Tr: Finnish news report of French "registration" legislation

[Greg /// xdasharndotorg]

----- Original Message -----
From: vinton g. cerf <vcerf@MCI.NET>
To: ISTF Discussion <istf-participants@lyris.isoc.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2000 1:58 AM
Subject: Finnish news report of French "registration" legislation


> I asked Jean-Noel Tronc, advisor to the Prime Minister of France,
> to comment on Tommi Karttaavi's news report:
>
>
> Dear Vint,
>
> myth, fantasy, even phantasm indeed ! Maybe meaningfull of the type of
"cliche"
> that exist concerning our poor
> country ! I will try to give you in this message some rapid answers, but =
> you know that I'am not a legal expert, and
> my legal english is poor, so be cautious with technical details in my ans=
> wer :
>
> There is of course, in France, neither a law, nor any project of a legisl=
> ation that would require "all Internet
> users to register themselves or face penalties of up to
> six months in prison" as said by the Finnish news service to which the me=
> ssage you send me is referring to.
>
> There is a bill under discussion in the French Parliament that this Finni=
> sh news service may refer to, and it deals
> with a concern common to all countries now, which is the question of resp=
> onsability for contents on the web, through
> commercial or non-commercial (personal sites, which we have more than 500=
>   000 hosted in France only) web sites.
>
> As you know we face in Europe several
> proceedings against service providers hosting personal pageswhich were
> publishing illegal contents (racism, pedophilia, illegal copies, etc.). T=
> he aim of the French parliament proposal
> (initial proposal introduced by Patrick BLOCHE, Socialist, one of our mor=
> e dynamic MP on Internet affairs) is to
> transpose in the national legislation the dispositions currently agreed o=
> n the European level through the European
> directive on electronic commerce concerning the responsability of "techni=
> cal intermediaries" on the web. The aim of
> this is clearly to clarify and secure the framework under which ISP's and=
>   web hosters work.
>
> What the bill presently says is that service providers are not responsibl=
> e of
> the contents they host if their activities is limited to the technical pr=
> ocess
> of operating and giving access to a communication network. It also says t=
> hat their responsability will not be
> engaged as long as they have had no warning concerning a litigious conten=
> t.
>
> However, they have to be able to identify for the Justice the author of t=
> he pages they host.
>
> I insist on the fact that under this proposal, it will remain possible to=
>   publish anonymous non-commercial pages
> (for example a worker criticising his company, # it is normal to deny to =
> companies the right to publish anonymous
> web pages, in order to garantee the rights of customers), the identity of=
>   the
> publisher being only known by the service provider which can be required =
> to
> communicate them to the justice/police and only to them.
>
> MP's have said that the penalties are set in order to discourage false id=
> entities.
>
> Amiti=E9s
>
> JN TRONC
>
> PS : Web Rumors are really a major matter of sociological studies, and I'=
> d like to have details on what is this
> "Finnish news service".
>
>
>
> "vinton g. cerf" a =E9crit :
>
>  > this sounds like urban myth, but I thoughtI would double check.
>  >
>  > Vint
>  >
>  > >Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 10:40:44 +0300
>  > >From: Tommi Karttaavi <tommi.karttaavi@hpy.fi>
>  > >Subject: Obligatory registration of Internet users in FranISTF
Discuss=
> ion <istf-participants@lyris.isoc.org>ce?
>  > >To:
>  > >Reply-to: ISTF Discussion <istf-participants@lyris.isoc.org>
>  > >X-Accept-Language: en
>  > >X-Lyris-Message-Id:
>  > >  <LYR1777-17397-2000.04.20-03.47.09--vcerf#mci.net@lyris.isoc.org>
>  > >X-Message-To: vcerf@mci.net
>  > >List-Owner: <mailto:istf-participants-owner@lyris.isoc.org>
>  > >Original-recipient: rfc822;vcerf@mci.net
>  > >
>  > >I just read from a Finnish news service that there's a proposed law in
>  > >France that would require all Internet users to register themselves or
>  > >face penalties of up to six months in prison. Can anyone confirm this?
>  > >(I'm sorry if this subject has already been discussed on this list,
bu=
> t
>  > >I really don't have time to read everything on it).
>  > >
>  > >Tommi
> =================================================================
> I moved to a new MCI WorldCom facility on Nov 11, 1999
>
> MCI WorldCom
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> FAX (703) 886-0047
>
>
> "INTERNET IS FOR EVERYONE!"
> See you at INET2000, Yokohama, Japan July 18-21, 2000
> http://www.isoc.org/inet2000
>
>
>