FC: New Zealand's restriction on cigar web site has buffs in a huff

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

A few thoughts:
* New Zealand's prohibition on cigar-shopping from .nz domains is fatally 
flawed; residents can still load up their e-shopping cards via the 
anonymizer or other offshore proxy.
* It shows how unworkable arbitrary limitations on speech are: Under NZ 
law, cigar advertising is verboten, but cigar stores are permissible. A web 
site has characteristics of both.
* As NZ citizens spend more of their time on U.S. dot com sites, they'll 
see plenty of cigar ads, and there's little the NZ government can do about it.
* U.S. residents can order (illegal?) Cuban hand-rolled cigars from 
havanahouse.co.nz or other sites, and there's little the Feds can do about it.
* If a country starts passing these kind of wacky regulations, it's 
difficult to stop: A ban on cigar advertising in meatspace leads to web 
restrictions. A ban on "indecency" over the airwaves leads to the 
Communications Decency Act for the Net. It's like the "drug war": One the 
Feds outlaw drugs, the inevitable consequence is proposals to limit privacy 
rights, ban some links to web sites, allow secret searches of Americans' 
homes, and so on.

-Declan

***********

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,36612,00.html

   NZ: Modify Site, or No Cigar
   by Kim Griggs

   3:00 a.m. May. 29, 2000 PDT
   WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- A cigar supplier in New Zealand's largest
   city is crying foul after being told to block his site to the
   country's customers or risk being fined.

   Tony Hart, owner of Havana House Cigars in Auckland, has been told by
   New Zealand's Ministry of Health that his website could breach the
   country's law against tobacco advertising.

   "They say if anybody downloads it, we as the publisher can be fined,"
   Hart said.

   So he's put up a notice, which New Zealand users see when they access
   the site, asking readers to get in touch with the ministry "for an
   explanation as to why they are censoring the Internet."

   For the past 10 years, New Zealand has banned the advertising of
   tobacco products. Anyone who breaches the country's Smokefree
   Environments Act faces a fine of NZ$50,000 -- approximately US$25,000.

   Hart argues his website is a shop and not a publication, and therefore
   should not be subject to the section of the act banning advertising.
   The website is hosted in the United States, Hart says, and exists
   mainly for overseas customers.

   Orders placed through the site account for as much as 70 percent of
   Hart's total business, he said.

   [...]

   This is not the first time the government has cracked down on cigar
   promotion. Guy Morgan and Jill Roddick, who own a magazine store in
   the capital city of Wellington, have battled for more than a year to
   be able to sell Cigar Aficionado.

   The New Zealand censor cleared Cigar Aficionado, but the magazine
   still does not pass muster with the Ministry of Health. "We are not
   selling it but we're not giving up," Roddick said.

   [...]


http://www.nzherald.com/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=138372&thesection=technology&thesubsection=general

                 27.05.2000
                 By MICHAEL FOREMAN

                 The Ministry of Health says it was unaware of just how
                 easily local Internet users could avoid a block on an
                 Auckland cigar shop's Website.

                 Havana House Cigars barred visitors with New Zealand
                 Internet accounts from its Website after the ministry
                 threatened the shop with prosecution under the
                 Smoke-free Environments Act.

                 But Craig St George, a director of New Plymouth-based
                 Web Farm, which hosts the Havana House site, said
                 the block was a very blunt weapon.

                 "It's not much better than putting up a 'no parking' sign
                 and expecting people not to park," Mr St George said.

                 New Zealand users with .com or .net accounts were
                 able to avoid the ban, as were those "bouncing" their
                 web requests through overseas servers such as
                 Anonymizer or translation services on search engines
                 such as Alta Vista.

                 Ministry of Health analyst Matthew Allen admitted he
                 had only learned of the existence of such loopholes on
                 Thursday, while listening to a radio programme.

                 "It doesn't really change things, but if it's totally
                 ineffectual then clearly we are going to have to look into
                 it," he said.

                 Mr Allen said the ministry had received a large number
                 of e-mails on the subject. "It's a lot. I don't know exactly
                 how many but we will be replying to every one and
                 putting forward our position."

                 "There seems to be an obsession with the censorship
                 angle," Mr Allen complained. "All we are trying to do is
                 apply the legislation fairly."

                 Mr Allen confirmed that Havana House was the only
                 Website being blocked.

                 The ministry did not consider that other local sites
                 selling cigarettes online, such as woolworths were
                 promoting tobacco, Mr Allen said. No action would be
                 taken against overseas sites "because of the difficulty
                 that they don't have New Zealand distributors in many
                 cases."

                 Meanwhile Havana House owner Anthony Hart said his
                 Website had received 11744 hits in three days since
                 Tuesday, compared to a normal daily level of around
                 1000. While his usual traffic was 70 percent
                 overseas-based, recent visitors were predominantly
                 local.

                 [...]

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