Just got back from the state fair of texas.party poker has a booth giving away free t-shirts tojust sign your name date of birth and if you play poker online
Even if they're not actually taking "real money" accounts from the US it might be worth their while to keep up the "dot.net" charade and keep marketing. It would allow them to keep tabs on their US "customers" for quick conversion to paying accounts at some point in the future if they decide to re-enter the market. Besides, the mailing lists alone would be worth quite a bit....
So youre saying that a company can pay for advertising time on TV and just pull it at anytime? i doubt it.
What you may see is a big company like walmart pulling advertising over some ethical issue and either eating the loss or working out a deal with the network.
Why would ESPN or any other TV network allow party poker to bail out last minute?