More online gambling censorship in France

One unwelcome product to emerge during the holiday season was a French decree authorising the use of ISP blocking on sites deemed by regulator ARJEL to be illegal and unauthorised.

The decree became the law of the land on January 1 2012 when it was promulgated in the French equivalent of the Government Gazette.

It now remains to be seen how effective it will be, bearing in mind the difficulties experienced by other nations in successfully implementing this sort of draconian measure, and how players, foreign operators and international freedom of the Internet action groups will react to it.

Perhaps more importantly, any such move must be notified to the European Commission in terms of EU directives