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Deutsch: Das Prinzip der Rechtsstaatlichkeit in den Händen der Privatwirtschaf...
Private-sector attempts to undermine and attack the ability of WikiLeaks to function on the Internet have attracted much attention. Their domain name (wikileaks.org) was was taken out of service by EveryDNS, their ability to collect funds was restricted by Paypal, Visa and Mastercard while Amazon deleted their website. When did we abandon the rule of law and replace it with summary justice meted out by private companies? How does it happen that private companies can punish a website that has never been convicted of a crime? Why would they do this?
The truth is that there have been years of "behind-the-scenes" efforts by (mostly western) governments to persuade, reward or coerce Internet companies into developing censorship structures. Under the harmless-sounding flag of "self-regulation," and demands that Internet providers take more responsibility for illegal online activity, a comprehensive infrastructure is being put in place. The purpose of this infrastructure is to hand over quasi-judicial responsibilities to private companies, which, less bound by the obligations imposed on courts, impose summary justice on those accused of illegal activity online. This action can be to have payments being blocked by payment providers, websites deleted and Internet traffic filtered by Internet providers, slowly and imperceptibly eroding the rule of law. While western governments must respect their constitutions, life becomes much simpler when private companies can take extra-judicial action against uncomfortable online information.
Even before WikiLeaks had been heard of by anyone in Europe except geeks, the European Commission had launched proposals for European web hosting companies to take extra-judicial action to delete websites without judicial authority (helpfully suggesting that they give themselves licence to do so in their terms of service), online trading platforms to ban people accused of counterfeiting from online trade, Internet access providers to filter peer to peer traffic in order to delete anything that might not be authorised by copyright owners and mobile phone companies to block alleged illegal content from their networks.
This is not just a European phenomenon. The EU negotiated the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement with countries around the world. This agreement suggests extra-judicial "cooperation" between Internet providers and copyright owners to police and punish alleged infringements. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has launched a major project on the role of Internet intermediaries in "achieving public policy objectives". The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe actively welcomes an approach where the only punishment for the publication of racist material online is the extra-judicial deletion of the websites containing the material. The list goes on.
Unfortunately, this trend for governments to outsource regulation of the Internet is happening at a moment when Internet companies are increasingly open to such requests. Companies like Virgin and Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile are campaigning for the right to interfere in Internet traffic for their own commercial purposes. Virgin has announced plans to implement technology to open every packet of data sent to or received from its consumers in order to police possible copyright infringements, which would undermine its music business. Deutsche Telekom has also signaled its intention to restrict access of its customers to high-bandwidth sites. Earlier this year, its CEO reportedly demanded that Google be required to pay for the bandwidth used to access its services.
The increasing willingness of the largest Internet providers to interfere with their customers' traffic for business purposes obviously creates dangers for competition, innovation and free speech - dangers that would normally inspire government intervention for the good of society. Instead there appears to be a silent agreement - Internet companies will gradually undertake extra policing activities and, in return, they will be left free to slowly dismantle the openness that is at the heart of its value for democratic society.
Deutsche Telekom moves against Apple, Google and net neutrality (7.04.2010)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5439525,00.html
Virgin Media to trial filesharing monitoring system (26.11.2010)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/26/virgin_media_detica
EDRi-gram: E-Commerce directive: ensure freedom of expression and due
process of law (17.11.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.22/edri-e-commerce-directive-cons...
EDRi-gram: EDRi and EuroISPA attack EC's demands for notice and takedown
(28.07.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.15/edri-euroispa-notice-takedown-...
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)