Poland’s protectionism deals blow to Bet365, Bet-at-home

Poland’s government has opted not to establish a central registry of forbidden internet fruit, although international online gambling sites remain off-limits.

On Tuesday, Poland’s Ministry of Digitization announced that “there will be no central register of prohibited domains,” which would have expanded the country’s current blacklist of unauthorized online gambling operators to include websites that promoted or offered other “goods and services contrary to the law.”

News of the government’s central registry plan floated earlier this month, and was met with howls of protest from civil libertarians, particularly given reports that internet service providers would be compelled to provide info on individual Polish citizens’ attempts to visit any site on the forbidden list.

The Ministry’s announcement claimed the idea behind the central registry was simply to “minimize costs on the part of telecommunications entrepreneurs” but the Ministry discovered that “proposals for possible blocking of some parties were not accepted.”