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I agree 100%.
DRSharpe wrote:True, but a British license would give an air of credability that cannot really be replicated by a license in another country.I don´t quite understand the talk about a British license. Gibraltar, the Isle of Man and Alderney all issue gambling licenses already. Not sure what this new license is supposed to do.
Thanks Maxfalcon, my French is good enough to read them. I´ll give it a go right now. What about the .fr? Would you register a .fr domain or is that too risky?
DRSharpe wrote:I have heard rumblings about a European ban similar to that of America? Has anyone else heard this? If that is the case, we can kiss our industry goodbye!Dave
That cannot be true. I think that is technically impossible in EU. Governments have been operating gambling monopolies across Europe based on exception rules. Because they have been advertising hard, EU Commission is studying a ruling on the legitimacy of this kind of monopolies. The thing is, exception rules are being applied by governments, and EU wants to apply general free market rules.
Check this thread http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/the-european-union-legislation-on-gambling.14881.html? it may add some light into this.
Goldfinger wrote:Thanks Maxfalcon, my French is good enough to read them. I´ll give it a go right now. What about the .fr? Would you register a .fr domain or is that too risky?I don’t know in fact… What I know is that the process of registering a .fr domain is less private than with .com and .net. I’ve registered one on my own last year and I was obliged to fax some private documents. I also believe that the .fr registration is monitored and regulated by an association called “AFNIC”, you can access the site in english at xhttp://www.afnic.fr/_en.
IMHO, and giving the current state of things, I would register a .com if I was you. Being a little discrete won’t do bad. As for results in google.fr etc… I’m not too sure if a .fr would go above a .com for same quality. I think it’s more about the IP location… but who knows what Google do really for ranking sites.
Or, you can wait a little to see how things go.
I may go with the .com domain for now, because I´m too eager to wait :1circling
My hosting will be in the US which won´t help. French hosting probably won´t happen for me but I may move it to Europe or even Switzerland some time down the line.
As for results in google.fr etc… I’m not too sure if a .fr would go above a .com for same quality. I think it’s more about the IP location:letsparty
From what I can tell, it makes not much difference in google.
More information about this:
xhttp://www.journaldunet.com/itws/it-gerault.shtml (in french)
The law about blocking gaming sites directly via ISPs and controlling financial cash flows will be discussed for approval on 21st November. :nervous:
It just appears to be worse than in USA. ANd the best is that the french governement want to discuss with other EU members about their actions and help them to do the same.
Quote:We will contact our EU neighboors to accelerate the actions and to present a common text law project to the EU commission.…..
This protectionist crap needs to stop. This is rediculous. What about Partouche casino then? Surely that will become a protected monopoly by the ENA cronies?
m***e
c’est c*n
Maxfalcon1 wrote:More information about this:xhttp://www.journaldunet.com/itws/it-gerault.shtml (in french)
The law about blocking gaming sites directly via ISPs and controlling financial cash flows will be discussed for approval on 21st November. :nervous:
It just appears to be worse than in USA. ANd the best is that the french governement want to discuss with other EU members about their actions and help them to do the same.
…..
The EU Commission would never approve such a project. One thing is giving some exceptions to a free market rule, other is what is happening. France is doing this because they have a very well developed gambling monopoly and they don’t want to lose its share.
But the same well developed monopoly is their weak point, that is being attacked by online gambling companies to put pressure on a EU Commission ruling. In fact if you have a monopoly and you advertise hard, then you’re trying to expand gambling, so under the rules of EU, you will not be able to defend behind the exception rule. Under the current circumstances, France will have to open the gambling market.An EU country simply cannot use the exception rule to the free market to block gambling offered by private companies, in case they are promoting their monopolies trying to expand revenues. The exception rule would only apply if they keep their gambling monopolies low profile, which isn’t the case.
So, for good sake, this attitude from France will help us in some way. France is going with the wrong arguments (contrary to what happens in Holland), and EU Commission intervention will be faster.
Put your eyes on Bwin actions. This company will help us the most.
On a side note, I just want to remember our friends from the US that what is at stake in EU is not a dichotomy between online gambling /land based gambling but between country-monopoly owned gambling/private-offered gambling.
You can just erase the wording online/offline from the problem. The discussion is not at that level. It’s between free market/non-free market. This is very different from what’s happening in the US. If any privately held company were allowed to operate a land based casino in Europe, then any online business would be also. It would be impossible a situation like in the US, because it is protectionism in its higher level. This protectionism is absolutely wrong from a country that is a member of FTO. I would like to understand why countries all over the world are protecting US rights when US doesn’t assume its obligations.
GB is indeed preparing to legalize the online gambling industry (poker, casinos, betting) by issuing licences (just as the mentioned jurisdictions of Isle of Man, Gibraltar, etc are doing) – in an effort to attract the operators and to stop the money pouring out of the country when theres an simple and easy way for them to stay in the country. The measure is being discussed currently and is expected to come into force in September 2007.
As of Germany and France – i wouldnt be at all suprised if those decided to block/ban/illegalize online gambling, be it poker, casino games or sportsbetting. They are trying to protect their local monopolies – and they are perfectly aware that even if the EU Comission will in the end rule that such bans are illegal and should be scrapped – by then most of the operators will be long only history. EU is an legislative GIANT – and things take months if not years to be inotroduced/forced on the pan-european level. What do those countries have to loose now? Nothing at all – and like i said, even if some Comission will denounce their legislation illegal, they can still appeal, then re-appeal, etc etc etc. Its a win-win situation and the recent US ban has only re-assured them that they are doing the right thing. We stupid europeans never can think of our own solutions to the problems we face, we always tend to rely on the big brother across the atlantic when we run out of ideas hehe :]
Having said that though – its going to be an effective end of the industry in this part of the world. Germany and France are definitely the most valuable markets in Europe, surely the rest of the countries will pick up the idea very soon and we would be facing a pan-european online gambling ban.
well what I can add here is that EU Commission put Germany, France, and other countries under investigation and soon can rule and apply heavy fines to them.
And this battle is not lost. It’s much different from the US. EU companies are lobbying together to put pressure on EU Commission. And they can, because most of them have a very high presence all over Europe land base. They are not just online companies…they have a lot of contracts with football clubs, a major sport in Europe, that will make some difference.
I have a positive feeling, that with the push from the UK, EU Commission will at least not rule favorably to country-monopolies.
I don´t think the battle is lost either. I think the EU has gained a pretty strong profile in trade related questions and has considerable clout. Even though, such an investigation may take a while Germany has always had a history of slavishly implementing EU rulings above and beyond what was required of them. France may be a different story in that regard but if the EU rules in favour of regulation than they will have to bow to the ruling sooner rather than later.
I wished my english was better….
Therefore i thank Sharpgambler for putting the things in words, so correctly
and i share the positive hope of Sharp and Goldfinger
sharpgambler wrote:…it is protectionism in its higher level. This protectionism is absolutely wrong from a country that is a member of FTO. I would like to understand why countries all over the world are protecting US rights when US doesn’t assume its obligations.In fact I think that countries affected by this can do something as stated on some recent articles on the net. If the free trade argument is not respected by the US, why, you as a country, would respect it in favor of the US.
If the United States remains recalcitrant, under the WTO rules, Antigua would potentially have the right to suspend its own compliance with the treaty that obligates it to respect the United States’ intellectual-property laws.
