Bid to unify info society laws

Date: 14/03/1996

By Fiona McHugh

ANXIOUS not to smother the information society at birth by allowing a patchwork of national laws to break up the EU market for new services, the European Commission is set to propose measures aimed at coordinating the bloc's approach to policing cyberspace.

A “transparency mechanism” currently in the pipeline would, if adopted, force EU governments to send any draft new laws which might affect the information society to the Commission and fellow member states for vetting prior to their adoption.

The rapid growth of the Internet in recent years and the advent of new services such as teleshopping and video-on-demand have prompted widespread concern about the distribution of pornography, racial hate messages and other offensive material via electronic services.

Around the Union, governments have been scrambling to impose order on the emerging information society by introducing a range of national laws aimed at cleaning up wired services. While most industry experts concede that such laws are needed, they insist these should be introduced on an EU-wide basis, and not country by country.

The International Communications Round Table (ICRT), a group of broadcasting, phone and software companies, has written to Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann urging him to act now to prevent further fragmentation of national laws.

“It is vitally important that European policy on the information society does not develop haphazardly,” says the ICRT.

“It is especially important that steps be taken in advance to avoid the adoption of inconsistent and contradictory national laws that will discourage investment and slow the pace of innovation in cross-frontier services.”

John Frank of Microsoft argues that national regulation schemes would “make it very difficult” for the Internet to flourish in Europe, adding: “We want to see a thoughtful and consistent approach adopted at an EU-level.”

Although the Commission agrees that a common approach is needed, it is divided over what form this should take. DGX, the Directorate-General for media policy, is known to support harmonisation of laws. It backs changes introduced by the European Parliament to the EU's broadcasting laws which would extend their scope to cover all new services.

If adopted by culture ministers, the revised directive would force electronic goods makers to fit television sets with V-chips - electronic sensors which would allow parents to block the reception of sexually-explicit or violent television programmes. It would also ban the posting of pornographic material on the Internet.

That approach, however, is strongly opposed by information society pioneers and by many within the computer industry, who believe that the rapid growth of the Internet and electronic commerce would be stunted by tough regulations. They argue that it is inappropriate to introduce laws to govern services which do not exist at the moment.

“This is an industry in its infancy whose direction has yet to evolve. By prematurely stepping in with regulations, the EU could cripple it in advance,” warns Frank.

Responding to these fears, DGXV, responsible for the single market, has suggested a less heavy-handed approach - the transparency mechanism. But its adoption has been delayed by a dispute between Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti and Bangemann over who should handle the notifications on behalf of the Commission. Officials in both services, however, expect the disagreement to be papered over within a month.

The need to police cyberspace was highlighted in France recently by the publication on the Internet of Le Grand Secret, a book about François Mitterand's battle with cancer written by his doctor, Claude Gubler, in defiance of a ban imposed by the French courts.

German courts have also stepped into the debate by banning users there from accessing sexually-explicit Internet discussion groups. The court forced Compuserve, a US-based online information service, to block access to about 200 of the thousands of 'Usenet' groups found on the Internet.

The Commission has been running to catch up with developments in this field, launching discussion papers on copyright in the information age and on legal protection for scrambled services.

The transparency mechanism will form part of a legal strucutre which will be assembled in Brussels over the coming years.