Seriously, we need the new Congress to get in office as quickly as possible. January seems way too far out.
It remains to be seen whether the new Democratic Congress will let the implementation of the new law just fizzle out and die. Reid is pro-gambling (land-based), and it will be interesting to see what his stance on this new law is. Fortunately, 2 of the big 4 proponents of the law are now out of office (Frist and Leach). SO, the impetutus for pushing it along, may have decreased a bit.
Additionally, I read an interesting article in Revenue Magazine (Nov. edition), that says that if WTO finds U.S. guilty of not abiding by its decisions regarding the gambling stance with Antigua and Barbuda, that Antigua could be given compensatory damage. This would be elimination of copyright infringement laws and provide them the digital rights to sell American CD’s and DVD’s (I have no clue how this became the compensatory items !). The article states that this would greatly upset the US Entertainment industry, which has very strong lobbyists. Hence, there is chance that if this were to happen, that the Entertainment industry would lobby hard for an amendment to the law, a challenge against the law, or the possibility of ensuring that the law just withers away and dies (it wouldn’t be the first time that this happened to a law that was passed). It will be interesting to see what happens here.
In any event, let’s hope that NETeller hangs around past the New Year. My gut instinct tells me that they don’t want to flush their business away UNTIL they see if this law realistically gets implemented or not. They are being politically correct in their statements, and I think they are betting that the US will not be able to (or will not) implement this law.