehend how the internet works. Wouldn't it be nice if, before they wrote the law, legislators actually talked to some subject matter experts?
linquendum tondere
Look like loi 101 in Quebec. I hosted a website that was english only and language police came and give a fined to the company. After that we decide to host the website outside Quebec. Problem solved... Now my upstream provider are US based. So now let the game of cat and mouse start...
Discuss :-)
OMG!!! Whatever will I do?!?
Good one.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
from TFS: "Quebec's lottery service"
How is this a 'service'? Who does it serve? Could it be . . . Satan?!?!
It seems to be a tax on the poor and ignorant. One that the state has usurped from entrepreneurial enterprises that at least offer an honest chance to win.
How does this 'Consumer Protection Act' protect consumers when there is less opportunity to win? Quebec is almost ready to sing the song of the Ministry of Truth:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
...omphaloskepsis often...
Apparently they plan to block online gambling by modifying everyone's hosts file....
Seems to me the only way you can ban gambling sites is to do at at a high network layer so you can filter on content rather than IP.
Only problem with that is HTTPS would need to be cracked open by the ISP using a root cert they force you to install in your browser.
This may be the start of the slippery slope which will end at full circumvention of encrypted communications.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
What do you expect from the French ? The list of illegal sites is probably heavily biased against sites that aren't in French only. Americans are lucky they only have crooks in government and not the French.
There's a world of a difference between an "online gaming site" and an "online gambling site". Maybe not to the outer world but anyone writing a /. post is intentionally using that title as click bait...
"Typical! Just Typical!" (John Cleese)
For those who don't remember, the US did the same thing but Antigua, home of many of the internet gambling servers, files a complaint in the WTO against the US for unfair trade practices and won. The US dragged its feet, and so Antigua petitioned the WTO again, and the WTO awarded Antigua license-free sales rights to all US copyrighted materials as punishment. It's not clear Antigua capitalized on this as much as they should/could have, but the precedent exists for WTO to repeat it with Canada.
If TPP and TIPP pass in the US and Canada, that will be more leverage to press cases just like Antigua.
Quebec due to its unique nature has a lopsided amount of political power in Canada. As a result so does much of the industry. Many of the scandals stem from Quebec industry trying to capitalize on that advantage, more less because they can.
As for this particular example, I don't see it so much as a scandal as just hypocritical really. If it weren't for many of the states in the US also with a similar ideology on online gambling (at least on the face of it) it probably wouldn't be tolerated for competition reasons.
However if similar legislation has proven anything these sorts of things rarely work well, if at all. There are numerous ways around "blocked" sites, with more created constantly, not to mention the lack of enforcement, largely because it is very difficult to do so, and then you will have folks playing with the definition of what exactly is "gambling" anyway VS "entertainment". Online "entertainment" is a multi-Billion dollar industry in the US despite the fact that online "gambling" is illegal in most places... Draft Kings is a perfect example.
So for all those reasons and more, I say "meh" to the whole issue.