News is distributed so quickly these days (thanks to us ISPs) that by the time us ISPs finish doing the day job and get around to writing up the blog it almost seems like old news already. However in the interest of completeness (ish) of content on trefor.net on the subject of the Digital Economy Bill I’m going to post it anyway.
Following on from my comments last week regarding the outrage amongst ISPs over clause 120A the industry has united and written a letter published in the FT this morning. The signatories are a roll call of the heaviest hitters in the internet in the UK and include ISPA – drafts were circulated to us for comment on Monday.
It will be simply scandalous if 120A proceeds after this. Coincidentally and as a bit of an aside one of the consequences of 120A would be potentially to slow down the aforementioned lightening distribution of said news. Half the websites concerned could be blocked!
To the letter
4 replies on “Industry unites against 120A #DigitalBritain”
Why cannot the politicians try to learn from the people who have grown up with the Internet – the real experts? From next month there will be 80 groups of young people in 4 EU countries debating Internet policies in their favourite corners of cyberspace.
Then the HUWY project (http://huwy.eu/) will bring their ideas on future solutions and laws to policy makers in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Estonia and the European Parliament. All the policy-makers need to do is humbly learn from them.
Very interesting David. This blog gets read by MPs and Government ministers and I would be interested in talking about the project when the results are there. Might get HUWY some additional exposure.
Politicians are typically hugely busy people in their 40s 50s and 60s and it isn’t necessarily fair to expect that demographic to have a good handle on internet issues. Having said that they need to try harder as the subject of this post shows.
Both comments and the letter give even more reason for the Govt to try MUCH harder, listen to those who know, whose area of expertise this all is, and realise that it is only by listening and becoming informed that they will stop throwing enormous democracy halting, and economy ruining spanners in the works.
At this rate, there really will be a revolution. Every which way you turn at the moment, across every aspect of our lives, the UK is becoming the laughing stock of the world for our policies. And worse, for the populace in turning the other cheek accepting them. There are few other countries where the ridiculous laws which have been passed during this last few governments would have been accepted by the citizens, the businesses, or those organisations who are supposedly in place to protect both.
I ceased to be proud to be British years ago when I left to travel and understood how others view this country; now, I am embarrassed.
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