Internet Gambling Law Ranked Among Worst

MediaChannel.org published its listing of the best and worst Internet laws with a recently enacted Internet gambling law (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) deemed among the worst of the worst.

In its assessment, MediaChannel.org writes of the UIGEA:

As I have said elsewhere, this law is “a flagship example of how special interest lobbying combined with legislative mumbling can produce an unreadable mess.” First, the law is written in unintelligible Congress-ese. Second, the law is pockmarked with special interest exceptions, clearly showing who has the best lobbyists. Third, and most importantly, Congress did not specify (in this law or elsewhere) what constitutes illegal Internet gambling, yet the law requires third-party money sources to block the flow of money to illegal gambling operations. Thus, just like Kafka might write it, Congress deputizes private actors to block illegal activity without deciding for itself what constitutes illegal activity. As a result, banks and other money sources probably will curtail lots of legitimate activity to be on the safe side.

This wasn't the worst law cited by MediaChannel though.

I found picking a “winner” surprisingly easy. In fact, in my book, it isn’t particularly close.

The Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, was Congress’ first comprehensive attempt to regulate Internet content. Not surprisingly, Congress made a lot of rookie mistakes. The CDA tried to keep kids away from Internet porn, a reaction to a sensational 1995 article (the “Rimm Report”) published in the Georgetown Law Journal that proclaimed that the Internet was awash in porn. But later examinations thoroughly discredited the Rimm Report—meaning that Congress’ efforts/overreactions were based on bad social science.

Worse, Congress mistakenly assumed that non-porn content could be easily segregated from porn. In defense of this assumption, the government’s expert witness proposed a content-tagging system that would enable browsers to wall off porn. But this exposed a deep flaw in the law: the tagging system didn’t exist, browsers weren’t written to honor the tag, and it turns out that requiring publisher self-tagging for all Internet content is burdensome and cost-prohibitive.

Because web and email content publishers had no easy way to comply with the law, the law threatened to restrict virtually every Internet speaker. Further, Congress imposed punitive and draconian sanctions (including stiff jail time) for breaking the law. Congress really, really wanted to wipe porn off the Internet, but it chose a particularly mean-spirited way of doing so.

Not surprisingly, the law fared poorly in the courts. Within a week, it was enjoined. The next year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down the law (although two judges would have found a way to preserve some of the law). For its lack of policy support, its sloppy blunderbuss approach to regulating speech, and its flat-out meanness, I hereby crown the CDA the worst Internet law (to date…).

Other Internet laws cited among the worst included the Utah/Alaska Anti-Adware Laws, which gave trademark owners the power to take software out of consumers’ hands—even if the consumers actually wanted the technology, and anti-kid spam laws (also enacted in Utah) that allowed child email databases to "become a juicy target for criminal hackers, pedophiles, and other bad actors."

There are of course good laws, and MediaChannel.com ranked those as well. 

These included The No Electronic Theft Act, essentially expanding the scope of criminal law to cover both commercial and non-commercial copyright infringements, and the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.  The few cases in which a true cybersquatter has defended an ACPA claim in court generally have resulted in resounding victories for the trademark owner.

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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com

Originally published April 24, 2007 12:59 am ET