3 10 October 2004

News:

Citigroup has brought its policy of blocking access to online gambling sites in the US, to the UK.

World Online Gambling Law Report is organising a half-day Special Briefing on Wednesday December 1 in London for chief executives, finance directors, financial controllers and advisors.

The UK press greeted the publication of the Gambling Bill on October 19 with a barrage of criticism which focussed on the proposed super-size “mega” casinos. The strength of criticism, which appears to have taken the government by surprise has been founded on a claim that the government sees the whole reform process as a way of raising tax revenues and attracting inward US investment at the expense of a rise in problem gamblers.

Features:

In this article, Sportingbet reviews the published Gambling Bill and concludes that this well intentioned piece of legislation still leaves many questions unanswered and considerable barriers before the Government can achieve its objective of making the UK a global hub in remote gambling.

Wes Himes of iGGBA reviews in detail the Gambling Bill from a remote gambling perspective. While questions still remain, the remote gambling industry is now one step closer to setting foot in the UK.

Clive Hawkswood at ARGO concludes there is little unexpected in the remote gambling parts of the Bill but fears that remote gambling could be made a scapegoat as the Bill faces a barrage of criticism.Clive Hawkswood at ARGO concludes there is little unexpected in the remote gambling parts of the Bill but fears that remote gambling could be made a scapegoat as the Bill faces a barrage of criticism.

After nearly three years of discussion papers, public consultation, negotiation with industry and lobbying from interest groups, the UK Gambling Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 18 October and published on 19 October 2004. With its publication the British press finally started to cover de-regulation, with the tabloid press in particular drawing (sometimes frenzied) attention to all the peculiar perils which it feels the Bill may bring to the general population, among them under-age gaming, gambling addiction and organised crime.

The controversial ban on transfers of data to unsafe jurisdictions has been an ongoing problem for many international organisations since the 1995 data protection directive was adopted. However, the concept of binding corporate rules is emerging as a promising solution to this problem and has become one of the hottest topics in today’s EU data protection world. Eduardo Ustaran explains how this idea works.

This article considers the scope of terms like spyware and adware and considers how far these phenomena are already addressed by UK law.