An ad hoc group of Parliament ministers, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Communications (apComms), has opened a public inquiry into a handful of pressing Internet policy issues. Among them: net neutrality, privacy issues relating to behavioral advertising and deep packet inspection, and child abuse.
The main objective of the inquiry, it seems to me, is to decide whether Internet service providers should be given a measure of legal responsibility for rooting out bad behavior on the Internet. From the inquiry announcement:
Existing European legislation provides ISPs with some key immunities for "mere conduit" along with protections for "hosting" and "caching". Almost a decade after they were decided upon, are these immunities still appropriate? Should they be recast to reflect the way in which modern networks operate?
The apComms group is seeking public comment on five specific questions:
1. Can we distinguish circumstances when ISPs should be forced to act to deal with some type of bad traffic? When should we insist that ISPs should not be forced into dealing with a problem, and that the solution must be found elsewhere?
2. Should the Government be intervening over behavioural advertising services, either to encourage or discourage their deployment; or is this entirely a matter for individual users, ISPs and websites?
3. Is there a need for new initiatives to deal with online privacy, and if so, what should be done?
4. Is the current global approach to dealing with child sexual abuse images working effectively? If not, then how should it be improved?
5. Who should be paying for the transmission of Internet traffic? Would it be appropriate to enshrine any of the various notions of Network Neutrality in statute?
Comments are due May 22. Public hearings are scheduled for June 15-17, 2009, in Westminster. The apComms group is chaired by MPs John Robertson Derek Wyatt.
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