Corriere's online edition has this, in which the minister proposing the law has stated categorically that no gagging of bloggers is intended and that the law will only apply to professional online publishing, bringing the law for online newspaper editions into line with that for printed versions. An amendment making this clear is to be announced tomorrow.
However, it is my opinion that an ambiguity remains: how do you define a "private blog?" Could blogs which carry even a little advertising be judged "professional", for instance?She then replied to Chicken Yoghurt’s “all is well” comment which cast doubts on Grillo’s post:
Justin, I haven't got time to do a complete English translation, but I have read the Italian draft law and it is as Grillo says it is. However, there has this afternoon been an announcement by Levi to the effect that "private bloggers" will NOT be affected.Which automatically raises the question of what constitutes a “private blog”. One which carries no advertising, even Google’s? One which makes no political comment?
Wolfie asked, in the same comments section, whether U.S. hosts would be affected. This might help answer that:
"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) introduced an amendment Jan. 9 "to create criminal penalties, including up to one year in jail, if someone 'knowingly and willingly fails to file or report.'" But Vitter is now co-sponsoring Amendment 20, with Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), to remove Section 220 from the bill.And Britain? A BBC article on the U.S. net neutrality issue mentioned that similar moves were afoot in Britain.
And Europe?
In Europe, some ISPs have similarly begun to block access to internet telephony services. For example, this summer reports from Germany indicated that Vodafone had begun to block Voice over IP (Voip) traffic, treating the popular Skype program as "inappropriate content." European ISPs have also faced mounting pressure to block access to peer-to-peer systems such as BitTorrent, which are widely used to share both authorised and unauthorised content.Some see this as just a money grab whilst others see a disguised agenda to shut down blog comment on political matters, however that is defined. Whatever the reason, under such proposals, the vast majority of blogs would have to close or would find the whole thing to finicky to continue.
It's a clever move because the general populace would see that the powers that be did nothing to close the blogosphere whatsoever. Let's enjoy the last two years or so of it whilst we can.
Well, I'll wait for tomorrow's announcement in Italy. It's still not clear which sites would have to register with the authorities. The other day Levi [the minister proposing the law] made the ridiculous comment that everyone who writes on the net would have to register, and then the authority would decide if it was necessary! [And registering anything anywhere in Italy is a long, bureaucratic and sometimes costly process.] As I've said in my own comments, this being Italy, any application of a "gagging" law is hardly likely to be efficient or quick! I think it's a revenue thing here but I do think governments would like to get political bloggers out of their hair all over the world - which is a measure of the blogs' success.
ReplyDeleteWelshcakes - I hope you've got your certificata di residenze handy - looks like there might be a few more things you'll need it for before long...
ReplyDeleteAs for Vodafone blocking Skype, well quelle surprise. I guess we'll just need to find an ISP who is, well, and ISP rather than a large phone company trying to put its hand in our pockets.
I'm rather cynical about all this being anything other than a try at grabbing money. At least in the West. Governments are always trying to get a cut of the money pie and often because they are not business people they get it all fowled up.
ReplyDeleteThe good thing is that everyone sprang up to protest vehemently which made them back down somewhat so maybe they will toss out the whole thing.
If I'm not terribly mistaken James, S 1 (section 220 was killed early this year.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why I'm not terribly concerned with this move is that its not hard now to overcome the issue technically. You can always re-host in a locality not affected by the law, mirror to multiple domains/hosts and if the law got tough move the physical location on a 24 hour basis.
ReplyDeleteLike DRM, the technorati will always be one step ahead.
In the US its about campaign finance reform and internet communication to the voters is linked to that.
ReplyDeleteThe European discussion about Bit torrent is really about protecting copyrighted material (Bit torrent for those who don't know is a file sharing protocol that enables me to download a file which is very big- say a movie or an album or a book)- I can download right now a film or a piece of music for free from the internet- obviously the producers of the film and music aren't happy about that- just as you wouldn't be James if I found a way to extract your services for free and they want the law to protect what is their property. Be careful about this, not everything is sinister.
I shan't answer individually this time but make a general statement that this IS a problem for us because it is concerted and is occurring in all major centres. It's all well and fine to circumvent it now but the noose is inexorably being tightened. I don't accept for one second protestations of innocence on the part of the Prodis and Co. There's a much bigger agenda than bloggers.
ReplyDelete