Category: Internet Governance

Posted on

The Roman Catholic Church Knows Better (about privacy and the Internet)

Monsignor Nunzio Galantino, the secretary of the Conferenza Episcopale Italiana (the permanent assembly of Roman Catholic Bishops) stated that (my translation)

The Internet is useful and effective, but the price we pay in term of privacy is huge

and, talking about the Data Protection Authority, he said

I don’t understand what these useless entities are worth for.

Of course he’s right, but the Italian Data Protection Commissioner (obviously) has a different opinion claiming that (again, my translation)

It is rather odd to call as useless the only entity that – within its powers – has always defended the human dignity from the “mud machine” 1, and from the plots arranged by those who want to turn the Internet into a space of violence and outlaws, form the totalitarian logic of the man-in-a-fishbowl.

Is this the same Data Protection Authority that failed to address the issues of the Telindus Router, the Android Spyware Case, The Pirate Bay Case, the Aruba Case, the Sony BMG rootkit case, that didn’t say a single word (while being informed) about the security concerns in relationship to the upcoming massive, trial-related personal data flood originated by the online shift of the Italian Civil Trial System, and that wasn’t able to prevent the leak of a confidential report?

 

  1. The reference is to a journalism idiomatic meaning the use of the media machine to soil somebody’s reputation ↩
Posted on

The Italian Internet Bill of Rights. The Trojan Horse Keeps Shaping

According to the Italian online newsmagazine Repubblica.it the Italian Bill of Rights endorsed by Boldrini, the leftist President of the Italian Low Chamber (Camera dei Deputati) is almost ready and will affirm principles such “net-neutrality”, “right to privacy”, “right to universal access” and so on.

If this is what is all this Internet Bill of Rights about, then much ado for practically nothing, since all the alleged “Internet Rights” are already broadly covered by existing laws and regulation but what we do lack is a fair enforcement. Copyright is one of the most blatant examples: the current law protects the author, gives him full control over his works and let him free to use whatever licensing model of choice. He has the right to be acknowledged as the creator of a work and to stop any detrimental use. But what happens in the real life is that these provisions are largely ignored because of the overwhelming power of those who make profit from authors’ work: the publishers. Thus, again, “rules” are the last needed thing in the world.

Of course (and hopefully) this Internet Bill of Rights will never be turned into a real, parliament-passed law. Nevertheless shall become a political platform to ease the shift of the legal liability from the single users who commits a crime or is lazy in protecting his rights to the Telco Industry.

This is not acceptable.

Posted on

The Government Censorship Machine Ready to Start?

Laura Boldrini, the leftwinger president of Italian Low Chamber (Camera dei deputati) has endorsed the settlement of a commission “for the Internet-related duty and rights”.

This commission is the tragical… sorry I meant “logical”, consequence of the dangerous “Internet Bill of Rights” campaign.

Given Boldrini’s attitude toward the Internet, ? I do hope that this commission wouldn’t turn into a trojan-horse ? to bash enterprise and individual rights.

Posted on

The Internet Bill of Rights. A Dangerous And Useless Idea

Italy (or at least, a little but noisy group of old-school netizens, politicians and academics) is in pole-position at the race for the Internet Bill of Rights, a sort of “constitution” to grant “internet rights” to the people.

The Internet Bill of Rights is useless because doesn’t add a set of rights that we don’t own just yet, and is dangerous because, on the contrary, would add more confusion to a rather chaotic situation.

In the Western World we have plenty of rights such as: data-protection, personal privacy, free-speech, freedom of commerce, freedom for press, copyleft and copyright. But what we actually lack – in Italy for sure – is a FAIR ENFORCEMENT of these rights: the fundamental rights that are taken for granted on paper, when challenged in court or in the parliament are twisted and torched to meet the need of the moment.

Think of the ridiculous extension made by local courts first and then by the Corte di cassazione (the Italian Supreme Court) of the “seizure” legal concept up to including the Internet traffic filter, or the way the Italian Data Protection Authority is working as a censorship machine, taking over the freedom of press, the Communication Authority, that self-gave the power to shut down Internet resources accused of copyright infringement, without any judicial review or, yet, the Antitrust authority that has been given the power (that was supposed to be reserved for a judge) to tell as illegal a contractual provision between a professional and a consumer…

This is typically Italian: pretend to fix a problem by passing a law, and immediately forget to check whether and how is enforced. And when the “need” arises, the old joke comes into play: law is enforced against enemies, interpreted towards friends.

Posted on

Boldrini (the Italian Low Chamber President) Asks For New Internet-related Regulation

Boldrini, a leftwinger, President of the Camera dei Deputati (the Italian Low Chamber), asked for a new set of Internet-related regulations during a conference whose aim was to advocate a (useless) Internet Bill of Rights.

Boldrini, that isn’t new in such exploit, enforces the old rhetorical technique of stating something as a general issue, while then making an exception that reflects the actual message. So, she says, the Internet must stay free BUT we do need to regulate it because of profanities, obscenities and violences available on the Internet.

Boldrini ? isn’t the first and shall not be the last to endorse this wrong position – I’m in the field since more than twenty years (sigh!) and the song still remains the same no matter the singer – confirming what the late Giancarlo Livraghi wrote almost twenty years ago, back in the 1996, in his essay, Cassandra :

Ideas travel quickly; and bad ideas seem to travel even faster.
In Europe, we have an added problem: regulation from the European Union.
Several times (and especially after the “decency act” was declared unconstitutional in the United States) they promised publicly not to interfere with freedom on the net.
I don’t believe them.
In spite of that statement, they are working on all sorts of regulations, controls and censorship, lead especially by the French.
We know at least some of the areas in which they intend to act. Systems of electronic payment (as if they weren’t already solved); protection of copyright (what they really mean is the interests of large software suppliers, or publishers, or the entertainment industry); the fight against crime and “terrorism” in networks (that can lead to all sorts of repression of innocent people while doing very little about organized crime); “pornography” (and we have seen what that can lead to). Also privacy of personal data, which indeed should be protected; but we have seen how even that cam become the excuse for unnecessary, ineffective and repressive bureaucracy. Etcetera…
…
And then… there are the “rule maniacs”.
A certain type of law experts and legislators, who (even in a place like Italy, already plagued with 100.000 more laws than it can possibly need) want to increase at all times the number of rules and regulations, and make them as complicated as possible (also generating an increasing number of cumbersome and inefficient regulatory bodies…).
…
It’s this type of people that keeps spreading the concept of society at risk, of a net dominated by hackers and pirates, or (isn’t that terrible!) invaded by independent and uncontrolled information and opinion. Society is at risk, they say, when minorities have a voice, differences of opinion travel out of control, information falls into the hands of those “common people” who so far had to come kneeling to the shrines of Law and Order.

What Boldrini and her peers fail to acknowledge is that we do need to enforce the regulations already in place (after possibly having reduced its quantity) and not create again and again bureaucracy and confusion that don’t help citizens and prevent the market from working properly.