Common sense scored first this week. Kuku Raadio reported that doctors in Estonia will no longer be issuing excuse notes for schoolkids, meaning that if you're a parent and lie about your kid being sick, it's on your conscience -- doctors won't do your lying for you. That sounds about right and it certainly frees up doctors' schedules for more important things. It's an old Soviet idea that has finally been retired.
Unfortunately, on a separate news item, the nanny state struck right back. Apparently the government can order ISPs to block everyone's access to certain websites -- in this case European online casino websites who haven't sought a license from Estonian authorities. My reading of this is that the Gambling Act and the tax board come before Estonians' constitutional rights.
Personally, I would never gamble real money online (what, in the middle of a recession?), but I find this mechanism outrageous. Can they really do that? So if I wanted to, maybe even if I went through a proxy, I could not check out one corner of the Internet -- one part of the sum of the world's public online information?
How many times in the course of my work have I had to visit sites that may be dubious or immoral (SMS loan providers, escort services, realtors, banks), if only for terminology or legal background, or just to see what a certain menu heading is in the industry? Plenty of times.
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4 comments:
Hey, Kris, what do you think has happened to the History Channel? Nothing but Armageddon, Nostradamus Effect and Life After People kind of programming lately? What do you make of it?
Should I stop my car payments now because I won't need the damn thing after the Mayan calendar ends on 12/24/2012? Live a little before the trumpet calls?
Sorry for being off topic. Simply not that much interested in gambling and related issues.
Maybe I should be? Who cares if I lose everything? Come 2012, all debts will be settled in one swell swoop.
Hmm. I predict you will lose most of your civil liberties in 2012, but if you're lucky, you won't notice. Otherwise an uneventful year, except for people in Mayagascar, who will flicker out of existence. Don't stop your car payments but live a little anyway
meh. it's not that different from legalising cannabis or prostitution. The state allows it but in order to make sure it's all safe (and to get a hefty profit in taxes) it needs to be regulated. I mean, in holland the prostitutes are required to take an HIV test regularly, wouldn't you want your online casino to be subjected to the same figurative procedure?
I want casinos to be on the up and up. What I'm against is banning sites. That's the wrong way to go about it.
If I'm a French citizen who enjoys playing an online casino that has a license from French and other EU authorities, it's ridiculous that I can't even access the site (let alone play) when visiting Estonia, only because the local authorities are raising a stink.
Does the Estonian government get a cut of the winnings? I don't think so. Applying for a license for the online casino from the Esto authorities would require a one-time fee and riigilõiv.
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