EDRi has answered the BEREC Consultation on Net Neutrality that ended on 31 July 2012, underlining that BEREC, the European Commission and national telecom regulators should be acting to stop the Net neutrality breaches and to ensure that services failing to maintain open access to the Internet, should not be able to refer to themselves as Internet access services.
EDRi welcomed BEREC's commitment to provide further guidance on net neutrality in order to maintain an open and competitive internet in Europe and to address the increasingly urgent question of how digital technology can be kept free and open. The answer of the organisation tackled issues in the BEREC's three guidelines on Quality of Service (BoR 32), IP-interconnection (BoR 33) and differentiation practices (BoR 31).
Following the arguments presented, EDRi thinks that BEREC's guidance on net neutrality should be based on the following major six principles:
1.The Internet must be kept and open. Reachability between all end points connected to the Internet, without any form of restriction must be maintained.
2. All forms of discriminatory traffic management, such as blocking or throttling should be prohibited.
3. Traffic management should only be allowed as narrowly tailored deviations from the rule. This must be either technically necessary or to address a transient network management problem which cannot otherwise be addressed.
4. Use of deep packet inspection (and re-use of associated data) should be reviewed by national data protection regulators to assess compliance with the EU's data protection and fundamental rights framework. By default, only header information should be use for traffic management.
5. Accessible, complete information on traffic management practices and justifications must be published.
6. Non-neutral treatment of traffic for “voluntary” law enforcement by intermediaries’ purposes must be prohibited unless there is a legal basis in the country where the restriction is being implemented.
EDRi's response to the NN Consultation (31.07.2012)
http://edri.org/files/2012EDRi_position_BEREC_NetNeutrality.pdf
EDRi-gram: A new Net Neutrality EC consultation delays possible regulations (1.08.2012)
http://edri.org/edrigram/number10.15/another-net-neutrality-consultati...
There has lately been controversy over proposals made by several countries, such as Russia and China, to give more control over the Internet to the UN International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Key functions of the internet as naming, numbering, addressing and identification are now carried out by ICANN, based in the US independent IANA, and national and regional agencies. Presently, ITU has some managing powers of the internet, such as promoting IPv6 awareness and coordinating international cybersecurity efforts. ITU’s international telecommunications regulations (ITRS), a treaty dating since 1988 (therefore before the existence of the web) are now under discussions to be revised and therefore, several parties have made proposals for the revision of the regulations. The Russian premier Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with ITU chief Hamadoun Toure: "We are thankful to you for the ideas that you have proposed for discussion. One of them is establishing international control over the internet using the monitoring and supervisory capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union."
In September 2011, countries like China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, submitted a proposal to the UN general assembly for an "international code of conduct for information security with the purpose to set up government-led "international norms and rules standardising the behaviour of countries concerning information and cyberspace".
In December 2012 in Dubai, ITU members will discuss, among other things, the introduction of the internet into ITU existing regulatory framework. Although the preparation of the meeting is kept secret, WCITleaks.org has revealed the proposals for ITU to take over more control powers.
EU digital commissioner Neelie Kroes stated on 24 August 2012 that, although the governments might have more to say in the way the Internet runs, she was against ITU taking over control of the internet although some governments might have other opinions: "Of course there are voices saying it would be better with the UN (but) I'm not in favour of the line that, if you have a problem, you can only solve it in a new structure," Kroes who added:"I still think that the remarks that are made (about giving governments a greater voice) can be included in a solution within the structure of today," she said. "I'm not aware that that can't be done, so I'm not willing to (favour) a new structure."
While the US Congress opposes the proposal of the UN agency to take control over the Internet, it is also not even clear whether ITU wants to assume this kind of control. Hamadoun Toure said there was "no single reference to Internet governance in the preparation document".
No need for UN to take over internet, says EU digital chief Kroes
(24.08.2012)
http://www.zdnet.com/no-need-for-un-to-take-over-internet-says-eu-digi...
The fight for control of the internet has become critical (22.08.2012)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/22/fight-control-inte...
A Russian senator has recently proposed a very drastic 15-year prison sentence for hackers who attack government websites.
The proposal of Senator Ruslan Gattarov, who is also Kremlin youth group organizer, comes after the hacker attack on the server of the Moscow Khamovnichesky Court of 21 August 2012.
An anonymous group seem to have admitted the responsibility for having broken the court’s site and posted some internal court documents on 21 August 2012. The group is said to have also replaced the original text on the homepage of the court’s site with slogans calling for freedom for the punk group Pussy Riot, posted on the court’s site a music video of a homosexual nature by Bulgarian singer Azis, changed the titles of the Web site's sections by adding sneering comments and obscenities and made one of the Pussy Riot group's songs automatically start playing as the Web page downloaded.
The group’s action is a result of the Russian court’s decision on 17 August 2012 to sentence three female performers from the punk group Pussy Riot to two years in prison, for “hooliganism on grounds of religious hatred” after they sang a protest song “Virgin Mary, redeem us from Putin”, in the Cathedral of the Christ the Savior in Moscow, in February.
The hacking action is only one of the reactions against the sentencing of the performers. The band’s case has brought about strong protests all over the world and even statements of concern from foreign governments like that of the British Foreign Office Minister, Alistair Burt who expressed his deep concern regarding the sentence, calling it a "disproportionate response to an expression of political belief." Amnesty International called the ruling a "bitter blow for freedom of expression" in Russia. “The Russian authorities should overturn the court ruling and release the members of Pussy Riot immediately and unconditionally,” said John Dalhuisen, Director of Amnesty International's Europe and Central Asia Programme.
In June, a letter of support of the three women, signed by more than 200 Russian cultural figures, well-known writers, musicians and actors, was posted on the Echo Moskvy radio web site and collected around 45,000 more signatures.
Also in June, a group of Orthodox believers sent an open letter to Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, asking for mercy for the three arrested women while in august a group of lawyers published an open letter in which they stated that the actions of the three women could not be qualified as a crime and that their sentence was in violation of the Russian law.
After the hacking incident, the Supreme Court judicial department has asked the Investigations Committee to open a criminal case on the hacking attack and, according to Larisa Zhukova, an official of the Russian Interior Ministry's Department K, the department is ready to investigate it.
Russia: Senator Wants 15 Years in Prison for Hackers (26.08.2012)
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/08/26/russia-senator-wants-15-years...
Hackers allege attack on Khamovnichesky court mail server (21.08.2012)
http://rbth.ru/articles/2012/08/21/hackers_allege_attack_on_khamovnich...
Moscow Khamovnichesky Court website resumes work after hackers attack
(21.08.2012)
http://rbth.ru/articles/2012/08/21/the_website_of_the_moscow_khamovnic...
Court website attacked after Pussy Riot punk band convicted (21.08.2012)
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/08/21/pussy-riot-hack/
Russian court jails Pussy Riot for two years (17.08.2012)
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/russian-court-jails-pussy-riot-2012-08-...
Google announced on 10 August 2012 that it would change the searching algorithms so as to lower the search rankings of websites that receive a high number of DMCA, European (Directive 2000/31/EC) or other similar local legislation takedown requests.
“Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results,” Google’s Amit Singhal wrote in a blog post.
The company has given in to the extensive and strong lobbying efforts of the entertainment industry groups thus “punishing” websites such as filestube.com, extratorrent.com, torrenthound.com, The Pirate Bay, FilesTube, and even YouTube. Google emphasized the fact that it would not be interested in whether the content of the sites is authorized or not, the removal of the pages from its search results being made only based on the number of valid DMCA or similar takedown notices.
“Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular web page does or does not violate copyright law,” also writes Singhal.
"We will only be counting valid copyright removal notices based on applicable laws, submitted under penalty of perjury by copyright owners, that meet our take down criteria. We also provide counter-notice tools for anyone concerned that their content has been wrongly removed. And this really only applies to situations where there have been a large number of removals. This is still just one ranking signal among hundreds" explains Google in an answer by email to some concerns raised by EDRi.
As the results of the algorithm change can already be seen, The Pirate Bay has only shown some disappointment for Google having given in to the industry’s demands and the owner of fellow BitTorrent site isoHunt has called for protests against antitrust bullying and censorship.
The main concern regarding the measures taken by Google is that perfectly legal content will fall victim to it as many websites, such as YouTube for instance, will be degraded entirely with all their content, for having received many DMCA takedown requests. To this, the faulty takedown requests are added which will lead to legitimate content being pushed down the search rankings.
This action is one of the three demands made by the entertainment industry to Google, Bing and Yahoo during a behind-closed-doors meeting in 2011, the other two demands being to “prioritize websites that obtain certification as a licensed site under a recognized scheme” and “stop indexing websites that are subject to court orders while establishing suitable procedures to de-index substantially infringing sites.”
"We have a process for individuals who feel their content has been wrongly blocked and we work quickly to reinstate their content. Users can already file a counter notice, and we plan to improve these tools (see our Transparency Report for details). There are also legal penalties available against those who knowingly misuse the takedown process. Please note that counter notices are taken into account to offset takedowns too" detailed Google in its email answers to EDRi.
Google Starts Punishing “Pirate” Sites In Search Results (10.08.2012)
http://torrentfreak.com/google-starts-punishing-pirate-sites-in-search...
Google URL Takedown Requests Up 100% In a Month, Up 1137% On 2011
(24.08.2012)
http://torrentfreak.com/google-url-takedown-requests-up-100-in-a-month...
Pirate Bay and isoHunt Respond to Google Search Result Punishment
(16.08.2012)
http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-and-isohunt-respond-to-google-searc...
An update in our search algorythm (10.08.2012)
http://insidesearch.blogspot.ro/2012/08/an-update-to-our-search-algori...
On 21 August 2012, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault asked three ministers to work on relating CSA (the Superior Council of the Audiovisual) and Arcep (Telecommunications and Post regulator) asking them to coordinate their work with that of Pierre Lescure on Hadopi future.
The request made by the prime minister is obviously intended to take Internet regulatory powers from Hadopi and give them to CSA. This is a real concern having in view CSA’s intentions to filter content and give up net neutrality. EDRi-observer La Quadrature du Net draws the attention over the threat of reducing the Internet to an audio-visual service in order to impose on it administrative regulations that can lead to censorship.
“The ‘regulation of the content’ by a centralised actor is an approach doomed to failure: Internet is not an ‘audiovisual service’, the ‘contents’ are produced by commercial companies as well as by individuals. Publishing content on the Internet represents freedom of expression and a democratic participation of everybody. To impose Internet to be regulated in the same way as television is one more step towards an administrative control of the network and towards censorship of communications”, said Jérémie Zimmermann of La Quadrature du Net.
Although Hadopi has been greatly opposed and criticised, the perspective of having CSA in charge with Internet regulation is even more frightening.
In the meantime, Hadopi has in mind a follow-up of the graduate response and fights the proposals, from Sacem or SNEP for instance, that ask for milder sanctions for users found to illegally share online copyrighted material. Presently the sanction is the suspension of the Internet access and a 1500 Euro fine. Yet, although Hadopi has sent a large amount of warning letters to Internet users, no court has yet applied any such sanction having in view the disproportional sanction and the difficulty of proving the infringement. The proposals ask for milder but firmer sanctions that can be clearly applied. Sacem’s proposal is even to go to an automatic fine system calculated on route radars. Mireille Imbert-Quaretta, President of the Commission for the Protection of Hadopi rights, warns over the possibility of actually obtaining a more repressive system. “I also share the view that contravention fines would be even more repressive than the graduate response: the risk of automatizing the process, the possibility of accumulating fines, the impossibility of appealing to suspended sentences, the lack of knowledge of the public related to the fact that P2P software share content and that this sharing makes the object of infringements....”
So, it could be even worse than with Hadopi.
It’s official: Matignon associates Hadopi, CSA and Arcep to regulate the
Internet! (only in French, 21.08.2012)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/23465-c-est-officiel-matignon-associe...
Arcep – CSA link: is the government on the way to Internet censorship?
(only in French, 22.08.2012)
http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/rapprochement-arcep-csa-le-gouvernement...
Hadopi thinks of a “follow-up of the graduate response” without fines
(only in French, 24.08.2012)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/23496-la-hadopi-reflechit-a-une-suite...
During July 2012, the Macedonian Young Lawyers Association (MYLA) submitted 145 requests for free access to information of public character to a number of state institutions (aka FOI requests).
The requests were submitted in order to obtain information about the dynamics of implementation of the National Programme for Adoption of the Acquis Communautaire (NPAAC 2012) which is a strategic document enshrining specific obligations for the state institutions the fulfilment of which affects the process of the integration of the Republic of Macedonia into EU. Considering the fact that NPAAC 2012 is quite a voluminous document MYLA focused on the implementation of Chapter 23: Judiciary and Fundamental Rights and of Chapter 24: Justice, Freedom and Security.
The number of responses to the requests received so far leads to the conclusion that there is an improvement in the conduct of the competent institutions. More than two thirds of the information holders responded within the legal limit of 30 days and delivered the requested information.
Still, MYLA noted some difficulties and problems had occurred, while securing access to public information. Some of the information holders have not yet responded to the requests regardng the public information. Certain state institutions continue with the practice of redirecting the requests towards other state institutions, instead of delivering the requested information. This is especially present in the cases when several state bodies are involved in the preparation of certain acts. To avoid this situation, MYLA submitted the FOI requests exclusively to state bodies noted within the NPAAC 2012 as responsible for the implementation of the activity which is the subject of the request. However, in spite of this, MYLA received notifications that the requests were forwarded.
At the same time, it's worth mentioning that in regard to the resending of requests, significant number of state bodies fail to respect Article 18 of the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Character which states: “If the information holder that received the request does not possess the requested information, they must—immediately or within 3 days from receiving of the request—resend the request to the holder of information, who, according to the content of the request, is the true information holder, and must inform the applicant about the resending.” MYLA reckons that this practice needlessly prolongs the procedure for access to public information, registering cases when institutions groundlessly resend the requests, and often times do not respect the 3-day legal deadline which obliges the information holder to resend the request to the appropriate body-information holder and inform the requester about it.
In addition, part of the addressed information holders who denied MYLA's requests, responded without using the legally binding form of responses. Article 20 paragraph 2 from the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Character states that if the information holder partially or entirely denies the request, they must also submit a formal rejection decision or an appropriate legal act. In most cases, the denial of the FOI requests was done by written notification, and not through formal decision.
MYLA will continue to issue monthly releases to inform about the problems and challenges during the implementation of the procedure for free access to public information.
This report refers to the months of July and August 2012, and is part of the series of reports informing the public about the state of implementation of the free access to public information in the Republic of Macedonia, as part of the project “Exercising of the Right to Free Access to Information with Securing Legal Aid and Strategic Advocacy.”
Records on all FOI procedures initiated through this project
http://www.spinfo.org.mk
Similar news in Macedonian (16.08.2012)
http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/mk/vesti/makedonija/2218-podobruvanje-...
(Contribution by EDRi-members Metamorphosis Foundation - Macedonia)
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: CleanIT – ein sichereres Internet … für Terroristen?
The “CleanIT project”, funded by the European Commission and led by the Dutch police, aims to produce a “guideline or gentleman's agreement” to fight terrorism online in a way which does not involve the use of legislation. The latest draft of its proposals was recently made available.
The intention to launch the project was first publicly announced in May 2010, during a European Commission event with the same goal and involving the same industry. At that event, the European Commission proposed that ISPs change their terms of service to allow them to more easily remove content that either industry or police forces felt was illegal. Two years and 400 000 Euros of funding later, the CleanIT project has formulated broadly the same proposal. Its draft document is 3 348 words long (which works out at a cost of 119.47 Euro per word), including definitions such as “the term “Internet companies” refers to companies providing divers sic services on the Internet” and informs us that “from a technical perspective, terrorist use of the Internet is not substantially different than regular, legal use of the Internet.”
The current draft document elevates Internet companies to a new level of corporate government. On a legislative level, it suggests that they should “ban the illegal terrorist use of the Internet in their terms of service/business conditions and acceptable use policies” - moving past the traditional rule-of-law based society where democratically-elected governments decided what should be prohibited. They will do this despite the fact that CleanIT believes that “Waht sic is terrorist use of the Internet is not always adequately defined or clearly explained.” The need for this move is hinted at by a recognition by the authors that “many activities of (potential) terrorists start in ordinary, easy accessible parts of the Internet and are not illegal”. This activity, they appear to believe, can be “banned” by private companies but not by democratically elected governments.
After fulfilling their legislative role, the Internet companies would then be in a position to implement their laws. They become the judge and decide what is illegal. Where their ruling is that it is illegal, they act as executioner of the law – imposing sanctions “immediately and proportionately” unless they believe that the activity that they are regulating may not be illegal, at which case they can refer the ruling to a court.
Internet companies are also expected to undertake a stronger policing role. The head of the project, Mr But Klaasen, envisages the development of a database of “illegal” (under which definition or in which jurisdiction is unclear – as CleanIT points out “there are differences in (il)legality between national legislations”) material, which could then be used, it appears, as some form of upload filter and/or download block. This would ensure that content deemed “illegal” could not be uploaded anywhere else... unless it was modified to get past the filter, of course. The fact that the draft project document says that “Internet companies must be transparent about the use of automated detection systems for this purpose” doesn't get around the fact that such widescale, suspicionless filtering was already deemed to be in breach of fundamental rights in the Scarlet/Sabam and Sabam/Netlog cases in the European Court of Human Rights. The draft document expresses a hope for widespread implementation of “automated detection systems” which, paradoxically would “not endanger Internet Freedom or even be illegal”.
The current project document also offers implicit encouragement to minimise or eliminate anonymity online, arguing that , while this is “logical and desirable” in some cases, “for many it is not a necessity”. This obviously ignores the fact that, for many, it is a necessity for this option to be available, even if not always used.
Despite much competition, possibly the most confusing element of all is the section on reporting. What is confusing is not that the Commission-funded CleanIT is working on re-inventing online reporting tools while the Commission-convened “CEO Coalition” is also (in parallel and with no coordination between them) re-inventing online reporting tools. What is confusing is more what it thinks this will achieve. What is confusing is that, in the context of online child abuse material, we are told by child protection organisations and the Commission that there are so many reports, that there is no hope of investigating a significant fraction of them and there is no point in asking for more resources for more of these crimes to be investigated. Meanwhile, CleanIT says that there isn't enough reporting of allegedly illegal material and “a large part of the terrorist use” is “never brought to the attention of Internet companies and LEAs.”
Of course, if the terrorists know that the only sanctions that will be taken against them will be superficial, because real law enforcement authorities will be relying on Internet companies to legislate on and police the Internet, maybe it would generate legal certainty – making the Internet a safer place... for terrorists... which is just a few words different from what CleanIT intended to achieve.
CleanIT Project
http://www.cleanitproject.eu/
EDRi/EuroISPA statement on predecessor project to CleanIT (9.07.2010)
http://www.edri.org/files/090710_dialogue_NTD_illegal_content_EuroISPA...
Interview with But Klaasen (6.06.2012)
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/303729,clean-it-project-considers-terror...
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
EFF: What's wrong with the TPP - Don’t Let Them Trade Away Our Internet
Freedoms (08.2012)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/dont-let-them-trade-away-our-int...
Creative Commons licences consultation - Draft 2 of 4.0 Ready for Public
Comment
Deadline: Early September 2012
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33632
Consultation on "Opening up Education – a proposal for a European
Initiative to enhance education and skills development through new
technologies"
Deadline: 13 November 2012
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/consult/open_en.htm
The rush to "anonymised" data (28.08.2012)
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2012/08/28/the-rush-to-anonymised-d...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/28/code-practice-medi...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/28/nhs-patient-records-medi...
European Court of Human Rights to examine complaint against ban on
anonymous prepaid mobile phone cards (15.08.2012)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2012/aug/07echr-mobiles.htm
German
http://www.daten-speicherung.de/index.php/recht-auf-anonyme-kommunikat...
ICO "not ready" to probe cookie complaints (13.08.2012)
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/376354/ico-not-ready-to-probe-cookie-compl...
6-7 September 2012, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
CONSENT policy conference:
Perceptions, Privacy and Permissions: the role of consent in on-line
services
http://conference.ubbcluj.ro/consent/
8-9 September 2012, Vienna, Austria
Daten, Netz & Politik 2012
https://dnp12.unwatched.org/
12-14 September 2012, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Building Institutions for Sustainable Scientific, Cultural and Genetic
Resources Commons.
http://biogov.uclouvain.be/iasc/index.php
14-17 September 2012, Brussels, Belgium
Freedom not Fear 2012
http://www.freedomnotfear.org
http://www.freedom-not-fear.eu
26 September 2012, Cambridge, UK
Open Data across Europe in Local and National Government - Practical
achievements and challenges
http://www.opening-up.eu/content/open-data-conference
27 September 2012, Paris, France
Open Data - La Conferance
http://www.opendata-laconference.com/agenda.html
7-10 October 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2012 Amsterdam Privacy Conference
http://www.apc2012.org/
11-12 October 2012, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Economies of the commons 3 - Sustainable Futures for Digital Archives
http://ecommons.eu/
25-28 October 2012, Barcelona, Spain
Free Culture Forum 2012
http://fcforum.net/
6-9 November 2012, Baku, Azerbaijan
Seventh Annual IGF Meeting: "Internet Governance for Sustainable Human,
Economic and Social Development"
http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/
9-11 November 2012, Fulda, Germany
Digitalisierte Gesellschaft - Wege und Irrwege
FIfF Annual Conference in cooperation with Fuldaer Informatik Kollquium
http://www.fiff.de/2012
4 December 2012, Brussels, Belgium
3rd Annual European Data Protection and Privacy Conference
http://www.eu-ems.com/summary.asp?event_id=123&page_id=983
6-8 May 2013, Berlin, Germany
re:publica 2013
http://re-publica.de/12/2012/08/28/der-termin-steht-vom-06-08-mai-2013...
31 July – 4 August 2013, Geestmerambacht, Netherlands
Observe. Hack. Make. - OHM2013
https://ohm2013.org/