Big Brother tightens his grip on the web (10.07.2008)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk>
Date: August 14, 2008 8:26:28 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Fwd: Big Brother tightens his grip on the web (10.07.2008)

Dave:

A colleague just alerted me to this (month old) article from the Times.

You might (still) be interested in it for IP.

cheers

Brian


> <http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4304715.ece 
> >http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4304715.ece
>
> Big Brother tightens his grip on the web
>
> Two decisions on either side of the Atlantic strike an alarming blow  
> against web freedom - and common sense
>
> Bernhard Warner in Rome
> If you've ever thought that incoherence and shortsightedness were  
> establishing themselves as the standards of the day for internet  
> policy, the events of the past week suggest that your worst fears  
> are becoming a reality.
> Last week, a New York judge ordered Google to <http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4263925.ece 
> >hand over a staggering 12 terabytes of YouTube user data to  
> broadcaster Viacom. Naturally, the American broadcaster, which is  
> losing young television viewers daily, needs all this data to  
> prevent its younger audience from posting clips of its programming  
> on the net's most thriving community where, shock horror, a fan base  
> may form to discuss, discover and share their opinions about  
> Viacom's TV shows, music videos and movie trailers. Yes, this is a  
> case of copyright infringement, but if you're unable to pick out the  
> real crime here you are not alone.
> Let's put aside for a moment the impracticality of sifting through  
> so much personal data (it's a volume of information comparable to  
> all the printed works in America's Library of Congress) to tell us  
> what we already know - viewers are posting Viacom videos to YouTube  
> without Viacom's permission. What is enraging even sensible net  
> users is that a district court judge could allow one of the biggest  
> media conglomerates in the world to get its hands on our personal  
> data that even we ourselves cannot access.
> Such muddle-headed decisions can turn apathetic net users into rabid  
> privacy advocates. Expect the fallout from this decision to be felt  
> for years to come in the form of consumer activist campaigns,  
> boycotts and, yes, more court decisions.
> Oh, but we're not done there.
> On Tuesday, the European Parliament approved sweeping amendments to  
> a package of telecoms laws that could essentially stifle the next  
> Skype or Firefox, and make it simpler for France's three-strikes-and- 
> you're-out file-sharing rules to become the law throughout Europe.  
> Critics such as the <http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/European_Parliament_rushes_towards_Soviet_Internet 
> >Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure are calling it  
> "Soviet-style" censorship.
> Just a year ago, the measures that we've seen in New York and  
> Brussels over the past week would have seemed impossible. Turn over  
> the personal details of millions of YouTubers, regardless of whether  
> they've typed the letters MTV into a search bar, to a broadcaster  
> bent on convincing us that all this attention constitutes theft?  
> Completely illogical, we'd have said.
> And here in Europe, who would have guessed we'd ever be granting  
> state regulators, prescient as they are in matters of technological  
> innovation, the power to decide which new software applications we  
> can and cannot use? If such an illogical system were in place a few  
> years ago, Europeans would no doubt have been robbed of Skype,  
> YouTube, Blogger, Twitter or any piece of software that threatens to  
> introduce free and simple consumer interaction and thus take  
> business away from Europe's struggling former monopolist telcos.
> As Benjamin Henrion of FFII ominously warns, "Tomorrow, popular  
> software applications like Skype or even Firefox might be declared  
> illegal in Europe if they are not certified by an administrative  
> authority. This is compromising the whole open development of the  
> internet as we know it today. Once the Soviet Union required the  
> registration of all typewriters and printing devices with the  
> authorities."
> The FFII also fears this legislation, known as the Telecoms Packet,  
> will legalise mass spying on net users across Europe by jittery  
> telcos, copyright hawks and panicky politicians. MEPs have dismissed  
> these fears as little more than scaremongering.
> Yes, I agree, these sound like alarmist claims. But after the events  
> of the past week, no Big Brother scenario would surprise me any more.


--
School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell




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