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 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 <a target="_new" href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003062386_danny15.html">Seattle Times Story</a>, "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 - but here is a link to <a target="_new" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041112054526/http://integritycasinoguide.com/">IntegrityCasinoGuide.com</a> from the WayBackMachine. 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.
<blockquote>"What a Bellingham man did on his site was write about online gambling. He reviewed Internet casinos. He had links to them, and ran ads by them. He fancied himself a guide to an uncharted frontier, even compiling a list of "rogue casinos" that had bilked gamblers.
All that, says the state ? the ads, the linking, even the discussing ? violates a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit "gambling information."
"It's what the feds would call 'aiding and abetting,' " says the director of the state's gambling commission, Rick Day. "Telling people how to gamble online, where to do it, giving a link to it ? that's all obviously enabling something that is illegal."</blockquote>
What do you guys think about this???
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 - but here is a link to <a target="_new" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041112054526/http://integritycasinoguide.com/">IntegrityCasinoGuide.com</a> from the WayBackMachine. 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.
<blockquote>"What a Bellingham man did on his site was write about online gambling. He reviewed Internet casinos. He had links to them, and ran ads by them. He fancied himself a guide to an uncharted frontier, even compiling a list of "rogue casinos" that had bilked gamblers.
All that, says the state ? the ads, the linking, even the discussing ? violates a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit "gambling information."
"It's what the feds would call 'aiding and abetting,' " says the director of the state's gambling commission, Rick Day. "Telling people how to gamble online, where to do it, giving a link to it ? that's all obviously enabling something that is illegal."</blockquote>
What do you guys think about this???
