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Deutsch: Französische DNS-Verwaltung muss verfassungsmäßige Freiheiten respe...

In a ruling issued on 6 October 2010, the French Constitutional Council affirmed the constitutional value of domain names. According to this decision, which applies to the whole French DNS, a domain name attribution, renewal, transfer or cancellation process must not only respect intellectual property rights, but also freedom of expression and freedom of entrepreneurship.

The ruling was issued in the framework of a new procedure, that allows questioning the constitutionality of an existing law in the course of legal proceedings related to the application of the given law.

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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Reichlich schlechte Nachrichten vom Europarat

The third Council of Europe (CoE) Committee of experts on new media (MC-NM), held on 27-28 September 2010 in Strasbourg, is likely to dampen enthusiasm.

To start with, the current vice-chair Michael Truppe is leaving the group to hold another position on the Austrian scene.

European Digital Rights has published a booklet aimed at informing EU officials and parliamentarians about the many complex issues surrounding the issue of Internet blocking.

This is part of EDRi's ongoing work in order to persuade the EU institutions not to introduce web blocking as part of the upcoming Directive on Child Exploitation.

The booklet is available in English and it was translated in:
- German (thanks Unwatched.org)
- Czech (thanks Michael Klánský)
- Romanian (thanks Matei-Eugen Vasile)

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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Internet-Sperren in zehn Wochen

Within the next ten weeks, the European Parliament will finish its crucial first reading of the Directive which, if the European Commission has its way, will impose an EU-wide blocking infrastructure - undermining child protection, fundamental rights and the EU's voice on freedom and democracy in the world.

The measure proposed is quite interesting. The text reads as follows: "Member States shall take the necessary measures to obtain the blocking of access by Internet users in their territory to Internet pages containing or disseminating child pornography.

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Deutsch: Französischer Senat stimmt Netzsperren zu

The French Senate adopted on 10 September 2010 the law on known as Loppsi 2 (Original title: loi d'orientation et de programmation pour la performance de la sécurité intérieure).

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Deutsch: Niederländische Internet-Gemeinschaft protestiert gegen staatliche Ze...

Dutch civil society, companies, academics and bloggers sent a letter on 15 September 2010 to the Dutch Minister of Justice regarding a recently launched legislative proposal. According to the writers, the proposal could lead to censorship by the government. The organizations request the change of the proposal in order to preserve the freedom of press and internet.

The draft proposal of Dutch Minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin has far-reaching consequences for the freedom of Dutch internet users.

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Deutsch: Löschen illegaler Seiten ist effizienter als Sperren

Eco, the Association of German Internet Economy, presented, in a press conference in Berlin on 1 September 2010, the situation related to fighting child pornography, reaching the conclusion that deleting was, in 98% of the cases, more efficient than blocking illegal sites.

Thus, out of 197 child pornography sites reported at the Eco Internet Complaint during the first half of 2010, 194 were offline in a week. "The Websites that are hosted on the German servers were offline regularly within one business day."

The main reason for this successful result is the establishment of "notice and takedown" procedures and

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Deutsch: Einspruch von Azeri Bloggern vom Höchstgericht abgewiesen

The Azerbaijani Supreme Court took a disturbing decision on 19 August 2010 rejecting the appeal by bloggers and activists Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade thus upholding the previous decisions taken by the lower courts in 2009 that convicted the two bloggers under false accusations of hooliganism.

The two bloggers were arrested on 8 July 2009 after having appealed to the police as victims of an assault in a restaurant and, on 11 November 2009, Baku's Sabail district court sentenced them to 2 and 2,5 years of imprisonment respectively, on charge of hooliganism.