Slashdot Mirror
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.
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...
At what temperature does a web site burn?
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
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.
Because of the idiotic First Past the Goal Post voting system which degenerates into a 2 party system.
The solution is to use an Alternative Vote system but the majority of Americans are too fucking stupid to:
a) understand the problem, and
b) do anything to fix the problem.
so they end up with the "best" government money can buy!
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