Information Policy

Regulation of Blog Campaign Advocacy on the Internet: Comparing U.S., German and EU Approaches

by Allison Hayward [George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper]

This essay examines how U.S., Germany, and EU cases have treated the regulation of political commentary on the Internet. As political blogging grows in popularity, the reach of these sites, and their influence in political campaigns, may make them a target for regulation by rivals and incumbents, both at home and abroad. Since ordinarily any URL can be reached from anywhere with Internet access, conflicting domestic rules about what can be said (and who can say it) present potential for conflicting rules on blogging. In brief, U.S. law protects blogging content, but may impose restrictions on the source of political commentary by barring certain funding sources. German law imposes stricter limits on the content of blogging, but does not regulate financial sources to the same degree. European court rulings may offer greater protection than domestic German law, but seem inconsistent and thus add uncertainty and ambiguity to the situation. In the end, bloggers may avoid legal entanglement because they enjoy public sympathy and support, but better still would be an international agreement to spare blogging from prosecution.

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1008928

Technology and Pornography

by Dawn C. Nunziato [Brigham Young University Law Review]

Over the past decade, legislators and industry players have attempted to employ technology to restrict the availability to minors of sexually-themed Internet content. Legislative efforts have relied on adult verification and software filtering technology. The constitutionality of such schemes generally depends on the level of sophistication, efficacy, and deployment of adult verification technology, the burdens that the required use of such technology imposes on content providers and Internet end users, and availability of less restrictive but equally effective alternatives for achieving the government's interest. In the case of both the CDA and COPA, challengers pointed to the less restrictive alternative of software filters in convincing the Court to strike down these statutes as constitutionally infirm. Recently, an organization called CP80 has proposed legislation (Internet Community Ports Act) that would require that all Internet content be classified by content providers into one of two categories - Adult/Inappropriate for Minors or Appropriate for Minors. This proposed legislation relies on port-filtering technology to restrict minors' access to the former category of content. Under this proposed scheme, certain Internet ports would be designated as Adult Ports to transmit adult content while others would be designated as Community Ports to be used for all other content. Individual users would then direct their ISPs to provide content to them on all ports or only on Community Ports. In this Article, Professor Nunziato scrutinises attempts to use technology to remedy the problem of minors' access to harmful Internet content, focusing on the relationship between the efficacy of the technology and the constitutionality of the legislation at issue. The more effective software filtering becomes in restricting minors' access to harmful content, the less likely the courts will uphold other legislative means. She then analyses the foundational First Amendment jurisprudence regarding the regulation of minors' access to sexually-themed content. Next, I examine the fate of Congress's recent efforts to regulate in this area, with particular emphasis on the current status of COPA. Finally, she analyses the constitutionality of the proposed Internet Community Ports Act in light of the scrutiny courts have imposed upon prior legislative efforts and the burdens the Act would impose on content providers and Internet users.

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1003394

UN Secretary-General confirms IGF advisory group members from business

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week confirmed the 47 members of the multistakeholder advisory group who will help prepare a global gathering to discuss issues of critical importance to the Internet. Several ICC/BASIS representatives are among the names selected to lend business expertise to the planning of the UN-linked Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which will take place in Rio de Janeiro in November.

http://www.huliq.com/31408/un-secretary-general-confirms-igf-advisory-group-members-from-business

Wordpress.com blocked in Turkey

Turkey blocked the access to all the blogs hosted at wordpress.com on 17 August 2007, after a Turkish court decided on this action by agreing with a law firm hired by Adnan Oktar, that claimed that several blogs on the wordpress platform were publishing allegedly defamatory and "unlawful" statements about their client.

Since 17 August 2007, over a million WordPress hosted blogs could have not been accessible in Turkey, and a standard message has been displayed instead: "Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C.Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance ".

Adnan Oktar's lawyers claimed that they had tried to contact wordpress.com several times in order to remove the alleged unlawful statements, but there had been no reply, so they had been forced to go to court and ask for a decision to block all the websites hosted at that address. They are accusing Edip Yuksel, a Turkish writer and rival of their client, of using WordPress-hosted blogs to publish "slander" about Adnan Oktar.

Apparently the court ordered the main ISP Turk Telecom to block a few specific blogs, but when the new sites moved the content to other blogs hosted at WordPress," we applied to the court to order that all websites of WordPress be blocked," said one of the lawyers. He also claimed that "We have also sent messages to other blog hosting sites and if the libellous content moves to them we will again apply to the courts to have those blocked also."

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg published on his blog the letters received from Adnan Oktar's lawyers with their allegations. He also commented that, "when they said they contacted us 17 times, that means that they would blast the same email to multiple address and when they didn't get the reply they wanted they sent the same message over and over again" and pointed out that "we never received any notice from Turkish courts".

He ended by saying : "So if you don't disallow certain words being used on your blogs, you'll be punitively punished through our state-controlled ISP. Today those words are 'Adnan Oktar'. Who knows what they'll be tomorrow."

Turkey also blocked the entire Youtube website for 2 days in March 2007 by a court order, after some videos insulting Turkey's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had been uploaded on its servers.

Why We're Blocked in Turkey: Adnan Oktar (19.08.2007)
http://wordpress.com/blog/2007/08/19/why-were-blocked-in-turkey/

New Media The Press Freedom Dimension

This book is a record of an international conference – “New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension Challenges and Opportunities of New Media for Press Freedom” – to explore the emerging and rapidly evolving environment of press freedom created by the new electronic media.

It took place at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientifi c and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris 15-16 February 2007.

With speakers from more than 30 countries, the discussions covered a wide range of topics from citizen journalism and freedom of expression, to the looming reality of censorship, as dictators, taking the cue from China, place blocks on the Internet and lock up people for expressing their views in cyberspace.

The book includes adaptations of speeches given at the conference and background papers along with reports of presentations that were made in visual formats.

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001520/152017e.pdf

Numericable’s fibre base tops one million

French cableco Numericable, the united brand name of the formerly separate cable networks of Noos, UPC France, France Telecom Cable, NC Numericable and TDF Cable, has announced one million households signed up to its triple-play services via its fibre-optic networks, and expects to double this to two million by end-2007. The company is looking to position itself as a key player in the national market and is looking to invest EUR4 billion (USD5.4 billion) on its fibre networks between 2005 and 2010. Numericable also intends to establish itself as a quadruple-play provider, and is planning to launch a MVNO service in early 2008 through a network sharing deal with Bouygues Telecom. Numericable claims a total of 3.4 million TV subscribers, 700,000 internet services and 450,000 customers taking its voice telephony service.

http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=19400

Beijing Police Launch Virtual Web Patrols To Scare Suffers

Police in China's capital say they will start patrolling the Web using animated beat officers that pop up on a user's browser and walk, bike, or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content. Starting Sept. 1, the cartoon alerts will appear every half hour on 13 of China's top portals, including Sohu and Sina, and by the end of the year will appear on all Web sites registered with Beijing servers.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_6739873

PL: Free ‘hot spots’ in the Warsaw district of Bemowo

The Warsaw district of Bemowo will soon offer free Internet access to all users who have the appropriate wireless technology.

The wireless radio connection is based on a number of base stations which will allow the users to connect to the Internet using wireless technology. At the moment, there are six base stations ready and the total number necessary for full district coverage is 3 000. The network is supposed to be fully operational next year and the total cost estimation amounts to about €700 000.

The users will be able to browse World Wide Web pages, check their emails, use eBanking and eCommunicators. However, to avoid piracy and illegal file distribution problems, the network will not allow the use of popular peer-to-peer programs.

What is more, in order to prevent unauthorised access to the network, every user who wants to take full advantage of the network will have to register on the BemowoNet network. Having received a login and password, the user will then be able to access the Internet without other limitations. Without registering, only the start page www.bemowo.waw.pl will be operational.

Finally, a few technical details connected with the transfer speed of the new service: total speed for the whole district is 55 Mbit/s and the average user should have access to 512 Kbit/s of bandwidth.

http://www.epractice.eu/document/3764

EU: eSignature Profiles for 29 countries available for consultation

IDABC, the EU programme which notably aims to encourage and support the interoperable delivery of public sector services to citizens and enterprises in Europe, published the results of an analysis carried out in 29 countries (EU-27 plus Croatia and Turkey) on the use of electronic signature in national eGovernment applications.

The lack of mutual recognition of electronic signatures among the Member States has been recognised as one of the barriers in conducting business at the European level, namely in the area of public eProcurement. Therefore, since 2005, IDABC has launched an action whose objective has been to analyse the interoperability requirements of electronic signatures for different eGovernment applications and services; the Preliminary study on mutual recognition of eSignatures for eGovernment applications.

The action takes into account the relevant provisions of Directive 1999/93/EC of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures, their national implementation as well as the midterm report on the Directive and the standardisation activities on the interoperability of electronic signatures (ETSI).

Based upon the answers of 29 national correspondents to a questionnaire prepared and run by IDABC’s contractor, each National Profile provides the type of eSignature legally required for each eGovernment application in the respective countries. IDABC’s contractor will soon produce an Analysis and Assessment of legal, organisational and technical similarities and differences among the 29 countries, to be finalised in September 2007.

Extracted from this coming assessment, potential impacts and issues on eSignature interoperability or mutual recognition will serve as the basis for making recommendations and proposing a mutual information mechanism on electronic signatures requirements. The preliminary study is scheduled to be completed in 2009.

http://www.epractice.eu/document/3749

India Introduces New ISP Regulation

The India government has reduced the foreign direct investment limit in internet services to 74% from 100% earlier and introduced a 6% revenue share clause that may spell costlier internet services for consumers. All ISPs are now permitted to offer internet telephony services against the earlier policy requiring a special licence for it.

However, the new policy continues with the existing norm that bars ISPs from terminating internet telephony calls on landlines or mobiles within India.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2310991.cms