We received another reply. In short, IP blocking is the only solution this "commission" would find 'satisfactory'. I also noticed it's been two different people back and forth, they are colleagues as described in their letters:
Chris Pryor
Senior Officer - Disclosure
Chris Sullivan
Manager - Remote Investigations
Anyway, this is unfortunate for UK users as we don't have any alternatives; we've asked him before if we can buy his license and he said no because they don't accept Bitcoin. As our operations are 100% bitcoin, it gives us no other choice but to follow the other operators and block UK-based users. We could also 'just do nothing and see what happens' (probably nothing), but from an operations point of view, this is easier and wouldn't keep our dev team up at night worrying to have to move hosting. In terms of the 'threat' if we don't comply, this is what he had to say:
Please set out, in detail, as to why you cannot take implement IP blocking as a means of preventing
users in Great Britain from accessing you site, if this is in fact the case. We again request that you
should take immediate steps to remedy the situation.
We remain of the view that by allowing consumers located in Great Britain to access
[our website] you are potentially committing a criminal offence. If you do not satisfy us that
you have taken reasonable steps to prevent such access, we will pursue other avenues to prevent
the unlicensed activities. This may result in the website no longer being accessible.
We're contemplating adding a custom page for UK users to point them the way of VPNs, I wonder if that would fly.
