ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_200108

EU pushing forward for ISPs filtering traffic?

Hum... I'm rather worried right now. It appears that the European Commission is leaning towards EU-wide data traffic monitoring. euparl.blogspot.com writes:

To recap, the Commission saw great merit in an anti-piracy system where Internet Service Providers ("ISPs") would voluntarily agree to monitor their users and report the infringers to the industry reps or to the authorities, as well as possibly cut off their internet connection. From what we have heard from our sources at the Commission, a lot of the feedback they have currently received has been very supportive of the idea of filtering and monitoring.

This is not at all good. Since it is impossible to stop copyright infringement except by very deeply invading the privacy of personal communication (just imagine what would happen if people would start sending MP3s to each other via email - no wait, people are doing that already), legislation like that means that we will very quickly have a monitoring system in our hands which surpasses pretty much everything ever seen. The numbers about piracy are already totally made up, so they can also make up numbers that show that it is essential that they get to read your email. And don't forget, since some people might be sending child porn over email, everybody's email must be read.

The child porn monitoring system in Finland is already voluntary, and it's already listing sites which don't have much to do with child porn. It has also been already suggested that "since the system is already in place, it could be used to weed out internet gambling. And yeah, terrorist websites."

Slippery slope, anyone?