UK gambling ad ban hits overseas operators

Punish ITV for Littlewoods crimes?

" If operators, publishers, broadcasters, and advertising companies accept adverts they could face fines or prison, said the DCMS....Protection is my number one priority."

Nah, fake trade barriers are your number one priority. You're not *licensing* Littlewoods based on it's business, you're *refusing* to license Antigua based on no specific allegations of wrongdoing.

Littlewoods could do the exact same business in the exact same way with the exact same rules in Germany and be legal. So it's not about the gambling company, it's about the jurisdiction.

You'd like the profits from gambling to be kept within the UK, but you can't raise an obvious trade barrier because that's a breach of free trade agreements. And you can't tax foreign companies because it's a breach of taxation treaties. You can't even accuse the companies of any wrongdoing, because they run a straightforward business and they'd sue your ass for libel.

So you do what the UK always does - FIND SOMEONE IN THE UK TO PUNISH INSTEAD as a proxy for the company you'd like to punish.

There's nothing wrong with ITV accepting an advert for littlewoods. Selling advertising is what they do. There's nothing wrong with littlewoods being a gambling business, gambling is legal in the UK and Antigua.

What is wrong the way the UK puts it's own people in jail as a proxy for things it doesn't like in other countries. There are just too many proxy crimes like this.

This one for example:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/e-commerce_directive_terrorism/

Makes every blog administrator liable for the comments placed on their message boards. It makes them a proxy to arrest in place of the person you'd like to arrest (the commenter).

Now they're suggesting ISPs can be held liable for the work of spammers & phishers. Again it's to punish someone as a proxy for the crimes of someone else. Arresting the phisher is too difficult, so lets prosecute the ISP instead!

Bad things happen in the world outside our jurisdiction? Quick find a white middle class Brit to arrest instead!