Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Excellent blog on libel reform in UK
This is a really good resource especially on the 2009-10 libel reform campaign, from a critical viewpoint.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Council of Europe webTV show on Internet and human rights
Extremely basic, old fashioned and boring but its background to the debate.
Judicial Committee to investigate privacy 'super-injunctions'
Following the DCMS Report into libel and privacy law, the Master of the Rolls has set up the Committee, with 3 judges, 2 journalism representatives and the 2 most active gagging-order law firms, Schillings and Carter-Ruck.
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
US Senate Judiciary Committee on global Internet regulation
Webcast available here - Prof. Danny Weitzner is very impressive.
Google's testimony repeats Tim Wu's analysis that Internet censorship may be a non-tariff barrier to trade.
Google's testimony repeats Tim Wu's analysis that Internet censorship may be a non-tariff barrier to trade.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Google and Italy - criminal conviction for video post
Yesterday, in a landmark ruling, Google executives were convicted for the abuse of privacy of a disabled Italian child. The boy was bullied and videoed, the video posted on YouTube in 2005, and it was viewed several thousand times over 2 months before it was notified to YouTube, who then pulled the video off the site within a day. So far, so normal. Its Notice and Take Down (NTD) - see Chapter 4 of my new book.
What is unusual is that Italian prosecutors chose to go against the E-Commerce Directive's rules on NTD and press for a prosecution of Google executives. The suspended sentences were handed out yesterday.
Reaction has been loud, centred on requirements that YouTube might have to pre-screen videos in future, which would be prohibitively expensive. But its worth considering that my blog pre-screens comments, Yahoo's Flickr site apparently pre-screens images in Germany where Google screens search results since 2002 (to avoid Neo-nazi images being displayed), and many countries are introducing laws to block even non-local content that offends against child pornography laws.
Is the E-Commerce Directive thus unraveling? Or is UK politician Tom Watson correct to state: 'This is the biggest threat to internet freedom we have seen in Europe. The only people who will support this decision are Silvio Berlusconi and the governments of China and Iran. It effectively breaks the internet in Italy'?
What is unusual is that Italian prosecutors chose to go against the E-Commerce Directive's rules on NTD and press for a prosecution of Google executives. The suspended sentences were handed out yesterday.
Reaction has been loud, centred on requirements that YouTube might have to pre-screen videos in future, which would be prohibitively expensive. But its worth considering that my blog pre-screens comments, Yahoo's Flickr site apparently pre-screens images in Germany where Google screens search results since 2002 (to avoid Neo-nazi images being displayed), and many countries are introducing laws to block even non-local content that offends against child pornography laws.
Is the E-Commerce Directive thus unraveling? Or is UK politician Tom Watson correct to state: 'This is the biggest threat to internet freedom we have seen in Europe. The only people who will support this decision are Silvio Berlusconi and the governments of China and Iran. It effectively breaks the internet in Italy'?
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