News

Tuesday, 21 April 2009 04:33

It seems that the State of Kentucky Governor, Steve Beshear is not about to allow his recent defeat in the courts over his attempts to seize online gambling website domains to rest in peace. In a move to appeal against the last appeal which overturned his initial case, Bashear has stirred up the hornets nest once again.

The hearing is scheduled to be heard by the Kentucky Supreme Court as soon as June. But in a counter move, advocate organisations that support the independence of the Internet as well as the freedom of speech have submitted their arguments to the court in advance of the hearing.

This whole issue has caused considerable international outcry and is seen by many people as a direct invasion into Internet integrity. The latest move by the Kentucky Governor has only served to reignite the anger and frustration at his tenacity in what is seen to be a wholly exasperating attempt at saving face in a court of appeal defeat that clearly dented his personal pride. That his initial actions in bringing the case in the first place may have been contrary to popular beliefs and common sense appears to be neither here nor there.

The original case of the attempt to seize certain international website domains belonging to online gambling operators was set out by the Governor and his officials. They were suitably assisted by outsourced lawyers that were working on what could be said to have been a contingency basis. Bashear’s argument was that he was only acting to protect the gambling interests of his state’s land based operators in gunning for the Internet based competition.

This initial application to seize the gambling operator’s website domains was favourably received by the district court. However, several parties appealed against the decision and that appeal was upheld by a majority from the three judges sitting on the Appeals panel of the Kentucky Court, which overturned the Governor’s initial case.

In their continued fight to stave off the Kentucky Governor’s depredations, both the Interactive Gaming Council and the Interactive Media and Gaming Association have gained more support from organisations concerned about this issue. They include the Internet Commerce Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The have each filed amicus “friend of the court” briefs, which ask that the State Court of Appeals decision be upheld that Internet gambling domain names actually do not in any way constitute gambling devices.