Im actually going to compete this year. Usually I sign up, get busy, then ignore the challenge, however I want to see how I match up with the rest of the world when it comes to solving hard problems in a set amount of time using good data structures. Its also always good to stay sharp so that you can do well in interviews when you need to (never know!).
There are tons of laws in various jurisdictions that make doing things that involve contests and competitions more or less difficult to run; in the case of Quebec, you apparently have to register your competition, disclose all of the various prizes, and even post bonds with the government related to the valuations. If you are sufficiently disappointed that these requirements often causes competitions to skip your country, you might consider lobbying to change these laws.
Nothing "really" prevents you from participating, you'll just have to fill a valid address (which can be easily found online) only thing is you won't receive any prizes...
The server encountered an error and could not complete your request.
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When attempting to identify using a Google account?
I didn't get this error here, however I recieved the exact same error when I used my german "..@googlemail.com" mail address to register on appengine. After changing it to "..@gmail.com" it worked. If you are german, you could try that as well.
