TheAgitator.com
Kentucky Governor: All Your URLs Are Belong to Me
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
Kentucky’s pro-gambling governor is looking to make sure all bets are off for more than 140 online gambling Web sites that operate in the state known for the world’s biggest horse race.
Gov. Steve Beshear said his administration has asked a Franklin County Circuit Court judge to give the state control of 141 gambling Web site domain names. Beshear said he’s looking to restrict Kentuckians’ access to Web sites with names that include some of the most popular gambling sites for U.S. players: bodoglife.com, doylesroom.com and fulltiltpoker.com.
A hearing is scheduled for Thursday before Judge Thomas Wingate.
Beshear believes Kentucky is the first in the country to attempt to block online gambling by taking over Web domain names of gambling sites.
“Unlike casinos that operate on land or on riverboats in the United States, these operations pay no tax revenues, provide no jobs and yield no tourism benefits,” Beshear said at a Monday afternoon Capitol press conference. “They are leeches on our communities.”
At least Beshear isn’t making any pretense to morality, here. He just doesn’t like the idea that someone’s providing a service to Kentuckians without the government getting its cut. Wonder if he’ll try to seize Amazon.com’s URL, too.
Actually governor, they do pay taxes and provide jobs, just not in the U(can gamble where we say you can)S of A. There is simply no way this can be successful in a free country.
If the governor wins, these sites should let people know about their permanent IP addresses, which could still be used to access the sites. Take that KY!
Okay, leaving aside the morality aspects of this, let us say, just for a moment, that he wins. How does he plan to enforce it? Launch a full scale invasion of ICANN?
Perhaps the good governor Beshear did not get feedback from his Kentucky representatives, when Annie Duke was presenting to Congress that poker is a game of skill, not chance.
He can still go on youtube and look at it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twNtjEhNQTE
a) He can’t seize the URLs – they are not his to seize
b) Even if a local judge rules in his favor – blocking these URLs is technically impossible in KY or basically anywhere in the US
“…these operations pay no tax revenues, provide no jobs and yield no tourism benefits.”
“They are leeches on our communities.”
coming from a politician, this is ripe with irony.
“‘…these operations pay no tax revenues, provide no jobs and yield no tourism benefits,’ Beshear said at a Monday afternoon Capitol press conference. They are leeches on our communities.’”
Projection.
“… these operations [governments] pay no tax revenues, provide no jobs [that are not funded with stolen money by the private sector] and yield no tourism benefits [well, I suppose D.C. draws curious crowds, but it all rests on force and fraud]. They [governments] are leeches on on our communities.”
Very true, governor. Very true.
I thought hijacking was illegal.
I doubt he would try to seize Amazon. They do/did have a warehouse in state.
The net was built to route around errors. This will be just another “error” in the net if this succeeds (it’s likely it won’t) and the net will simply find another way around it.
In the meantime, is he going after 800 numbers that Mexican bookmaking operations use (like Baja Caliente) here in the US to take bets?
Not sure that will work. Them names belong to the entities who bought them. The name stays constant but the IP might actually change as the site moves to other servers. That is actually the purpose of the naming.
I am not legally versed but taking control of the names would be like seizing someone’s property. Which in this case might not even belong to a US entity but to a foreign one. Not even sure the judge even has jurisdiction over that.
“If the governor wins, these sites should let people know about their permanent IP addresses, which could still be used to access the sites.”
SH: Yeppity yep. Try and ban specific sites or content on the WWW and all that’s needed is to redefine the language.
Fulltiltpoker just moves its IP address to Fulltiltpoker2, or full-tilt-poker.com
As a Kentuckian, and more so being a resident or the state capital, this blatant form of censorship and greed makes me want to puke. He ran on a ticket purely about passing casino gaming. He didn’t work with party leaders in the congress, and therefore they are now less willing to work with him in the future. And he wants to ban gaming? Fuck him. Im glad I wrote myself in.
I’m sure there are tons of websites that fit the description the Governor gave. How about drugstore.com or 1800petmeds.com?
Is he going to try to take control of every website that pays no tax revenues, provides no jobs and yields no tourism benefits to Kentucky? Wow, he’ll be one busy fella!
I think I’m the only reader young enough, and media fried enough to have caught the “All your base” reference.
Well done.
He wouldn’t go after Amazon. They collect sales taxes in Kentucky because one of their distribution centers is in Lexington.
Just what else do you expect from a power hungry Democrat??
‘Hope’ and ‘Change’?
[...] has been reported elsewhere, but: Prosecutors representing the commonwealth of Kentucky argue that state law bans bans [...]
[...] Kentucky’s Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate wrote has given Gov. Steve Beshear an early victory in his bid to control the Internet. [...]