Phorm, privacy, RIPA and interception

[Richard Clayton]

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In article <47C3FBFD.4090408@pmsommer.com>, Peter Sommer
<peter@pmsommer.com> writes

>It's also interesting to see how little Ernst & Young in their Repoty 
>actually commit themselves in their analysis of the privacy issues and 
>that their remit apparently did extend to RIPA and CMA issues.

or other UK legislation...

It seems to me that BT (etc) will be modifying HTTP traffic (by the
presence of the adverts)...  which means (IANAL!) that their eCommerce
"mere conduit" exemption disappears in a puff of smoke.

Now these companies been modifying traffic for some time to suppress
IWF-listed sites, but their stance has been that if this looks like
landing them with liability then they will turn off the blocking (and
doubtless seek some sort of statutory exemption for that type of
modification, plying "isn't it awful" stories around Westminster).

However, it seems to me that modifying traffic to obtain more
advertising money is unlikely to meet so much favour with the
politicians when considering extending an exemption.

Now of course, the only reason that the UK Government agreed to the
eCommerce immunities was that they fitted in reasonably well with the
status quo -- the concepts of innocent dissemination, mens rea and so
forth...  hence the arrival of the eCommerce regulations didn't give a
sea change in the immunities enjoyed by ISPs.

Nevertheless, mere conduit is a useful thing to have for an ISP -- you
can, for example (at the moment), wash your hands of file sharing by
your customers!  So giving it up seems a little risky.

Also, if "mere conduit" doesn't seem to be valuable to ISPs then maybe
the politicians in Brussels (under considerable pressure from special
interest groups who want to be able to target ISPs) will conclude that
the review process of the eCommerce Directive should sweep it away...

So this is about more than just a few badly targeted adverts!

- -- 
richard                                              Richard Clayton

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.         Benjamin Franklin

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