Lord Carter’s Digital Britain review has been the most comprehensive examination of the media and telecoms landscape in the UK in recent memory. Its impact will reverberate across the industry for some time – regardless of how long the communications minister himself remains in government.

January’s interim report set out five objectives: upgrading and modernising the UK’s digital networks; encouraging investment in the digital economy; ensuring “UK content for UK users”; providing access for all to new digital technologies; and developing the skills needed to enable widespread take-up of public services online.

It also had 22 so-called action points; Carter’s final report tomorrow will have twice that number, spanning everything from digital literacy and protecting children on the internet, to solving Channel 4’s funding crisis and combating online piracy. Here are some of the main areas …

Source: guardian.co.uk

The UK film and television industry is calling on the government to introduce online ’speed humps’ that would slow down or restrict the broadband access of people who illegally share copyrighted material, and slap pop-up warnings on pirate websites to stem the rising tide of internet piracy.

Source: guardian.co.uk

The EU passed the Data Retention Directive years ago, a law that demands ISPs and search engines hold onto data long enough to help the cops (but not long enough to cause privacy problems). But Sweden never passed it into national law, and the European Commission has now sued the country to make sure a bill appears.

Source: ars technica

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.

Submissions 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?

Source: apComms, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Communications

Dear Mr Cooper

Thank you for your request of 14 April 2009 for information

You asked that:

In light of the EU action against the UK government on Phorm
technology, Phorm have made public statements that BERR have
officially endorsed their technology and webwise product. I
quote…

“Phorm’s technology is fully compliant with UK legislation and
relevant EU directives. This has been confirmed by BERR and by the
UK regulatory authorities and we note that there is no suggestion
to the contrary in the EU Commission’s statement today.”

Please provide a copy of the official BERR statement provided to
Phorm that states that their technology is fully compliant and
details of the actual legislation that BERR believes the technology
complies with.

An examination of our paper and electronic records has not revealed any such material.

To add further clarification for your information, BERR has never provided any such statement to Phorm and has never confirmed to company “that theri technology is fully compliant”. A public statement was issued by the Department on 16 September which I have copied below for your convenience;

Source: BERR Department for Buisness and Enterprise & Regulatory Reform
More details from nodpi

Nine in 10 people expect their Internet service providers to offer open and unrestricted access to the Web, a survey showed on Wednesday. The survey, commissioned by Google, Yahoo and Web telephone company Skype, came as the European Parliament and EU states hold talks on a joint deal to reform the bloc’s telecoms rules to boost competition.

Source: The Guardian

The UK government wants to cut out users rights to access Internet content, applications and services. Some of the information used to justify the change has been cut and pasted from the Wikipedia.

Amendments to the Telecoms Package circulated in Brussels by the UK government, seek to cross out users’ rights to access and distribute Internet content and services. And they want to replace it with a ‘principle’ that users can be told not only the conditions for access, but also the conditions for the use of applications and services.

Source: Iptegrity.com
Also the full UK goverment text of the amendment. (PDF)
Hat Tip: Glyn Moody

As European lawmakers debate how to keep access to the Internet free and equal - so-called network neutrality - they are being bombarded, not unsurprisingly, by lobbyists.

But the corporate envoys roaming the halls of Brussels, trying to make their case, more often than not do not represent the Continent’s myriad telecommunications and Internet companies, but rather those from the United States.

As the reputation of Europe grows as the world’s technology regulator, representatives in a conflict that pits the AT&Ts and Verizons against the Googles and Yahoos are attempting to shape European law in the hopes that U.S. regulators will follow suit.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Since last autumn, BT – under the “Webwise” banner – has been trialling a technology called Phorm, which dials direct into your internet service provider’s network and intercepts communications between you and the websites you visit, using information about the sorts of things you are viewing to serve you targeted ads.
…
Thanks to hard work from campaigners at the Foundation for Information Policy Research and the Open Rights Group, and activists at dephormation.org.uk and nodpi.org, we now have that choice. The Information Commissioner’s Office has ruled that BT must ask the explicit permission of its customers to “opt in” before enrolling them into its Webwise trial (rather than the pernicious “opt out” clauses so beloved of marketers and junk mail operatives). Here’s why I think every last one of those customers should actively count themselves out.

Source: The Guardian

The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, says in an interview today that the government is considering the need for “child safe” websites – registered with cinema-style age warnings – to curb access to offensive or damaging online material.

He plans to approach US president-elect Barack Obama’s incoming administration with proposals for tight international rules on English language websites, which may include forcing internet service providers, such as BT, Tiscali, Sky and AOL, to provide packages restricting access to websites without an age rating.

Source: The Guardian.