California Court and Gambling Lawsuit against Search Engines

Here's something: the California Court hearing the case against Google, Yahoo, et al. regarding advertising illegal gambling has denied the defendants' motion to strike core allegations of the complaint in the case. According to the article, the search engines argued that they should be free to advertise online gambling (and, apparently, charge for such advertisement). The court said no.

This is an interesting one. Thing is, even though there have been not so many cases involving search engines, in my book, it pays to adhere to the laws of the land regardless of whether said laws have yet been applied to the Internet.

It's not too hard to figure out: the Internet is not some "new frontier" that has nothing to do with anything that came before it and, thus, will always be protected from the laws of the land. Rather, the Internet is a network of computers that constitute a communications medium. Set up a similar telephone network where numbers of callers can dial in at any time and you have something similar.

The Internet is a communication network, not a fifth dimension. Bottom line: the law still applies regardless of the fairly unfettered freedom that may have been enjoyed, and despite the fact that some laws haven't yet been applied to the 'Net (at least, not by the Courts). Keep crossing the line and failing to bring your actions into compliance with the law and you won't have to go looking for it; the law will come to you. It appears that that time has come.