Thursday, September 22, 2005

EU Insists It Won't Regulate the Internet

An AP newswire article Aoife White, via Yahoo! News, reports that:

The European Union head office insisted Thursday that it had no plans to regulate the Internet as it launches new broadcasting rules later this year.

"I have no intention to 'regulate the Internet,'" EU Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding told a broadcasting conference in Liverpool, England. However, she said the European Commission had the duty to protect shared European values.

"Who in this room is in favor of child pornography on the new media? Who stands for the freedom to spread incitement to racial hatred on the new media?"

She said there was a broad consensus that child protection and hate speech rules should also apply to "nonlinear" services, such as pay-TV or Internet broadcasts.

Internet firms and some broadcasters have firmly voiced their opposition to an EU-wide law over content.

British Broadcasting Corporation director general Mark Thompson said Wednesday that regulators needed to be realistic about how practical and desirable it was to enforce content in an on-demand, online world.

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