Through reports to the blocked.org.uk site, we have established that Orange UK are filtering access to La Quadrature du Net’s website on pre-paid mobile accounts.

La Quadrature du Net is similar to ORG – it is an advocacy group that seeks to defend citizen’s fundamental rights on the Internet. They have been a leading voice in the growing movement to oppose the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, behind which so much momentum is gathering. They have provided detailed analyses alongside practical suggestions about how to help with the political effort to oppose the treaty.

This mobile blocking technology was built to prevent individuals under the age of 18 from viewing adult-related and unmoderated content on sites. This specifically meant content involving, for example, gambling, chatrooms, dating, user generated content and visual material of a sexual nature. 

Mobile phone operators automatically ‘filter’ the mobile Internet on pay-as-you-go phones as they are unaware whether a child or an adult is using the device, and, as such prohibit access to websites that supposedly fall within this category.

Searching for LQDN’s website on Orange pre-pay handsets leads to a warning that ‘Orange Safeguard has classified this page as only suitable for people over the age of 18.’ LQDN’s site does not contain any such material. But it still falls within the parameter of adult-related material. You can see Orange's classification system here.

That La Quadrature du Net is blocked under such a policy highlights the need for change. The problem of over-blocking is being exacerbated by a lack of transparency (so that it's not clear what is blocked and to whom) and the problems users experience trying to opt-out.  

We're gathering more evidence of the scale of the over-blocking problem through blocked.org.uk site, and you can help by reporting inappropriate blocks you find. We're currently in the process of meeting the mobile operators and the Mobile Broadband Group to tell them our concerns and outline how we think the problems can be addressed. More efficient measures need to be implemented in order to allow parents to implement tools to try to manage their children's Internet use whilst ensuring that adults are not subject to unnecessary censorship.

Update: Sometime between Friday February 17th and Monday February 20th, the La Quadrature du Net website was unblocked on Orange. We have not established why it was blocked or subsequently unblocked. We are meeting Orange tomorrow to discuss their mobile filtering policies. 

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This morning we confirmed with the Serious and Organised Crime Agency that the apparent takeover of rnbxclusive.com, reported yesterday on TechDirt here, is genuine. 

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Last Tuesday, Peter Wishart MP held a Westminster Hall debate about intellectual property. Much of his speech focused on what he sees as problems with the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth and with the IPO as a policy making body. I just wanted to pick up on one issue now, related to evidence and the proper development of IP policy.

In Peter Wishart's speech, he praised the work and modus operandi of a Department that has admitted repeatedly to having no evidence of the issue it is responsible (fyi, this is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport). And the Intellectual Property Office, which has called for robust evidence to be the basis of policy and is running an open consultation soliciting the views and evidence of all stakeholders, was criticised for laundering dodgy evidence in support of its ideas. 

It's worth comparing the IPO and DCMS on the issue of evidence and good policy making.

The IPO have recently asked that evidence be the driver of policy, and are engaged in asking stakeholders for clear, open and robust evidence regarding the proposals made by Professor Hargreaves. They are holding consultation events with the full range of 'stakeholders' invited. I have been present at two of these so far, and rights holders and representative bodies were well represented. The consultation runs until March 21st. The review explicitly asks for open and clear evidence of the issues at hand. If you don't like the ideas or disagree with the evidence presented, there is a clear mechanism to show them why.

The DCMS told us (here and here) last year that they had no evidence to support the Digital Economy Act except for that provided to them by industry (evidence that was not available publicly or analysed or assessed by the Department - as one can tell from the Impact Assessments). With the Digital Economy Act, they said they were making 'the best brick with the straw available.' And they admitted they have no evidence of their own now to support or steer the discussions about copyright enforcement that they are currently engaged in. 

We managed to establish that these discussions, which are hosted by the Minister Ed Vaizey and involve rights holders and various intermediaries (Internet Service Providers and other Internet companies) were happening only through letters to the Minister and Freedom of Information request.

The situation improved slightly as the year wore on. After some public pressure, Consumer Focus were allowed in to the meetings. At the end of the year, Open Rights Group were invited to a broader roundtable discussion at which our problems were raised. But proposals made to search engines about how they should be forced to regulate search results, made in a separate private meeting, were not shared until the very end of the year - and we had to ask twice. Ongoing discussions are not proceeding in a transparent or open fashion. We understand further talks between rights holders and search engines will take place soon.

This is not a Department whose default setting is open. Have a look around for information from the DCMS about these roundtables. Let us know if you find anything substantive that doesn't involve using the Freedom of Information Act.

DCMS says that they are merely encouraging voluntary agreements between industries, but that legislation will proceed if no agreement is forthcoming. But, as we've said before, in the absence of evidence or analysis, they have not said how they will judge when legislation is necessary, and what the substance of that legislation should be.

So to caricature the two departments: one is asking for evidence and consulting widely and openly. One has spent the past few years consulting narrowly, opaquely, and with no evidence or analysis to speak of.

The IPO come under fire in Peter Wishart's speech for being sloppy with evidence and ignoring the creative industries. DCMS' proposals are to be 'got on with'. He calls the IPO 'a bureaucratic front to devalue the people whom it is supposed to support' which the Government must 'get to grips with'. 

That is slightly strange. The issue of policy making for copyright involves managing a complex mix of evidence, principle and opinion. Disagreement, and the management and channeling of that disagreement in the formulation of policy, are two separate things. Whatever position one takes on the substance of this debate about IP, there is a right way and a wrong way to make public policy.  It has to be democratically legitimate, open, transparent and involve proper debate. Over the past 12 months, the IPO has beaten DCMS hands down on that metric. 

DCMS will soon publish the Communications Green Paper. Hopefully the process it kicks off will mark an improvement in how they handle policy affecting the Internet.

Finally, Consumer Focus produced a great briefing for MPs ahead of the Westminster Hall debate, which you can read here. COADEC have a summary of the debate here. 

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On Saturday Open Rights Group joined the London Stop ACTA protest, which drew several hundred people to a freezing central London.

It was part of a display of discontent that stretched from Portugal through Germany to Finland and Romania and across the globe to Canada, the United States and Australia. There's a comprehensive map of the protests at the Access website here.

We were there handing out t-shirts and leaflets (you can get a pdf here), with people heading off after the demonstration to spread the word. 

The message across the demonstrations was clear. ACTA is an insult to democracy and a threat to the Internet as a tool to enhance freedom of expression, privacy, and innovation. Its vagaries and imbalances put the interests and power of businesses over those of citizens.

The European Parliament has a chance to reject the agreement and stand up for those they represent. Now is the time to convince Members of the European Parliament of this. Have a look at our Stop ACTA page for more on how you can help. The short version is: get in touch with your MEPs.

Photo credit: © Maciek Musialek, http://www.flickr.com/photos/gamemod/

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Open Rights Group and a coalition of campaigning organisations (Greenpeace, Action Aid, Global Poverty Project, Church Action on Poverty, and Campaign Against the Arms Trade) have today written to Baroness Wilcox at the Department for Business, Industry and Skills to highlight how, in the absence of a parody 'exception', copyright affects our ability to campaign as effectively as possible.

In the absence of a parody exception, copyright effectively gives copyright holders a veto over activity society should be encouraging - legitimate creative or critical engagement with the cultural works around us. The problems were laid clear last year by the treatment of Greenpeace's campaign using Volkwagen's 'Star Wars' adverts.

We've been running a website about the need for a new exception, with support from the likes of comedian Graham Linehan, B3ta.com and the film maker Alex Cox, because we think a new exception is necessary. You can help by signing our petition or, if you make parodies and are affected by copyright, you can tell the consultation team.  

Here's the letter that we are sending to the Baroness Wilcox in support of a new parody exception.

"Dear Lady Wilcox,

We are writing to you regarding intellectual property policy, and particularly the reforms recommended in Professor Hargreaves' review 'Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth' and being taken forward through the ongoing consultation.

We applaud the Government's desire to see Professor Hargreaves' proposals into policy and welcome the opportunity to respond to the current consultation. Our particular interest is in seeing that the new exception to copyright for parody is taken forward into law. We believe this reform has enormous potential to improve our ability to campaign responsibly on issues of significant public interest.

It is not the role of copyright to restrict legitimate public debate. Yet copyright already limits our ability to hold organisations to account through our campaigning.

One of the most important ways that organisations and businesses communicate their brand, advertise their products, or sell their goods is through works that are subject to copyright. Organisations and institutions associate feelings and values with themselves or their products through images, text and sounds. These become strands of our cultural fabric. They shape and inform public opinion about an organisation, its business or policy and, where relevant, its products.

There are often important alternative stories about those organisations and businesses that need telling. Where there is a legitimate public interest in doing so, it should be acceptable to use the copyrighted works to point out hypocrisy, objectionable corporate behaviour or other issues relating to their social footprint.

Exceptions for commentary and criticism already exist. But these do not go far enough. Parodies are one of the most effective means to campaign, and should be a vital tool for civil society and campaigning organisations. Copyright without a parody exception amounts to an over-regulation of our activity. It too often inhibits our work, resulting in a chilling effect including a fear of developing effective parody campaigns and, when we do, 'take downs' of our content.

This is why we support moves to establish an exception for parody within copyright law. Such an exception would provide greater legal certainty, especially important for smaller organisations, and make it clear that copyright cannot be used as a weapon to restrict legitimate criticism.

We hope that following the consultation period the Government will press forward with Professor Hargreaves' recommendations and implement an exception to copyright for parody. We will also be submitting this letter to the consultation team at the Intellectual Property Office.

Yours sincerely,

Jenny Ricks, Head of Campaigns, ActionAid UK
Niall Cooper, National Coordinator, Church Action on Poverty
Ann Feltham, Parliamentary Co-ordinator, Campaign Against Arms Trade
Simon Moss, Co-Founder & Chief Operations Officer, Global Poverty Project
Robin Oakley, Head of Campaigns, Greenpeace UK and EU
Jim Killock, Executive Director, Open Rights Group"

This afternoon I'll be heading off to a consultation event at the intellectual Property Office (IPO), which will see lots of 'stakeholders' - which is a terrible word that basically means organisations or people who care about or are affected by something - discussing proposals for exceptions to copyright related to freedom of expression and access to information. That includes an exception for parody. Obviously we'll be saying we think a new exception is a really good idea.

There'll likely be plenty of 'push back' - another horrid term often used in policy circles that means people disagreeing with something - from rights holders, who don't like the idea of an exception for parody. Or any exception, for pretty much anything, as far as I can tell. 

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We're supporting a demonstration against ACTA, which will take place in central London a week on Saturday, on 11th February. It has been planned to coincide with demonstrations across Europe, when a chorus of thousands of discontented voices will speak as one against over-reaching Internet laws. 

The aim will be to tell as many people as possible what's going on by distributing leaflets and asking those who are worried to contact their MEPs.

This is not an 'ORG' protest - like all the others, this is a 'citizen-led' initiative. Having been contacted by the organisers, we offered to help promote the protest and provide information and support where possible. 

People will be meeting in central London at 2pm. We'll help supply what can only be described as brilliant leaflets and fabulous t-shirts. Then the idea is to split up into small teams and head off to spread the word.

You can help us cover the costs we're taking on of producing t-shirts and flyers by donating using the above form, too.  

If you're wondering why you should care about ACTA, here's the short story:

ACTA has no democratic credibility: Aside from the substantive problems with the text of the agreement, some of which are noted below, ACTA is an affront to our democratic right to have a meaningful stake in the decisions that affect us. It was written by a cabal of bureaucrats behind closed doors. There have been repeated efforts to deny us a fair say in what happens to our Internet. Just like so many laws related to intellectual property, this was drafted with civil society and other voices excluded. It is only now we have a chance to say what we think.

This is one reason why Kader Arif, the lead MEP for ACTA in the European Parliament, resigned in the past week. He called the ACTA process a 'masquerade' and 'unprecedented'. Read more on why MEP Kader Arif resigned here. 

ACTA threatens your privacy and freedom of speech: The broad definitions of criminal liability will push private companies to police the Internet. Private interests will be given more control over what you do online, would encourage harsh measures be taken against large numbers of citizens for trivial offences, and could mean more disclosure of your personal information.

ACTA would be a hindrance to innovation: The vague threshold for criminal measures, including liability for 'aiding and abetting' infringement, alongside harsher potential fines and other measures will create disincentives to innovate, as companies fear unsustainable liability for their users' behaviour.

ACTA could hurt developing countries: Charities such as Oxfam have complained that it will make it harder for developing countries to access life saving generic medicines.

For a more detailed look, download this pamphlet from EDRi, Access and TACD. La Quadrature du Net have a detailed analysis here.

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For three days last week, a group of technicians and lawyers at W3C – the World Wide Web Consortium, headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee – has debated how to protect user privacy from ‘third party’ tracking websites.

The meetings started with an introduction from European Commission Neelie Kroes, emphasizing the need for companies to sort this out and imposing a deadline of June; and the Federal Trade Commissioner making similar demands. Clearly the stakes are high, and governments are losing patience. Europe wants users to be able to consent if they are tracked: the FTC wants meaningful choice (see their white paper).

Data protection authorities were represented throughout by the presence of the Article 29 Working Group, and the Chief Technology Officer of the FTC stayed in the meetings throughout. There was a clear message: we are watching you and want you to negotiate something that protect end user privacy.

The technicians came from browser manufacturers, like Opera, Mozilla, Apple and Microsoft; and from advertising companies, including Yahoo! and Google. The Internet Advertising Bureau and other organizations were also there.

The basic problem comes from the way that web pages today often place adverts, cookies, widgets, like buttons and iframes from “third parties”. The result is that you, as a user, ask for these pieces of content, who then gain information about you. They discover that you visited that page, and your IP address, browser, and lots more besides.

Through unique identifiers, like cookies, they can build a picture of the websites you visit. This happens to the vast majority – millions – of web users everyday, without them really knowing what is going on.

Two technologies are under discussion at W3C to address this outrage. The first, proposed by Microsoft, is the “Tracking Protection List”: a list of domains that you, the user, choose to block or allow. This means you, with a little guidance, can completely block companies’ web content and stop them hovering up information about you. The disadvantage, though, is that lists are rarely comprehensive, need updating, and need to be chosen by the user. Privacy International backed TPLs this week by publishing lists of sites you might wish to block.

The second technology, proposed by Mozilla and supported by EFF, is called “Do Not Track”. It is a signal that you can send to all websites. They are then meant to tell you that they will respect your wishes, and third party sites should stop their tracking, and perhaps minimize the data logs they keep.

This has the advantage of being easier to set, and could easily be much more widely used than “Tracking Protection Lists”. The disadvantage is twofold. Firstly, you must trust the “third party” website to respect your wishes. Secondly, W3C must agree to a meaningful specification for “Do Not Track”, which does more than ban them companies from using data for profiling individual users while collection continues uninterrupted. After all, if someone can still track you from the raw data files, how useful a protection would a “DNT” signal be?

A big difficulty lies is current company practice, which many of the companies at the table will wish to preserve, to avoid high costs, both in re-engineering and potentially in being forced to serve lower value, non-targeted advertising to a significant percentage of users.

The second, more nuanced difficulty, is the need to log user requests sent to a web server for genuinely unavoidable reasons such as security or performance.

W3C need to consider very carefully what information might be retained, why, and what it might be used for. Otherwise a DNT could be more or less redundant: the information could be retained, and while you may not be actively tracked, all your web habits could easily be re-identified with you. Although the information may not be processed and used, many of the risks would remain, such as leaks, law enforcement misuse through future re-identification.

However, if a balance can be created, then perhaps DNT can satisfy users with meaningful, if not absolute, privacy. Combined with audits and tracking protection lists, it could provide much greater control and protection than users currently have today.

Jonathan Mayer from Stanford and Tom Lowenthal from Mozilla deserve particular mention for leading the fight for DNT and meaningful privacy. They have plenty of allies, especially among the browser manufacturers, and civil society folk. But the battle is far from won: the devil really does lie in the detail.

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Kader Arif, rapporteur for ACTA in the European Parliament, has quit his role as rapporteur. Thanks to La Quadrature Du Net, here's his statement in English:

I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.

As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens' legitimate demands.

Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.”

This agreement might have major consequences on citizens' lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.

Strong stuff and a brave move. Another clear signal that something is seriously wrong.  It's going to be our job to make sure that the public's voice is heard. Get ready to help us retrofit some democracy into the ACTA masquerade.

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