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Most Recent Online Casino News
Search Engines Ending U.S. Online Casino Ads
Google and Yahoo, two of the most widely used Web search engines,
have decided to stop running advertisements for online casinos, a
shift that could slow the growth of Internet gambling.
The move, which the companies said would go into effect by the
end of April, comes as U.S. prosecutors are threatening action
against American companies that do business with Internet casinos
based abroad.
The prosecutors are arguing that the American companies are
"aiding and abetting" offshore Internet casinos, whose operations
are illegal in the United States. Prosecutors started a grand jury
investigation last year, issuing subpoenas to American broadcasters,
publishers and Web sites that run advertisements for the casinos.
Executives from Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, and Google,
based in Mountain View, California, declined to say whether they had
been subjects of the investigation. The fact that both companies
announced the change in policy on Friday appeared to be
coincidental.
Jennifer Stephens, a spokeswoman for Overture, a Yahoo subsidiary
that sells paid sponsored links for Yahoo, said the policy change
was the result of a "lack of clarity" in the legal and regulatory
environment.
Overture also provides advertising links to MSN, the Internet
access division of Microsoft. Stephens said that it would no longer
provide casino advertising to MSN, and MSN confirmed that it would,
as a result, stop running the advertisements.
Stephens said Yahoo would cease running casino advertisements on
its U.S. Web site but would continue them on Web sites published in
dozens of countries where Internet casinos are legal.
Google executives said they would stop running Internet gambling
advertisements in all markets.
A spokeswoman for Lycos, another large search engine, also said
the company decided in the past few months to stop running gambling
advertisements, but declined to give details.
Read the
entire article at:
International Herald Tribune
2004 Online Casino News Archive
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