The head of the National Telecommunications Agency, Carlos Baigorri, explained the difficulties in advancing the implementation of the measure and how this situation could be reversed.
Brazil.- From Anatel (National Telecommunications Agency) they stated the need for stronger legal tools to effectively act against illegal betting platforms in Brazil. According to current regulations, the regulatory body admits that it cannot guarantee that the irregular websites reported by the Ministry of Finance are effectively blocked.
"As we are today, the block we have is very ineffective," explained to the local media Folha the president of Anatel, Carlos Baigorri. "They handed me a hot potato and I say: this low effectiveness is going to be bad for the entire government," he added in relation to his current role.
The speech by the president of Anatel shows that, according to current regulations, the regulatory body cannot guarantee that the irregular websites reported by the Ministry of Finance are effectively blocked. According to him, the difficulties are of various kinds, from the lack of technology to control the implemented blocks to the lack of regulatory power over an economic agent with a fundamental role in the functioning of the Internet: the so-called DNS operator.
The DNS operator acts as if it were a large telephone directory in the digital environment: the user enters the name of the website they want to access (which starts with www), and the company identifies which IP number should direct the access.
When Anatel decides to block irregular bets, it does so based on a list of IP addresses currently used by the platforms. But nothing prevents the bets from breaking the barrier by asking the DNS operator to replace the old number in the "telephone directory" with a new IP that is not blocked.
This strategy is the same that was already used by X (formerly Twitter) to evade judicial decisions that determined the suspension of the social network in Brazil.
"It's like 'my new number is this, so when someone types 123bet, send them to that new number.' And I'm blocking an old number. Then the website works again. And what's the problem? The Brazilian state has no power to regulate, monitor, or sanction these DNS operators," warned Baigorri, adding that many of these operators are based outside Brazil.
In practice, this means that the 5,200 illegal betting sites blocked by the government are free to return to action using the same maneuver, until the Executive manages to identify the new IP numbers used by the irregular platforms to include them in the list and activate new suspension requests.
"There is a limitation in the state's capacity to make this block effective," affirmed the president of Anatel. According to him, the agency sent a proposal for an MP (provisional measure) to the Ministries of Finance and Sports to improve the regulation and grant police powers over DNS operators.
In this scenario, Baigorri proposed three possible scenarios. The first of them is to expand the powers of Anatel, modifying the General Telecommunications Law to stipulate that the agency has the power to regulate, monitor, and sanction.
The second option is to change the law that regulated betting to expand the single paragraph that deals with blocks to say that DNS operators are also obliged to comply with these decisions. The third way would be to modify the Civil Internet Framework to expand the guidelines for blocking websites.
"If the state wants to have any power to control the internet environment, these agents must also be subject to state control," affirmed Baigorri.
See also: Online betting in Brazil: the SPA began notifying authorized companies
"Anatel does not have a 'red button' that disconnects websites. We communicate with all telecommunications companies. There are about 20,000, because we are talking about the big ones, but also about small operators in the interior of Brazil. When you talk about 3,000 sites in 20,000 networks, there are 60 million checks. Today we cannot guarantee that the block is being implemented," he acknowledged.
