Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! settle un-American activity claims
Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! have spilled a total of $31.5m to settle claims they promoted one of the most un-American of activities: online gambling. Today, the US attorney for the eastern district of Missouri - that's St. Louis country - announced that the tech-happy trio agreed to resolve charges that they took money from …
“Honest taxpayers and gambling industry personnel who do follow the law suffer from those who promote illegal online behavior.”
Is it just me or does that seem to have been carefully written to imply that taxpayers who earn their income from working within the gambling industry are not themselves honest when they comply with the law? There does appear to be something of a global trend towards blaming people in generally poorly paid jobs for all the ills of society.
...reveals at least 10 properties in and around the St. Louis, Mo. metro area.
So it appears that casino gaming itself is not "bad", just not doing it in a Harrah's property. Or, more precisely, not paying the exorbitant gaming taxes to Missouri by gaming elsewhere while physically residing in Missouri.
Why does this feel like RIAA all over again?
...the land of the free...but only if you pay loads of taxes...
I don't understand some of the twisted logic in America. I once asked an American why the food portions were so big in America, and the answer I got was "because we can".
That sums up all that is good and bad about the US. A can do attitude followed by a "f*ck you" response when questioned about their motives.
It feels like the RIAA because it is exactly the kind of tactic they would use. :) What I find amusing is the fact that casinos generally make more off of people coming to see their shows(at least in vegas) than from the gambling. I choose Paris because the government has not yet learned that MS will do whatever it wants to regardless of what the beaurocrats think. $21 Million is probably their quarterly paperclip budget.
"And $9m will back an internet-based public service ad campaign that aims to tell youngsters that online gambling is completely illegal in the land of the free."
Would this $9million be getting paid from Microsoft to Microsoft for advertising space on their website?
What on earth does gambling have to do with the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children?
Sounds like an arbitrary tax to me, extracted with threats that it'll be even more if they dare to contest it, and carefully calculated so that the companies won't see it as a large enough amount to be worth making a fuss over. Basically a large-scale version of the parking/speeding fine scam the government operates over here.
The logical extension of this is to ban merkins from accessing any service for which a terrestrial equivalent is available. Maybe we could then have an internet which doesn't see non-US=non-standard.
"MS will do whatever it wants to regardless of what the beaurocrats think. $21 Million is probably their quarterly paperclip budget."
I wish they'd simply stop development of that infuriating pain in the colon. It's probably spying on me at this very moment, waiting to regale me with a humourless tale like "It looks like you are extremely pissed off by my constant interruptions"
Has *anyone* (ever) had any useful help from the 'clip?
good to see governments took over where the church left off. redefining vice as virtue has always been a wonderfully profitable business for the powers-that-be.
there is legal self-destructive behavior (regulated, taxed, state-sanctioned), such as alcoholism; this is moral in the eyes of the law.
on the other hand (same hand?), there is illegal self-destructive behavior (unregulated, untaxed, penalized), such as a heroin addiction; this is immoral in the eyes of the law.
much like a church indulgence; there's only one difference between the two.
same with gambling: legit in a casino, but immoral online. nonsense, but here we are.
morality is flexible enough that any authority can subvert it.
