Gambling Ads Cost Internet Giants Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Agree to $31.5 Million Settlement

By Jim Salter Associated Press Thursday, December 20, 2007; D02

ST. LOUIS, Dec. 19 -- The three largest Internet companies agreed to pay a total of $31.5 million to settle civil allegations that they took ads for illegal gambling, a federal prosecutor said yesterday.

. . . "This is a very profitable business that had a lot of money to spend on marketing," Hanaway said of the online gambling companies that advertise on the Web.

. . . The public service campaign will be aimed at informing users, especially those of college age and younger, that online gambling is illegal.

. . . "This agreement reflects our ongoing commitment to online safety," the company said in a written statement. "We're hopeful that our educational campaign will stop young people from gambling before they start." --read entire article-- _______________________________________________________________ There are, of course, exceptions. All of those exceptions happen to be government exceptions--which is the highest and best use of government, to take your hard-earned cash in a governmental way, for governmental purposes, in the governmental best-interests. Las Vegas exists because the government of Nevada colludes with it, as does Atlantic City with New Jersey and various and sundry sovereign Indian nations across the country. What state doesn't have a lottery? We have moved gambling from the depths of organized crime into the sunlight of government payola and that, dear fellow-Americans is--as the government will gladly tell you--better than letting you bet privately on the basketball game of your choice. Something meaningful to you is out the window, just as Pete Rose's loss of a Hall of Fame spot was withheld from him. POWERBALL, in all its forms is good--good for college kids, good for street-people, good for Pete Rose. It's that nasty old 'private' gambling that's bad. Which seems to swim against the current in this George Bush period of the privatization of damned near everything. And by the way--wasn't it essentially a Wall Street gamble that brought us to our knees just in time for Christmas?