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New EU Consumer Protection Law Contains a Vague Website Blocking Clause (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bleeping Computer: The European Union (EU) has voted on Tuesday, November 14, to pass the new Consumer Protection Cooperation regulation, a new EU-wide applicable law that gives extra power to national consumer protection agencies, but which also contains a vaguely worded clause that also grants them the power to block and take down websites without judicial oversight. The new law "establishes overreaching Internet blocking measures that are neither proportionate nor suitable for the goal of protecting consumers and come without mandatory judicial oversight," Member of the European Parliament Julia Reda said in a speech in the European Parliament Plenary during a last ditch effort to amend the law. "According to the new rules, national consumer protection authorities can order any unspecified third party to block access to websites without requiring judicial authorization," Reda added later in the day on her blog. This new law is an EU regulation and not a directive, meaning its obligatory for all EU states, which do not have to individually adopt it.
I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
Yep. I know a protection law when I see one.
That's a real nice website you got there, it'd be a real shame if something happened to it...
I'm from a corporation and I'm here to make life easier
Corporate "help" is optional.
Government "help" is mandatory.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I used to live in a place a lot like the UK and Europe. That place was New Jersey. Having lived in New Jersey my entire life things didn't seem too bad. I mean. Life was hell, but I was used to it. Then around 2008ish New Jersey broke the camels back. They added a new service tax explicitly for those in my field. It meant my income dropped by 7%. Two years later I decided to move up to New Hampshire. Not because New Hampshire is much better- but because there are others who are sick and tired of the bull shit getting together and working to fix things. Those who put freedom and liberty above "safety" and tyrannical laws like this should consider joining the Shire Society and Free State Project and the general migration. We've had a lot of successes and while New Hampshire isn't perfect it still beats 99% of the world (or at least places you'd actually want to live, ie low unemployment, good jobs, cheap living, low taxes, fewer tyrannical laws, ie it's not the UK, EU, NJ, Massachusetts, NY, or California).
From international news, bad move reviews, authors, comments, reviews, images, blasphemy, cartoons, music, art, culture, history, politics, local news?
The censored internet is going to get very bland and boring. Just big government, political parties and big brands pushing their SJW ideals.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
At what temperature does a web site burn?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I'm sure the locals you're attempting to displace are completely OK with that.
(For those of you just joining us, these are the folks who go around saying, "The State sucks! We don't need no steenkin' State! We'll just go run everyone else out of one of theirs, as long as it isn't Somalia!")
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The EU is full of them. They do not live in a democracy.. yet many think they do. Fools. This is why people in the UK want to brexit.
Galt's Gulch imploded on itself, you know that right?
Like many laws originating in the EU, it probably had some noble intentions behind it. Maybe this time it really was trying to limit the ability of scam web sites operating outside EU jurisdictions to harm people when the operators couldn't be pursued directly under EU law.
Sadly, the EU often exhibits a combination of ignorance, apathy and carelessness when it comes to making the actual laws, and consequently it often causes large amounts of collateral damage. I suspect in many cases those responsible genuinely don't know or understand what they've done, but that doesn't really help if you're hit by the damage.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
the locals you're attempting to displace
How about applying this rhetoric to those immigrating to the US? Ah yeah, that's somehow completely different.
But as MEP Reda points out, without any mandatory judicial oversight, this new regulation could be abused, similarly to how much regulation passed to deal with one topic is often hijacked and applied in other areas.
Now this would be illegal according to the national laws of probably several EU members as it would break the laws controlling the behaviour of the authorities and good governance. So, should there be a panic today, or shall there always be a panic tomorrow?
It is for PROTECTION...! ...Says guy who has never read a George Orwell novel or seen any sci-fi movie ever.
https://babylonbee.com/news/go-wrong-amazon-key-asks-man-whos-never-watched-single-sci-fi-film/
Is this a joke? Against the government you have NO RECOURSE other than what the government itself allows, due to fabricated myth laughingly called Sovereign Immunity.
Big government + big business = cronyism, the big danger.
https://fee.org/articles/to-fight-cronyism-we-need-a-separation-of-business-and-state/
I guess if you can't beat them in court, might as well circumvent the law...?
Yes it's hyperbole, but the point is salient. I'm sure this will be used under the guise of 'copyright enforcement', but I'm sure this will be effectively used across the whole of EU, to silence opposing political opinions.
This is the kind of thing, we would normally see in response to a significant event happening in Europe. I'd say terrorism, but that is now commonplace in society unfortunately. There is potential this could be ac actual effective defense measure on that topic, for say communications through a specific website, but let's be honest. When was the scope of something so broad, ever used with surgical precision.
And so it goes... Over-reaching authority continues. Dissenting opinions will be silenced, and wherever convenient, those nasty file-sharers will have to spin up more sites in the continuing game of whack-a-mole.
If you do not like being robbed, you can leave this mafia territory and go to another one.
Have a problem with getting conscripted into the military and forced to murder? Oh well, you should just go somewhere else. I like conscription.
Not a fan of being censored or denied life-saving experimental drugs by some lazy bureaucrat? Gee, sorry your terminally-ill kid died, but that drug could have been really dangerous for him. Maybe you should have had your kid somewhere else.
Join us next time for more, Garbage Statists Say.
Extrajudicial censorship is all the rage in Europe. Germany has shown the way with its new social media laws that outsource censorship to private parties and foundations without oversight or any way for the censored to challenge it. Now everyone wants in. I bet the EU commission is already drooling over the possibilities.
EU does not pass laws. Member states do.
Make no mistake, there are multiple reasons for this law. A good law has good points, but also can cover up less noble intentions as well. The free flow of information, out of the control of self-appointed opinion-shapers and news curators/gatekeepers, is very troublesome to those same people. If the implicit censorship can hide behind the skirt of the "noble intentions", so much the better, and so much the more difficult to discuss it.
Their intentions are quite different, yes. Glad we agree on that.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If you do not like being robbed, you can leave this mafia territory and go to another one.
"Robbed"? By whom? In which "mafia territory"?
Have a problem with getting conscripted into the military and forced to murder? Oh well, you should just go somewhere else. I like conscription.
Assuming you're talking about the US, there hasn't been a draft in over 40 years, and no-one's been prosecuted for failing to register since the mid-1980s.
Not a fan of being censored...[?]
Again assuming you're talking about the US, I wasn't aware that the government there practised censorship.
...or denied life-saving experimental drugs by some lazy bureaucrat? Gee, sorry your terminally-ill kid died, but that drug could have been really dangerous for him. Maybe you should have had your kid somewhere else.
Perhaps you'd be interested in knowing that my mother is alive today because, just 2 or 3 years ago, when her life expectancy was about 90 days, some "lazy bureaucrat" approved her then-experimental treatment for terminal cancer. I *really* hope you're okay with that.
(Were you actually replying to me, or to someone else?)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
1) Taking down isn't. You're in no position to do that. Morally anyway, and legally in most cases where you simply don't have jurisdiction. Blocking access is enough to protect people.
2) Blocks you implement are made public, with the site blocked along with the reason why you did it.
3) I get the right to overrule your decision and put myself in harm's way if I so please.
After all, you're trying to protect me, right? Not patronize me. You want to keep me safe from Chinese pages trying to steal my money? Awesome. You want to cut access to malware C&C servers? Even better.
You want to censor opinions you don't like? Not quite a good idea, with the provisions above you will not do it, because you would essentially create a who-is-who database of what you want to censor.
Can we agree on these three simple rules? Hmm?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, from the article:
As for this:
While incompetence and ignorance are surely one factor, another issue with the way the EU currently works is that while having a shared currency and other features that have taken it closer to a federation-like entity, it's still a trade union and not an actual federation. This means that drafting regulations has to often be done with enough flexibility to account for the fact that different states have vastly different configurations of courts and authorities, and for example the way consumer protection cases are handled differs country by country, and in many countries most consumer cases are in fact already handled without the participation of a court. This is why the wording used often speaks of 'competent authorities', meaning 'whichever national body this matter falls under'
Here in Finland for example, the authority responsible for handling the details of consumer protection is the Finnish competition and consumer authority, which oversees the consumer market and sets guidelines based on existing legislation but does not handle individual complaints, although they do give out advice and knowledge on past rulings. I have personally done business with them once a few years back after an online vendor operating from Sweden that I had bought a 64 gig iPod from refused to take it into warranty after it stopped working 10 months after the purchase claiming that their 'inspection' proved I had dropped it, which was not the case. The FCAA responded that I should have a 3rd party have a look at the device and give their assessment, which I did and in that process apple maintenance also noted that it wasn't even actually a brand new device as it had been registered in their care before, so it was a return product which they had repackaged and sold to me as new, which is obviously illegal. With this knowledge in hand I recontacted the FCAA, which sided with me and pointed out to the vendor that if the case is take further they will almost certainly lose as the evidence is clear at this point, and they finally yielded, giving me a full refund, but no additional compensation although such was recommended, which bugged me out. However, should I have wanted to fight over compensation, I would have needed to take the matter further to the the consumer disputes board, whose members are appointed by the ministry of Justice for 5 years at a time. It works very similarly to a court, but it is not one, meaning it cannot give out legally binding/enforceable rulings but instead gives out recommendations, which are usually followed. The board would have likely sided with me but at that point the likely compensation would have
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
I have nothing against seeking an efficient justice system that is practically accessible to and affordable by those with relatively minor grievances. Here in the UK, we use tribunals that serve a similar purpose in some situations, as well as a small claims court system, though if I've understood you correctly then our mechanisms have more power to make binding decisions themselves than the Finnish authorities you mentioned.
However, these national differences don't make vague law any better, nor excessively broad law, nor regulations that require disproportionate effort and cost for compliance.
The irony is that the EU already has a different mechanism, directives, to use in cases where the differences in national legal systems mean a particular change should be interpreted carefully according to each member state's laws and practices. But the EU tends not to use those when regulations will do, and thus we are where we are on this issue (and previous consumer protection regulations, and the GDPR, and so on).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If it were true, they wouldn't need "fact sheets" and "guidance documents" to "claim" this, it would be written in the law.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.