CyberLaw Blog

Archive for April, 2010

UK almost tops international Google-snoop league: “

Woo! Number 1!

British authorities demand more data on Google users per capita than almost any other major democracy, newly-published figures have revealed.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Google tool ranks gov appetite for your private data: “

Brazil and US revealed as binge eaters

Brazil and the United States topped the list of nations demanding private information about Google users, according to a tool the web giant unveiled Tuesday.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Google rapped over privacy issues by 10 nations: “(BBC)
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has sent an open letter to Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. The letter raises concerns about privacy issues surrounding social network tool Google Buzz and Google Street View. It calls for Google to adhere to a set of ‘fundamental privacy principles’ when creating new services in future. Ms Stoddart’s counterparts in nine other countries, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the UK., have signed it too.”

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Greater transparency around government requests:

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.’ Written in 1948, the principle applies aptly to today’s Internet — one of the most important means of free expression in the world. Yet government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content.
So it’s no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services. Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography. We also regularly receive requests from law enforcement agencies to hand over private user data. Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations. However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship.
We are today launching a new Government Requests tool to give people information about the requests for user data or content removal we receive from government agencies around the world. For this launch, we are using data from July-December, 2009, and we plan to update the data in 6-month increments.
Read this post to learn more about our principles surrounding free expression and controversial content on the web.
We already try to be as transparent as legally possible with respect to requests. Whenever we can, we notify users about requests that may affect them personally. If we remove content in search results, we display a message to users. The numbers we are sharing today take this transparency a step further and reflect the total number of requests we have received broken down by jurisdiction. We are also sharing the number of these content removal requests that we do not comply with, and while we cannot yet provide more detail about our compliance with user data requests in a useful way, we intend to do so in the future.
As part of our commitment to the Global Network Initiative, we have already agreed to principles and practices that govern privacy and free expression. In the spirit of these principles, we hope this tool will shine some light on the scale and scope of government requests for censorship and data around the globe. We also hope that this is just the first step toward increased transparency about these actions across the technology and communications industries.”

(Via Google Public Policy Blog.)

Britain heads Google’s European censorship list: “The British Government made more requests for content to be removed from Google last year than any other country in Europe, according to figures released by the company today.

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

eBay shill bid scammer convicted:

Minibus man falls foul of consumer protection laws

Paul Barrett, a minibus hire firm boss from Stanley, County Durham, has been convicted of bidding against items he was selling on eBay in order to drive up final prices.…

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

European Public Policy Blog: Controversial content and free expression: a refresher:”

Monday, April 19, 2010 | 6:35 PM

Labels: Controversial Content, Free Expression

Two and a half years ago, we outlined our approach to removing content from Google products and services. Our process hasn’t changed since then, but our recent decision to stop censoring search on Google.cn has raised new questions about when we remove content, and how we respond to censorship demands by governments. So we figured it was time for a refresher.

Censorship of the web is a growing problem. According to the Open Net Initiative, the number of governments that censor has grown from about four in 2002 to over 40 today. In fact, some governments are now blocking content before it even reaches their citizens. Even benign intentions can result in the specter of real censorship. Repressive regimes are building firewalls and cracking down on dissent online — dealing harshly with anyone who breaks the rules.

Increased government censorship of the web is undoubtedly driven by the fact that record numbers of people now have access to the Internet, and that they are creating more content than ever before. For example, over 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day. This creates big challenges for governments used to controlling traditional print and broadcast media. While everyone agrees that there are limits to what information should be available online — for example child pornography — many of the new government restrictions we are seeing today not only strike at the heart of an open Internet but also violate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

We see these attempts at control in many ways. China is the most polarizing example, but it is not the only one. Google products — from search and Blogger to YouTube and Google Docs — have been blocked in 25 of the 100 countries where we offer our services. In addition, we regularly receive government requests to restrict or remove content from our properties. When we receive those requests, we examine them to closely to ensure they comply with the law, and if we think they’re overly broad, we attempt to narrow them down. Where possible, we are also transparent with our users about what content we have been required to block or remove so they understand that they may not be getting the full picture.

On our own services, we deal with controversial content in different ways, depending on the product. As a starting point, we distinguish between search (where we are simply linking to other web pages), the content we host, and ads. In a nutshell, here is our approach:

Search is the least restrictive of all our services, because search results are a reflection of the content of the web. We do not remove content from search globally except in narrow circumstances, like child pornography, certain links to copyrighted material, spam, malware, and results that contain sensitive personal information like credit card numbers. Specifically, we don’t want to engage in political censorship. This is especially true in countries like China and Vietnam that do not have democratic processes through which citizens can challenge censorship mandates. We carefully evaluate whether or not to establish a physical presence in countries where political censorship is likely to happen.

Some democratically-elected governments in Europe and elsewhere do have national laws that prohibit certain types of content. Our policy is to comply with the laws of these democratic governments — for example, those that make pro-Nazi material illegal in Germany and France — and remove search results from only our local search engine (for example, www.google.de in Germany). We also comply with youth protection laws in countries like Germany by removing links to certain material that is deemed inappropriate for children or by enabling Safe Search by default, as we do in Korea. Whenever we do remove content, we display a message for our users that X number of results have been removed to comply with local law and we also report those removals to chillingeffects.org, a project run by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which tracks online restrictions on speech.

Platforms that host content like Blogger, YouTube, and Picasa Web Albums have content policies that outline what is, and is not, permissible on those sites. A good example of content we do not allow is hate speech. Our enforcement of these policies results in the removal of more content from our hosted content platforms than we remove from Google Search. Blogger, as a pure platform for expression, is among the most open of our services, allowing for example legal pornography, as long as it complies with the Blogger Content Policy. YouTube, as a community intended to permit sharing, comments, and other user-to-user interactions, has its Community Guidelines that define its own rules of the road. For example, pornography is absolutely not allowed on YouTube.

We try to make it as easy as possible for users to flag content that violates our policies. Here’s a video explaining how flagging works on YouTube. We review flagged content across all our products 24 hours a day, seven days a week to remove offending content from our sites. And if there are local laws where we do business that prohibit content that would otherwise be allowed, we restrict access to that content only in the country that prohibits it. For example, in Turkey, videos that insult the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Ataturk, are illegal. Two years ago, we were notified of such content on YouTube and blocked those videos in Turkey that violated local law. A Turkish court subsequently demanded that we block them globally, which we refused to do, arguing that Turkish law cannot apply outside Turkey. As a result YouTube has been blocked there.

Finally, our ads products have the most restrictive policies, because they are commercial products intended to generate revenue.

These policies are always evolving. Decisions to allow, restrict or remove content from our services and products often require difficult judgment calls. We have spirited debates about the right course of action, whether it’s about our own content policies or the extent to which we resist a government request. In the end, we rely on the principles that sit at the heart of everything we do.

We’ve said them before, but in these particularly challenging times, they bear repeating: We have a bias in favor of people’s right to free expression. We are driven by a belief that more information means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.

Posted by Rachel Whetstone, Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs

OECD – The Economic and Social Role of Internet Intermediaries: (OECD)
This report is Part I of the larger project on Internet intermediaries. It develops a common definition and understanding of what Internet intermediaries are, of their economic function and economic models, of recent market developments, and discusses the economic and social uses that these actors satisfy. The overall goal of the horizontal report of the Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP) is to obtain a comprehensive view of Internet intermediaries, their economic and social function, development and prospects, benefits and costs, and responsibilities. This report was prepared by Ms. Karine Perset of the OECD‘s Directorate for Science Technology and Industry.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

OSCE Press release – European human rights bodies call for decisive action against racism and xenophobia

WARSAW, STRASBOURG, VIENNA, 19 March 2010 – In a joint statement ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the Council of Europe’s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) strongly condemn manifestations of racism and xenophobia, with a particular focus on the Internet:

“We must remain vigilant in the face of racist behaviour and incidents, including hate crimes and malicious expressions of hate and racist sentiments on the Internet.

“Our organizations are alarmed by patterns and manifestations of racism such as the ever-increasing use of the Internet by racist groups for recruitment, radicalisation, command and control, as well as for the intimidation and harassment of opponents. The Internet has become an important communications channel that links people in ‘cyberspace’, who then meet and take action in the physical world.

“Social networking sites are now prime locations for the spread of racist and xenophobic views, especially among young people. We must challenge such views, while being careful not to undermine freedom of expression.

“The danger emanating from hate spread through the Internet has long been recognized by the international community and our organizations dedicate serious attention to this issue. Prominent examples include ECRI’s General Policy Recommendation N° 6 on Combating the Dissemination of Racist, Xenophobic and Antisemitic Material via the Internet and the upcoming 22 March ODIHR expert meeting on challenges of combating crimes motivated by hate on the Internet.

“At the same time, we strongly believe in the Internet’s huge potential to overcome bias and prejudices based on characteristics including race, colour, language, nationality or national origin or religion. This potential should be fully utilized.

“We, the signatories of this statement, believe that:

- governments should investigate and prosecute criminal threats of violence based on racial, ethnic, religious or other bias and fully use existing domestic and international legal instruments and co-operation channels in this regard;
- governments should provide training to law enforcement officers and prosecutors on addressing hate crimes motivated by racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic or other related bias on the Internet;
- governments should reflect on whether national legislation provides an adequate basis to respond to crimes motivated by racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic or other related bias on the Internet;
- governments should establish or expand educational programmes for children and young people about expressions motivated by racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic or other related bias they may encounter on the Internet and include media literacy training in school curricula;
- effective measures addressing hate on the Internet that do not endanger freedom of speech and expression should be identified and disseminated;
- civil society should explore ways of utilizing the popularity of social networking sites to combat racism;
- civil society’s efforts to monitor the Internet for manifestations of hate, and efforts to share and publicise the findings should be encouraged and supported;
- the Internet industry should take an active role in addressing the issue of hate on the Internet and develop and implement effective complaints response mechanisms while respecting freedom of expression.”

Ambassador Janez Lenarcic
Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)

Morten Kjaerum
Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)

Nils Muiznieks
Chair of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI)

Online retailers cannot deduct delivery fee when making refunds: “Online shopping customers who send back goods straight away must not be charged for their delivery, Europe’s top court has said. Consumers can be required to pay the cost of returning the goods but should be refunded every other cost, it said.“

(Via OUT-LAW News.)