When I was working as a consultant in it/finance in Scandinavia, some customers started to demand that they would be allowed (it requires the approval of the subject of the query) to request a credit report. I decided to find out what the potential downside would be. It turned out that one of the criteria for being classified as a risk was that an excessive number of credit reports had been requested for a person.
After hearing this, I refused.
As my clients were all banks, I found it incredibly easy to convince them that what they were asking for was unreasonable, using this argument:
If all of my current customers did this, then that in itself would bring down my credit rating so low that I would not qualify for a mortgage or even a credit card.
Would they be prepared to lose all people i my position as potential customers?
None of my customers persisted in their demands.
If us based credit ratings use similar criteria, and they do not have to ask permission - then you are truly screwed.

In Italy. See:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/10/passport_requir.html
for more info.

Where are their servers located ? .. would be interesting to know, due to various regional annoyances such as the DMCA, opposition to open versions of DeCSS etc.

I used to have your problem. Then, finally, Windows just got too painful to endure so I bought a PS3 and switched all other use to Linux.
You can get a decent workstation with Ubuntu preloaded for something like 400 USD (just got one for my mum). Adding the cost of a PS3 onto that makes the total cost quite close to what you'd pay when buying a similarly powered Vista box with office preloaded.

I think this is why people get so massively irritated by these restrictions.
When a customer gets turned away from a web based shop, it is usually not perceived by the customer as a sale rejected due to some import/export restriction - instead, the people impacted by these restrictions feel as though they've entered the store, chosen a product, produced their credit card in order to pay - just to find themselves being kicked out of the store due to their nationality.

I remember in the old days (10-15 years ago) when the Internet had not been i18n'ed yet. I could order goods / services from anywhere in the world and have it shipped to wherever I would be located.
Nowadays, I always find myself forced to go to some vendors regional webpage which is not accessible in a language I understand due to the underlying (and horribly outdated) assumption that everyone is born, lives and dies in one tiny geographic area, from which they never move, and that they only are able to speak the "official" language used in that area.

.. mounted on my brand new SHARKS !!

http://www.difrwear.com/products.shtml

.. just imagine a Beowulf cluster of those !
The possibilities are endless !

My browser has no problem with their cert. And Im using a particularly picky browser (firefox 3.07).
A non-story?

You left out a bit at the end - the correct implementation is:

if (status != SUCCESS) {
        JpmcdsErrMsgFailure(routine);
        bailedOut=true;
        status=SUCCESS;
        setRunning(true);
}