Engineer, I respect your opinions and feel like you do, but I’m really looking to avoid a lawsuit, heavy fines, jailtime (doubtful), and the banning of my domains. I am taking an extremely cautious approach right now, which suits my personality. I agree with very little that this administration has done, but breaking the law (whether I agree with the law or not), is still breaking the law. I’m looking to circumvent the law, via legal loopholes, to the best of my ability, but in a low-risk capacity. Hence, my question on geo-targeting.
What I have found and plan on doing is the following:
– I find the legalese in the law a bit incomprehensible. I cannot really
decipher it well enough to make judgements about what is legal and what
is not. Reading this law re-enforces the decision that I made 26 years
ago, not to go to law school.
– I have sought local legal counsel, and have spoken with 4 local attorneys,
who claim to be “gaming-law” experts. Although I haven’t spent
considerable $$$ on these guys, my determination is that none of these
guys knows jack-shit about gaming law, and I wouldn’t trust their opinion if
my life depended on it. One guy, to rename nameless, suggested to me to
“hide my website, so that the authorities couldn’t find me.” I played dumb
(easy for me to do), and asked him how he would propose that I do that,
and he said I should hire a computer whiz from the local high school – he
would be able to figure it out. At that point, I told him that I thought I
left my car running, and I made a bee-line for the exits. What a dumbass !
I just got a bill from him in the mail to boot. I am going to send him a
“hidden” check.
– I’m leary about paying big bucks for a big name guy, because quite
truthfully, I’m afraid that they will tell me what I want to hear, and be
setting me up for bigger ticket things, like representing me in a test court
case. I cannot afford, nor do I want to go down that path.
– I will be looking, listening, and watching. I will look to see if the DOJ
goes after YOU, and see what the repurcussions are. I hope this doesn’t
sound rash and unfeeling, but I plan on learning from other people’s
mistakes, in this rough time.
– The viability to make the money we have been making in this business
has diminished, and will certainly diminish more as time goes on, so I
agree with Captain in his assessment – at what point does the penalty
outweigh the risk of gain ? That is the point of bailing out altogether.
I have currently disabled my links, but have kept my sites up, until I
fully understand if I should pursue a different course or not.
So, with all that said, I was wondering how you guys felt about geo-targeting, while being hosted in the U.S. ? Just looking for opinions, and perhaps to leverage off of some “meaningful” legal advice, that some of you may have received.
Thanks in advance.
P.S. I know Simmo! offered a geo-targeting script, which is quite generous, but if anyone wants my opinion on how to set this up, please yell and I’ll be happy to discuss as well.
P.P.S. If you want an up-to-date Ip-To-Country database (updated
every 24 hours), go to:
http://software77.net/cgi-bin/ip-country/geo-ip.pl
and click on the Download – ZIP file link on that page.