Glyn Wintle, 23 April 2009
apComms, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Communications ... is launching an inquiry into Internet traffic to assess regulation of ISPs and a range of Internet traffic issues from behavioural advertising and privacy to child abuse images and Internet neutrality to answer what role Government should play when it comes to Internet traffic.Source: apComms, the All Party Parliamentary Group on CommunicationsSubmissions are invited on 5 questions by 22nd May and evidence sessions will be held in Parliament in June, with the final report expected in the Autumn. ... Inquiry questions
Although we intend to address the broad sweep of all of these topics and make a range of recommendations; we would particularly like to learn how these five specific questions should be answered:
#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?
