Australia’s Online Gambling

October 30, 2008

It would seem that Australia has been hanging out with Kentucky a bit too much these days. The country is discussing the possibility of banning pornography and online gambling sites from their residents. According to the local papers, Family First Senator Steve Fielding is looking to bank Australians from bring able to block “hardcore pornography and fetish material” and is also using it to keep Australians from accessing online gambling sites.

They say that a “two tiered program” would be enacted to keep Australians from accessing any porn or online gambling sites on their computers. First they would ask them to block all of the illegal material as determined by the country. Second they would ask them to block information that is not appropriate for children and includes porn.

Other Senators are not thrilled with the idea. They say that it is to Big Government for them, and that it isn’t even really possible. There would be arguments as to what is considered illegal, what isn’t, and where the line gets drawn. This makes it impossible to fully carry out the plan for blocking porn and online gambling.

There are those that say that legal sites could end up being blocked as well, and this will end up in a string of lawsuits against the country. They say that in the US they block the online gambling sites by taking domain names, and blocking financial transactions on these sites. They say that they would have to do something similar in order to be successful.

 

Back to October 08 Archive.