One gets the sense reading the article, however, that the failure of current laws to specify extraterritorial application is an oversight to be remedied. Indeed, looking at the Internet gambling industry, standing alone, it would certainly appear that more regulation and accountability is needed, and that extraterritorial legislation is the solution to the problem. However, this situation should also be analyzed in the context of Internet regulation in general.

The pragmatic reality is that the United States gains far more from under-regulation of the Internet than it could from such a land-grab at sovereignty over the Internet as an extraterritorial Internet gaming act could provide. Worldwide, countries look to the U.S. to set the example for the degree to which they also exercise sovereignty over the Internet. From Chinese attempts to curtail dissident sites at home and abroad, to attempts to control the Internet for the sake of orthodox morality among the Arab world, there are many regulatory agendas which would cut to the core of America's vision of the Internet as a free and open marketplace of goods, information, and ideas. If the U.S. were to set the pace with media-specific Internet regulation, others would follow. Given this, in short, the U.S. gains far more by the Internet being a domain of 'no law' than by its being a domain of 'all law.'

Again, enforcement under existing (and media-neutral) laws is perfectly legitimate. However, as we have been reminded before for example, on the Internet, the First Amendment is a local ordinance. Next to the risk of seeing such core liberties threatened by regulation from other countries, the benefits of extraterritorial Internet gaming legislation pale, and the CDA's attempted regulation of 'indecent' content seems tame by comparison. As with any Internet-specific piece of legislation, we should ask ourselves whether the benefits of our regulation outweigh the possible societal costs of regulation by other countries.