InternetPolicy.net

EC launches broadband content inquiry

In a speech last week in Brussels, Mario Monti, European Commissioner for Competition Policy, announced a new inquiry into the availability of "premium content" such as music, films and sports coverage for distribution via Internet and 3G networks. He claimed that the Commission has some preliminary hints of "market failure" that may force the EC to intervene in order to ensure rapid development of new broadband media channels.

According to Matt Whip writing in PC Pro, the EC will "investigate claims that big media companies who buy up television rights to big events are blocking out internet and 3G operators... [Monti's] concerns are that traditional TV broadcasters see ...the Internet and mobile networks... as 'a threat to their revenues,' and that content owners are sceptical whether new media channels can deliver the same revenues as traditional ones. Consequently there is a negative view of new media by both content owners and traditional providers that has led to behaviour that restricts access. This includes bundled rights, where a TV broadcaster buys up exclusive rights to content over the Internet and mobile phones as well as terrestrial and satellite channels, as well as simply refusing to supply. Monti said that as well as dealing with such incidents on a case by case basis, the EC would also consider regulation to ensure fair competition on a broader level. It is currently seeking evidence as to the state of the market after which it will decide what action needs to be taken..."

FCC chairman launches blog

The chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission started a blog yesterday and it has already attracted an avalance of comments from readers. Many of the comments focus on controversial issues now before the Commission, like broadband over powerlines, penalties for "indecent" content, excessive concentration of ownership in the broadcasting industry, and letting wi-fi use unoccupied TV channels.

In his first posting chairman Powell wrote: "One reason I am participating in AlwaysOn Network's blog is to hear from the tech community directly and to try to get beyond the traditional inside the Beltway Washington world where lobbyists filter the techies. I am looking forward to an open, transparent and meritocracy-based communication—attributes that bloggers are famous for! Regulated interests have about an 80 year head start on the entrepreneurial tech community when it comes to informing regulators what they want and need, but if anyone can make up for that, Silicon Valley can..."

We can only hope that the signal/noise ratio will quickly improve in the comments, lest he decide that a direct, open public channel is a waste of his time.

ITU anti-spam summit underway

The Age (Australia) ran a report yesterday by Peter Capella and Agence France Presse about the ITU's spam summit: "Regulators from about 60 countries... began a meeting [on 7 July] at the UN's telecommunications agency to try to stop the growing tide of unsolicited e-mails or 'spam' that threatens to drive users and businesses off the Internet. 'It's a disease which has spread around the world. We have an epidemic on our hands which we need to control,' said Robert Horton, the acting head of the Australian Communications Authority who is chairing the three-day meeting in Geneva...

"Regulators hope that the meeting, the first of its kind, will mark a first step in building greater international cooperation needed to bring spam under control within two years. 'No single country is able to control spam or the abuse of the Internet, we must all act in a concerted manner because the weakest country becomes the weakest link in the chain,' Horton said. As a first step, regulators were likely to try to overcome a first hurdle by setting up a register of contacts in individual countries. The issue is often dealt with by different government telecommunications, broadcasting or trade agencies. Regulators are also aiming to swap notes over different types of legislation which are emerging in countries including the United States, South Korea and Britain, as well as technical safeguards. US, British and Australian regulators last week signed a cooperation agreement to share information, exchange evidence and coordinate enforcement against cross-border spam violations..."

Audio feeds from the Geneva meeting are available here, while background materials are online here. Matthew B. Prince's 15-page paper on Countering Spam: How to Craft an Effective Anti-Spam Law is especially worth reading.

China implementing IPv9??

"Reports from China that the country has widely adopted a next generation Internet protocol, called IPv9, have raised eyebrows in the networking community," John Leyden notes on The Register. "IPv9 which is 'compatible with IPv4 and IPv6, has been formally adapted and popularised into the civil and commercial sector,' The People's Daily reports. "This was news to the sysadmin crowd on NANOG, who'd never heard of IPv9 as an established technical standard.... We asked the IPv6 Task Force, a UK group formed last year to promote wider adoption of IPv6, the next generation Internet protocol, if they could shed any light. But they were equally perplexed by the Chinese reports which have been repeated unchallenged in the IT press today. Mat Ford, technology adviser to the IPv6 Task Force, said: 'In the absence of any public technical specification, this is still in the category of "sub-vapourware" at the moment.'"

US court rejects email privacy

Washington Post reporter Jonathan Krim wrote on 1 July: "A company that provides e-mail service has the right to copy and read any message bound for its customers, a federal appeals court panel has ruled in a decision that could expand e-mail monitoring by businesses and the government. The 2-to-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Massachusetts alarmed privacy advocates, who said it torpedoes any notion that e-mail enjoys the same protections as telephone conversations, or letters when they are sorted by mail carriers." Our colleagues at the Center for Democracy and Technology added that if this decision is upheld, it will mean that ISPs and email handlers based in the United States are free to harvest and use email content for any purpose without notifying their customers or obtaining their consent.

The full text of the court's decision is here. The court majority reasoned that email differs from wireline phonecalls in that phonecalls are not "stored" by the transmission network, and storage undermines expectations of privacy.

But just as Congress extended legal privacy protections to cellular phonecalls and GSM transmissions, which are much easier to intercept than email (because they are radio waves that blanket populated areas), it should not be hard for Congress to amend existing laws to protect "stored" email even if it is physically vulnerable to interception.

Canada: ISPs not liable for customer download royalties

Today's Global E-Law Alert reports that "The Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in the Tariff 22 case, overturning a Federal Court decision that would have obliged ISPs to pay royalties for online music downloaded by their customers..."