(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

French Internet regulation history seems to repeat itself, as shows a recently unveiled administrative decree project, which aims at creating a "National Commission for the deontology of on-line public communication services".

The Commission would be in charge of elaborating "deontological recommendations" towards professional on- line communication services, including fixed and mobile telecom operators, ISPs, publishing and distributing services. The Commission would also be in charge of attributing "quality labels" to these services.

However, these recommendations would also indirectly apply to the users of these services, through subscribing contractual clauses, especially since a "quality label" may be withdrawn by the Commission when it is found that "deontological recommendations" are not respected. The Commission should include of 23 members nominated by the French Prime minister for 5 years. Besides representatives of different ministries, one magistrate and one member of the French Conseil d'Etat, the Commission should include 14 members representing both - and in parity - online communication services users and professionals.

French digital rights organizations have soon denounced this new attempt of censorship. EDRI member IRIS notes that this proposal sounds very similar to the first attempt of Internet regulation in France in... 1996, through what was popularly called the "Fillon Amendment" to the Telecom law. This amendment was found unconstitutional in July 1996, and then its major provisions were censored since, according to article 34 of the Constitution, fundamental freedoms may only be limited by the legislator, while in this case there were no specified binding principles for recommendations to be made by an administrative Commission, with strong impact on freedom of expression.

IRIS reminds that these arguments from the Constitutional council examining the 1996 law still apply and may well be reused against a 2007 administrative decree before the competent jurisdiction.

Draft of administrative decree (in French only, 07.02.2007)
http://odebi.org/docs/Projetdecretcommissiondeontologie.pdf

Polemics on the regulation of French Internet (in French only, 09.02.2007)
http://www.01net.com/editorial/341006/legislation/polemique-autour-de-...

APRIL Press release - Internet Regulation : always the good old methods...(in French only, 12.02.2007)
http://www.april.org/articles/communiques/pr-20070212.html

IRIS Press release - « Fillon Amendment » 2.0 : help, the public expression « deontology » returns ! (in French only, 14.02.2007)
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/info-debat/comm-deontologie0207.html

(Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI-member IRIS - France)