I just did a big old long blog about this, but thought I would post the main part of the story here: I often warn affiliates about promoting PPC: "Pills, Porn and Casinos" - due to current and pending legislation. A question I often get asked is: can affiliates REALLY get in trouble directly for promoting an affiliate program in these dicey spaces? Well the answer is now Yes - if you live in Washington and promote or even just write about and link to any type of gambling. According to yesterday's Seattle Times Story, "writing about online gambling in a way that seems promotional can earn a cease-and-desist order, and potentially, a criminal charge." The 1st victim in this new Washington law got a cease and desist and was forced to take his site down. Funny thing is this normally liberal state that actively promotes horse racing and the lottery is the 1st to crack down. Also noteworthy is the fact that they are not just after online gamblers or casinos, but any web site that links to them and that includes affiliates. The hosting company has suspended the "offending" site. Looks like a standard affiliate site and all the work effort and money that went into building it just went out the window. Don't go there, it's not worth it. These laws could be coming to your state soon. Here's the story from the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003062386_danny15.html What do you guys think???
Right now Washington is the only one I've heard of - just cuz I happened to catch this story. That's not to say there aren't others or that other states won't adopt this. Seems like it would be hard to enforce. HOWEVER I would sure hate to put all the energy required into building a site and have it shut down. Some of the casino affiliate forums I'm sure have a lot more of the inside scoop. There's been a whole lot going on as far as legislation in this arena. I just don't keep up with it cuz I don't work in the gambling space at all.
I hope that the supreme court still respects the first amendment. That is what I think. It is really quite insane that there is a law against even writing about online gambling... If you follow some of the news reports, they are saying that even writing about gambling is covered under this law. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003062386_danny15.html
Does that mean the site needs to be hosted in Washington? Couldn't anyone just host the server outside washington and hide the whois info?