MEPs Seek Support to Stop Tech Companies from Aiding Internet Censorship

The measure seeks to stop ISPs, search engines and other Internet-related businesses from cooperating with Iran, China, Burma and other nations that block Web sites, filter search results and intimidate users, it says. Lack of self- regulation opens Europe’s technology industry browbeats like those to which some U.S. companies have been subjected, leading them to disclose personal data used to pursue, arrest and imprison cyber-dissidents, the document said.

The proposal would bar businesses that create, provide or host search engines from altering their operation at the request of an official of an “Internet-restricting” country, or from producing different results for users within such countries. Also outlawed would be jamming Web sites and content, giving foreign officials personally identifying information on particular users of a content-hosting site and locating computer hardware used to store, house, service or maintain files or other data related to their services in censoring states. Neither the European nor the U.K. Internet Services Providers’ Associations have positions on the proposal, they said.

The proposal seeks annual EU funding of 20 million euros to develop and distribute anti-censorship tools. It envisions an Office of Global Internet Freedom assigned, among other tasks, to creating a list of key words, terms and phrases related to human rights, democracy, religious freedom and peaceful political dissent that search engines must refuse to censor. It calls for governments and lawmakers to make a yearly list of Internet-restricting countries.

The proposal would trigger export controls to block shipment to targeted countries of any item useful in online censorship. It would require the EC to address limits on provision of Internet and information society services by European companies in third countries in its external trade policy, and to treat as trade barriers unnecessary limits on such services. Lawmakers want the EC to seek support for the legislation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, WTO and other settings.

The draft has multi-party support as well as backing from human rights groups, van Hardeveld told us. Parliament cannot take the lead in introducing directives, so the EC must offer legislation, he said. Strong opposition isn’t likely, particularly if a similar measure in the U.S. offered in January 2007 by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., passes, he said. Smith’s HR-275 passed the House in February but hasn’t been taken up in the Senate (WID Oct 24 p7). Maaten will launch talks with the EC after the summer recess, van Hardeveld said. “The main challenge for now is to convince the European Commission to come forward with a legislative proposal along the lines of the presented draft,” he said.

Freedom of expression is high on Europe’s agenda, as is bridging the digital divide between rich and poor countries by countering government efforts to control the Internet, a spokesman for Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding told us. In April 2006, the EC urged companies coping with regimes restricting online information to develop a code of conduct, he said.

The EC believes the best way to boost free speech in the media and online is by speedy ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, Reding’s spokesman said. It will make Europe’s Charter for Fundamental Rights legally binding, strongly entrenching freedom of expression and of the media, he said. EU governments signed the accord in December, but Irish voters rejected it in a June referendum, leaving its status unclear. - Dugie Standeford