Debate over policing of new media

Date: 11/07/1996

MARCELINO Oreja, the Commissioner responsible for cultural affairs, will launch a wide-ranging debate in the coming months on how best

to regulate sprawling online services such as the Internet.

In Part I of a Green Paper on new media - The Protection of Minors and Human Dignity - he will ask interested parties whether, and to what extent, the Commission ought to ban the distribution of offensive material in cyberspace.

Given the potential of new online services, both for jobs and as money-spinners, regulators are anxious to strike the right balance between citizens' and industry's interests.

The Commission is likely to suggest that the EU's laws should be tailored to suit different media, proposing tougher laws for those used regularly by children, such as television, and laxer ones for those used mainly by adults, such as the Internet.

The paper does not rule out the use of special technology, allowing parents to filter out unsuitable material, instead of strict distribution laws.

Some member states have already begun to regulate the information society, introducing national laws to clean up wired services.

While most industry experts concede that such laws are necessary, they insist they should be kept to a minimum and introduced on an EU-wide, rather than a country-by-country, basis.

“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,” says John Frank of Microsoft.

A prominent member of the International Communications Round Table (ICRT), which groups together broadcasting, telephone and software firms, Frank has been urging the Commission to adopt a more coordinated regulatory approach to the sector.

Acting on the ICRT's advice, the Commission is also due to propose measures to coordinate national efforts to police cyberspace. The so-called 'transparency mechanism' would - if adopted, as expected, before the summer break - oblige member states to send national regulations likely to affect the information society to the Commission and EU partners for vetting.