Activities

apComms, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Communications, chaired by John Robertson MP and Derek Wyatt MP, is launching an inquiry into Internet traffic to assess regulation of ISPs and a range of Internet traffic issues from behavioural advertising and privacy to child abuse images and Internet neutrality to answer what role Government should play when it comes to Internet traffic.

Submissions are invited on 5 questions (see below) by 22^nd May and evidence sessions will be held in Parliament in June, with the final report expected in the Autumn. 

Background

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) currently have almost no legal liability for the traffic that passes across their networks this having been seen to be the correct public policy response to their very limited knowledge of what their customers are actually doing.

Recent technical advances are beginning to make it practical to inspect Internet traffic -- "bad" traffic might then be blocked; "bulk" traffic might then be slowed; "wicked" traffic detected and crimes investigated; or personal profiles could be built to better target advertising.

Opinions differ very widely as to which of these activities should be forbidden, which should be insisted upon, which raise insurmountable privacy issues, and which should be left to the marketplace to determine whether the idea is viable.

Existing European legislation provides ISPs with some key immunities for "mere conduit" along with protections for "hosting" and "caching". Almost a decade after they were decided upon, are these immunities still appropriate? Should they be recast to reflect the way in which modern networks operate?

Now the Internet is part of daily life, concerns are increasingly raised about a wide range of online privacy issues. Should there be changes to individual behaviour? Should companies be pressed to prioritise privacy issues? Or is there a need for specific regulations that go beyond mere "data protection" and address privacy directly?

Some have argued that ISPs should be forced to take considerably more responsibility for the traffic on their networks, preventing email spam, disabling "botnets", blocking access to websites containing child sexual abuse images and other types of illegal material. Others believe that ISPs should be preventing file sharing, so that their customers cannot infringe copyright laws.

Are any of these arguments valid? Or are there better ways of tackling these problems, especially at the global level? More locally, are the problems being properly addressed by the UK Government, or is there a need to reassign ministerial responsibilities for online matters?

In the United States many of these issues are caught up in the debate about "Network Neutrality", a term with a plethora of meanings, which often comes down to a dispute about who should meet the costs of Internet traffic. The draft Digital Britain report dismisses the issue by pointing to the competitive nature of the UK market, but others dispute this analysis and argue for legislation to prevent companies from abusing their position. What aspects of network neutrality actually matter in the UK? and do consumers need new laws to protect them?

Inquiry questions

Although we intend to address the broad sweep of all of these topics and make a range of recommendations; we would particularly like to learn how these five specific questions should be answered:

#1 Can we distinguish circumstances when ISPs should be forced to act to deal with some type of bad traffic? When should we insist that ISPs should not be forced into dealing with a problem, and that the solution must be found elsewhere?

#2 Should the Government be intervening over behavioural advertising services, either to encourage or discourage their deployment; or is this entirely a matter for individual users, ISPs and websites?

#3 Is there a need for new initiatives to deal with online privacy, and if so, what should be done? 

#4 Is the current global approach to dealing with child sexual abuse images working effectively? If not, then how should it be improved? 

#5 Who should be paying for the transmission of Internet traffic? Would it be appropriate to enshrine any of the various notions of Network Neutrality in statute?

 Guidelines for responses:

*  Written submissions should be concise and address the matters raised by the inquiry. An effective response is unlikely to exceed 4 pages.

 *  Please do not attempt to address all possible aspects of the inquiry, or to answer all of the questions posed. Instead, focus your response on the matters on which you have particular expertise or particularly strong opinions.

 *  Submissions should be submitted by email either in plain text (ASCII), PDF, .DOC or .RTF format. Submissions should be dated and should include the name, address, email and telephone contact details of the individual submitter, or the person within an organisation who should be contacted.

               admin@apcomms.org.uk

 *  It is at the inquiry's discretion to publish any evidence it receives. Evidence will be attributed to individuals or organisations, but detailed contact information will be not be made public. Any other information that a witness would not wish to be considered for publication should be clearly marked.

 *  The inquiry would like all evidence to be submitted by 22^nd May 2009. Following consideration of the written evidence, the Officers of apComms will decide which organisations and individuals to invite to oral evidence sessions in Westminster on 15th and 17th June 2009. 

*  The inquiry is expecting to publish their final report in the Autumn.