TRICKY ISSUE IN GAMBLING CASE** Issue: E-Commerce Justice Charles Edward Ramos of the New York State Supreme Court ruled that operators of an Internet gambling casino based in Antigua violated New York State and federal anti-gambling laws. Regardless of where the computer server is located, an online gambling site creates a virtual casino within a local user's computer terminal which can be penalized by local and national laws which prohibit the promotion of gambling. This ruling could also impact other forms of electronic commerce. Jack Goldsmith, a law professor at the University of Chicago says it raises the question of how far a Web site should go to protect itself. "What kind of precautions do content providers need to take to avoid liability [in a state and from unauthorized users or buyers] and make business flourish?" If a Web site, for example, makes a good faith effort to screen out unauthorized users, then local law should not apply to its actions, says Goldsmith. It will be up to the courts now to follow-up with Ramos' ruling, however, and decide. === Is Goldsmith's the only question? Is protecting the Web site or the innocent customer the more important issue? If ICANN wants to require uniform dispute resolution, why not also require a uniform symbol of *what a visitors chances are* of getting something for their money? A registrar somewhere in the name-server business could keep the records of complaints of non-fulfillment vs total hits (or better, total numbers of SSC serves) on a site, and provide the odds on request. A browser who does not *transact could care less whether a site is a casino or a Ford Camino dealer. Otoh, any e-commerce worth the electrons it recycles should want to know how much risk its customers are prepared to run. kerry --------- **The Benton Foundation's Communications Policy and Practice (CPP) (www.benton.org/cpphome.html) Communications-related Headline Service is posted Monday through Friday. The Headlines are highlights of news articles summarized by staff at the Benton Foundation; in this case, from the New York Times (CyberTimes), AUTHOR: Calr S. Kaplan] (http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/08/cyber/cyberlaw/13law.ht ml)
