To some extent I agree with you, but I think you miss one important point: this is really just the aftermath of Microsoft bundling IE with W98 (I think it was W98, but might be wrong). At the time browsers were considered an application completely separate from the operating system, but by including IE in W98 Microsoft killed the market for anybody but themselves.
Since they had a monopoly on operating systems (not entirely true, but they were so dominant the difference is unimportant) they had effectively used this monopoly in one market to get themselves a monopoly in another market. I cannot think that kind of action should be anything but illegal. Had Microsoft killed my company off by producing a better product I couldn't complain. But getting killed by by someone who uses muscle to get you out of the market shouldn't be legal, no matter who does it and in what market/-s it concerns.
The situation today is slightly diferent, and more or less everybody expects a browser to be installed in their new computer when they unpack it. While this might not be a bad thing, I think browsers should still be an application, as oposed to part of the operating system. in that way I can choose to install what browser/-s I want, and remove any I don't want.
There is no need to crawl TPB or any other site if 'all' you want to do is remove the ads. Just start using Firefox with AdBlock (or AdBlock+). Since installing AdBlock+ on my computer about 18 months ago, just the three most used filters have spared me 180000 (!) adverts. There is similar functionality in Konqueror, but Im unsure about Opera. I don't think there is anything similar for IE.
I have been reading a lot about this trial, and found a quote that will haunt the speaker for long time to come, if the quote is acurate.
In one of the major IT-related new sites in swedish, they interview a number of people about this trial, among others Henrik Ponten who is a lawyer for the Swedish anti-piracy group.
In this interview he states "It is important that the Swedish state has brought forward these charges in order to establish that it is not OK to run commercial enterprises on other peoples' creativity."!
Now, I may be a bit misinformed about what record companies actually do, but it sounds very much like this guy is trying to get record companies outlawed.
I can't remember the sources, but if you absolutely need them I can find the relevant newspaper articles, but be warned: they will be in Swedish.
I live in Sweden, and have been reading a lot of what the newspapers have printed (or published online) about the TPB-trial. One of the more interesting details that have emerged is that the prosecutor who is now charging the guys behind TPB with various things , only half a year before the police raid had written an official document stating that TPB was not doing anything illegal.
In short: in six months the prosecutor changed his mind from "they are doing nothing illegal" to "Let's charge them!". If nothing else, it does invite debate about whether or not TPB (and TPB's actions) are illegal or not.
As for intricacies of Swedish copyright law: I don't think we need bother with them. TPB itself has done very little other than tell users where to find the material they want. That might make them accessories to copyright infringement, but I don't see how it would make them guilty of copyright infringement.
There is one intricacy of Swedish law that could be interesting, though. And that is the question whether or not you can be convicted for aiding in a crime, when nobody has been convicted of the crime. If the law requires someone to be found guilty of a crime before anybody can be found guilty of being an accessory in the crime, I think the guys behind TPB will be found innocent. If the law does not require a "main perpetrator" in order to convict "an accessory" then your guess is as good as mine...
Unfortunately, I agree with you: this trial is more about international politics than whether or not the guys have actually done something illegal.
Just the fact that there will _be_ a trial is slightly bizarre, since the prosecutor had, just a few months before the police raid, written an official document where he claims TPB are doing nothing wrong.
Enter then the minister of Justice, who had been on a trip to the USA, to meet his counterpart there. When the minister was back home it didn't take long for the police to raid TPB and seize everything in sight (including many servers belonging to other companies and totally unrelated to TPB).
To the general public, it looks very much like TPB got raided as a result of the minister of Justice applying pressure on the prosecutor to get something done. If this is really what happened, someone is likely to find himself in trouble, since it is against the constitution for the government to decide what the authorities should do in specific cases.
They probably dont give a s**t about screen readers. Those are mostly used to access web pages, word processor documents and the like. In other words, stuff members of the Writer's Guild have not produced.
Now, if screen readers could be used to convert text written by members of the Writer's Guild to speach the thing would most likely change, rapidly and for the worse (in my opinion).
I wouldn't be all too surprised if eithe the Writer's Guild or an actor's union said that if any litterature is to be read, the reading should be done by either the author or a trained actor.
If it is indeed a tax, the money should (by the definition of "tax") go to the state or federal government (or equivalent in your country/area). Perhaps not the best solution, but everybody would know where the money ends up. Obviously the state/federal government could choose to pass this money on to the record companies or the artists.
If the money ends up in the pockets of the record companies, I don't think the artists will get much of it: after all they have to sign off the copyright on the recorded material to the record company in order to produce a CD, don't they? (Please correct me if I am wrong). On the other hand, I don't think the artists get much of the money you pay for a CD, so they wouldn't really be (much) worse off.
If the money ends up in the pockets of the artists, I don't think many filesharers would complain. But it can very easily trigger a heated discussion that noone would like: how to distribute the money between the artists. Either you use CD sales as a basis for distributing this money, or you try and track how much each file is shared, and try to distribute the money according to file popularity. In my ears, either way is just as bad.
I think the 'fees' and 'taxes' on broadband connections may very well work, but they depend very much on the details.
There has been a suggestion of the same thing being applied here in Sweden, with a strange twist: by paying the fee, you would be allowed to download everything your heart could desire. BUT (and it's a big but) it would still be illegal for you to _upload_ things! The net effect would be that you would be paying for the content the creators put on internet, not for anything else! Marvelous business plan...
If the 'fee'/'tax' allowed uploads as well, it could work. Until the porn industry starts claiming it's fair share of the money. I find it hard to believe there is no porn distributed illegally on internet, so the porn industry should have it's fair share. Yet, I would like to see the politician or high executive from an ISP supporting the porn industry's claim....
What do the record companies care? At least here in Sweden all they want is a person to hold responsible. Whether or not that person has actually done anything is beside their point. 'Cause after all, they are all about making money, whose money they get is secondary.
A few weeks ago one of the record industry representatives was involved in a chat with newspaper readers. A journalist asked a question along the lines of "Suppose my neighbour hacks into my wireless network, and starts sharing files. Who would have to pay the bill?" The answer was "The owner of the wireless network" (or words to that effect). This was not about disconnecting people, but making them pay for having shared files. The principle is quite likely to be the same when it comes to disconnecting people though.
The problem is not the browser per se, but the fact that it is on virtually every computer out there. For many people IE _is_ the internet. If you removed IE from their computer and installed Firefox, Opera or any other browser they would be lost, and wouldn't know they could still access internet. Since people don't have to choose to get IE, Microsoft has an unfair advantage over the competitors. It would probably be enough if you needed to install it from CD once you've unpacked your computer: it would require people to _do_ something to get IE, and that would expose them to the possibility of choice.
And this applies only to a monopoly: Apple's share of the home or office computer market is small enough that they can get away with bundling a browser. And with any version of Linux you can remove the browser and the OS still works fine (although using KDE without Konqueror could be just a bit frustrating...).
As for the browser being a necessary part of the OS, I don't agree. The way I see things the browser is just another application, just like a game, word processor, database handler or what have you. Granted, the browser will be using the OS to communicate with the outside world, but it isn't (or at least shouldn't be) an integral part of the OS.
I don't live in USA, and have no idea how Verizon works as an ISP, but I don't understand why "Her Verizon High-Speed Internet CD won't load..." is a problem. With my ISP I can connect to internet no matter what software I choose to use (99.X% of the time Firefox under openSuse Linux), and I see no reason why a computer with Ubuntu on it should be any different (assuming of course it has adequate hardware, but that should hardly be a problem). Could someone clarify this?
As for the online classes "requirement" of MS Word, I think she needs to get a clue. I have turned in work to my university written in OOo, but saved as a Word-file, and nobody has complained. Even when they have specified Times New Roman, and my work has been in a slightly similar font (with a completely different name) I have only had comments about the content of the work, not the presentation.
This reminds me of the time (early 1990's) I worked for a small Swedish company. We got an order for 5 pieces of an ultra-sound machine doctors use to examine the sinuses of patients, and spare parts for all of them. The order was placed by some organisation (government or otherwise, my memory fails me on this point) inside the USSR.
As far as we could tell, we were bound by the US export rules, since the US companies making such high-tech wonders as the Z80 tied up their retailers in contracts which were enforced down the chain.
We gladly shipped a total of 10 Z80 CPUs, along with a bunch of other high-tech wonders such as 74LS244 and the like... And wondered at what the USA expected would come from stopping a small company exporting technology to the USSR. Technology the same country could buy, anonymously, over the counter in any reasonably well-supplied electronics store.
Unfortunately I don't think it the geeks thinking like you do who are the problem. I think the problem is the managers who make decisions based on what can be sold to the public, as long as the public doesn't find out some small dark secret...
As for me, I consider wireless communication insecure, but I don't always bother about it. It boils down to a balance of potential damage and cost (not only money but also time/impracticality...) of securing the communication.
Just a small point that has little to do with the issue at hand:
paedophilia is a sexual orientation, and as such I think it cannot be neither legal nor illegal. Engaging in paedophile activities, on the other hand, can be made illegal if a society should choose to have it that way.
It's quite possible riding bicycles in the USA is close to suicidal. However, I don't live in the USA. I live in a country (Sweden) where commuting by bicycle is quite normal. Most cities even provide a (partially) separate network of paths for cyclists and pedestrians to move about with little or no contact to motor vehicles.
I don't think I am being unrealistic. Recumbents ought to be more efficient than conventional bikes since you get a smaller front view area (which reduces the air resistance). Also, on my way to work I can expect to encounter a total of two traffic lights, or none if I take the marginally longer route. And considering the short distance (about 20 km) I should be able to keep a good pace. Had the distance been longer I realise I would have to lower the pace.
I have already cycled to work several times. At best it took me 50 minutes, with a three gear conventional bike, and most of the distance is roads where I can do whatever speed I can manage: traffic is light and the speed limit is 70...
I live in Sweden, where cycling is quite common (more precisely a university town, where cycling is very common). I would therefore leave my bicycle parked among all the others. If you live in a different country (quite likely) parking bicycles may be a bit more difficult...
I agree with you, and I am looking into getting myself a recumbent with which to commute to work. According to what I hear, an average speed of 40 km/h (25mph) would be 'normal', meaning it would take me half an hour to work. That's only ten minutes more than by car, and by far cheaper... And no parking problems either!
I think Nabeel_co raises an interesting issue, that I feel is far from simple.
Suppose you buy a CD, and get a receipt for it (so you can prove you have bought it). On the way home you get the CD stolen (or lose it), but you still have the receipt. Would it then be legal for you to download the album? You do after all have 'a licence' to listen to the music.
What if the RIAA drags you to court for copyright infringement, and you produce the receipt stating you have bought a CD with the music they accuse you of illegally downloading?
Or suppose you buy a CD, and don't have it stolen or lost. But you want to play the music in your MP3-player. Since you are computer illiterate you download the MP3-files, instead of ripping & converting yourself. Should that be illegal?
As far as keeping the black-list secret, I think the authorities have a problem.
At least here in Sweden, when you try accessing a 'forbidden' page, you get directed (via forged DNS answers) to a page on a (police ?) server, telling you what you are trying to access and that this is forbidden.
This makes finding out what sites are banned easy: a simple script that does a DNS query for every possible domain will turn up the entire list used by the ISPs.
To make things easy on the ISP the DNS-bombardment could be distributed among a few hundred volunteers with fast connections. The only results that would have to be stored are those that generate the IP-address to the server showing the you-have-tried-accessing-child-porn-warning. These results would then be merged to a single list.
And, in my mind, this list, since it has not been leaked by the police but created independently of the authorities, cannot be considered secret. Thus, the list of banned sites would be out in the open.
If I remember correctly, the very same filter was used to deny access to www.lapsiporno.info/ (childporn.info). The only problem was the the blocked site was not about child porn per se, but about the child porn filter. Thus the filter was used by the Finnish police to silence their critics! "Very handy" if you happen to be the authorities and don't care about such things as freedom of speech.
I could live with having internet censored, IF AND ONLY IF the list was decided by a court of law, and representatives of the censored sites had a chance to make their voice heard. Essentially it should be a site-by-site affair, with every censored site getting it's own fair trial.
That way the censored sites could find out why they get censored, and could do something about it should they want to.
Further, each and every site on the list, irrespective of where it is located, has to be able to appeal being on the list. And appeal not only in connection with being placed on it, but at any time afterwards. This is to handle sites who's content varies over time.
As an example of internet censorship gone wrong, the Finnish site www.lapsiporno.info is censored in Finland by the ISPs. The "lapsiporno" translates into "child porn" in English. Yet the site has nothing to do about child pornography per se, it is about the child porn filter the Finnish ISPs have been force to implement. The result is that the filter is being used to silence one of the filters critics! And the owner of the site has no way to get off the list....
Please pardon me if you find me rude or obnoxious, but since when does the USA care about the WTO? Since when does the USA care about anything other than itself?
The _people_ of the USA might very well care for more than their own country, but the impression I get is that the federal governments do essentially what they want to with respect to agreements with other nations or international bodies.
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To some extent I agree with you, but I think you miss one important point: this is really just the aftermath of Microsoft bundling IE with W98 (I think it was W98, but might be wrong). At the time browsers were considered an application completely separate from the operating system, but by including IE in W98 Microsoft killed the market for anybody but themselves.
Since they had a monopoly on operating systems (not entirely true, but they were so dominant the difference is unimportant) they had effectively used this monopoly in one market to get themselves a monopoly in another market. I cannot think that kind of action should be anything but illegal. Had Microsoft killed my company off by producing a better product I couldn't complain. But getting killed by by someone who uses muscle to get you out of the market shouldn't be legal, no matter who does it and in what market/-s it concerns.
The situation today is slightly diferent, and more or less everybody expects a browser to be installed in their new computer when they unpack it. While this might not be a bad thing, I think browsers should still be an application, as oposed to part of the operating system. in that way I can choose to install what browser/-s I want, and remove any I don't want.
There is no need to crawl TPB or any other site if 'all' you want to do is remove the ads. Just start using Firefox with AdBlock (or AdBlock+). Since installing AdBlock+ on my computer about 18 months ago, just the three most used filters have spared me 180000 (!) adverts. There is similar functionality in Konqueror, but Im unsure about Opera. I don't think there is anything similar for IE.
I have been reading a lot about this trial, and found a quote that will haunt the speaker for long time to come, if the quote is acurate.
In one of the major IT-related new sites in swedish, they interview a number of people about this trial, among others Henrik Ponten who is a lawyer for the Swedish anti-piracy group.
In this interview he states "It is important that the Swedish state has brought forward these charges in order to establish that it is not OK to run commercial enterprises on other peoples' creativity."!
Now, I may be a bit misinformed about what record companies actually do, but it sounds very much like this guy is trying to get record companies outlawed.
For those with a knowledge of Swedish, the relevant page is http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.211605/branschen-och-piraterna--sa-slutar-rattegangen . It is the first sentence in Henrik Pontens first answer.
I can't remember the sources, but if you absolutely need them I can find the relevant newspaper articles, but be warned: they will be in Swedish.
I live in Sweden, and have been reading a lot of what the newspapers have printed (or published online) about the TPB-trial. One of the more interesting details that have emerged is that the prosecutor who is now charging the guys behind TPB with various things , only half a year before the police raid had written an official document stating that TPB was not doing anything illegal.
In short: in six months the prosecutor changed his mind from "they are doing nothing illegal" to "Let's charge them!". If nothing else, it does invite debate about whether or not TPB (and TPB's actions) are illegal or not.
As for intricacies of Swedish copyright law: I don't think we need bother with them. TPB itself has done very little other than tell users where to find the material they want. That might make them accessories to copyright infringement, but I don't see how it would make them guilty of copyright infringement.
There is one intricacy of Swedish law that could be interesting, though. And that is the question whether or not you can be convicted for aiding in a crime, when nobody has been convicted of the crime. If the law requires someone to be found guilty of a crime before anybody can be found guilty of being an accessory in the crime, I think the guys behind TPB will be found innocent. If the law does not require a "main perpetrator" in order to convict "an accessory" then your guess is as good as mine...
Unfortunately, I agree with you: this trial is more about international politics than whether or not the guys have actually done something illegal.
Just the fact that there will _be_ a trial is slightly bizarre, since the prosecutor had, just a few months before the police raid, written an official document where he claims TPB are doing nothing wrong.
Enter then the minister of Justice, who had been on a trip to the USA, to meet his counterpart there. When the minister was back home it didn't take long for the police to raid TPB and seize everything in sight (including many servers belonging to other companies and totally unrelated to TPB).
To the general public, it looks very much like TPB got raided as a result of the minister of Justice applying pressure on the prosecutor to get something done. If this is really what happened, someone is likely to find himself in trouble, since it is against the constitution for the government to decide what the authorities should do in specific cases.
They probably dont give a s**t about screen readers. Those are mostly used to access web pages, word processor documents and the like. In other words, stuff members of the Writer's Guild have not produced.
Now, if screen readers could be used to convert text written by members of the Writer's Guild to speach the thing would most likely change, rapidly and for the worse (in my opinion).
I wouldn't be all too surprised if eithe the Writer's Guild or an actor's union said that if any litterature is to be read, the reading should be done by either the author or a trained actor.
If it is indeed a tax, the money should (by the definition of "tax") go to the state or federal government (or equivalent in your country/area). Perhaps not the best solution, but everybody would know where the money ends up. Obviously the state/federal government could choose to pass this money on to the record companies or the artists.
If the money ends up in the pockets of the record companies, I don't think the artists will get much of it: after all they have to sign off the copyright on the recorded material to the record company in order to produce a CD, don't they? (Please correct me if I am wrong). On the other hand, I don't think the artists get much of the money you pay for a CD, so they wouldn't really be (much) worse off.
If the money ends up in the pockets of the artists, I don't think many filesharers would complain. But it can very easily trigger a heated discussion that noone would like: how to distribute the money between the artists. Either you use CD sales as a basis for distributing this money, or you try and track how much each file is shared, and try to distribute the money according to file popularity. In my ears, either way is just as bad.
I think the 'fees' and 'taxes' on broadband connections may very well work, but they depend very much on the details.
There has been a suggestion of the same thing being applied here in Sweden, with a strange twist: by paying the fee, you would be allowed to download everything your heart could desire. BUT (and it's a big but) it would still be illegal for you to _upload_ things! The net effect would be that you would be paying for the content the creators put on internet, not for anything else! Marvelous business plan...
If the 'fee'/'tax' allowed uploads as well, it could work. Until the porn industry starts claiming it's fair share of the money. I find it hard to believe there is no porn distributed illegally on internet, so the porn industry should have it's fair share. Yet, I would like to see the politician or high executive from an ISP supporting the porn industry's claim....
What do the record companies care? At least here in Sweden all they want is a person to hold responsible. Whether or not that person has actually done anything is beside their point. 'Cause after all, they are all about making money, whose money they get is secondary.
A few weeks ago one of the record industry representatives was involved in a chat with newspaper readers. A journalist asked a question along the lines of "Suppose my neighbour hacks into my wireless network, and starts sharing files. Who would have to pay the bill?" The answer was "The owner of the wireless network" (or words to that effect). This was not about disconnecting people, but making them pay for having shared files. The principle is quite likely to be the same when it comes to disconnecting people though.
I think what you mean is a a sensible judge should set a precedent.
The problem is not the browser per se, but the fact that it is on virtually every computer out there. For many people IE _is_ the internet. If you removed IE from their computer and installed Firefox, Opera or any other browser they would be lost, and wouldn't know they could still access internet. Since people don't have to choose to get IE, Microsoft has an unfair advantage over the competitors. It would probably be enough if you needed to install it from CD once you've unpacked your computer: it would require people to _do_ something to get IE, and that would expose them to the possibility of choice.
And this applies only to a monopoly: Apple's share of the home or office computer market is small enough that they can get away with bundling a browser. And with any version of Linux you can remove the browser and the OS still works fine (although using KDE without Konqueror could be just a bit frustrating...).
As for the browser being a necessary part of the OS, I don't agree. The way I see things the browser is just another application, just like a game, word processor, database handler or what have you. Granted, the browser will be using the OS to communicate with the outside world, but it isn't (or at least shouldn't be) an integral part of the OS.
I don't live in USA, and have no idea how Verizon works as an ISP, but I don't understand why "Her Verizon High-Speed Internet CD won't load..." is a problem. With my ISP I can connect to internet no matter what software I choose to use (99.X% of the time Firefox under openSuse Linux), and I see no reason why a computer with Ubuntu on it should be any different (assuming of course it has adequate hardware, but that should hardly be a problem). Could someone clarify this?
As for the online classes "requirement" of MS Word, I think she needs to get a clue. I have turned in work to my university written in OOo, but saved as a Word-file, and nobody has complained. Even when they have specified Times New Roman, and my work has been in a slightly similar font (with a completely different name) I have only had comments about the content of the work, not the presentation.
Maybe, just maybe, the airline companies left will be a bit more careful if a successful lawsuit takes one past the brink of bankruptcy.
This reminds me of the time (early 1990's) I worked for a small Swedish company. We got an order for 5 pieces of an ultra-sound machine doctors use to examine the sinuses of patients, and spare parts for all of them. The order was placed by some organisation (government or otherwise, my memory fails me on this point) inside the USSR.
As far as we could tell, we were bound by the US export rules, since the US companies making such high-tech wonders as the Z80 tied up their retailers in contracts which were enforced down the chain.
We gladly shipped a total of 10 Z80 CPUs, along with a bunch of other high-tech wonders such as 74LS244 and the like... And wondered at what the USA expected would come from stopping a small company exporting technology to the USSR. Technology the same country could buy, anonymously, over the counter in any reasonably well-supplied electronics store.
Unfortunately I don't think it the geeks thinking like you do who are the problem. I think the problem is the managers who make decisions based on what can be sold to the public, as long as the public doesn't find out some small dark secret...
As for me, I consider wireless communication insecure, but I don't always bother about it. It boils down to a balance of potential damage and cost (not only money but also time/impracticality...) of securing the communication.
Just a small point that has little to do with the issue at hand:
paedophilia is a sexual orientation, and as such I think it cannot be neither legal nor illegal. Engaging in paedophile activities, on the other hand, can be made illegal if a society should choose to have it that way.
It's quite possible riding bicycles in the USA is close to suicidal. However, I don't live in the USA. I live in a country (Sweden) where commuting by bicycle is quite normal. Most cities even provide a (partially) separate network of paths for cyclists and pedestrians to move about with little or no contact to motor vehicles.
I don't think I am being unrealistic. Recumbents ought to be more efficient than conventional bikes since you get a smaller front view area (which reduces the air resistance). Also, on my way to work I can expect to encounter a total of two traffic lights, or none if I take the marginally longer route. And considering the short distance (about 20 km) I should be able to keep a good pace. Had the distance been longer I realise I would have to lower the pace.
I have already cycled to work several times. At best it took me 50 minutes, with a three gear conventional bike, and most of the distance is roads where I can do whatever speed I can manage: traffic is light and the speed limit is 70...
I live in Sweden, where cycling is quite common (more precisely a university town, where cycling is very common). I would therefore leave my bicycle parked among all the others. If you live in a different country (quite likely) parking bicycles may be a bit more difficult...
I agree with you, and I am looking into getting myself a recumbent with which to commute to work. According to what I hear, an average speed of 40 km/h (25mph) would be 'normal', meaning it would take me half an hour to work. That's only ten minutes more than by car, and by far cheaper... And no parking problems either!
I think Nabeel_co raises an interesting issue, that I feel is far from simple.
Suppose you buy a CD, and get a receipt for it (so you can prove you have bought it). On the way home you get the CD stolen (or lose it), but you still have the receipt. Would it then be legal for you to download the album? You do after all have 'a licence' to listen to the music.
What if the RIAA drags you to court for copyright infringement, and you produce the receipt stating you have bought a CD with the music they accuse you of illegally downloading?
Or suppose you buy a CD, and don't have it stolen or lost. But you want to play the music in your MP3-player. Since you are computer illiterate you download the MP3-files, instead of ripping & converting yourself. Should that be illegal?
As far as keeping the black-list secret, I think the authorities have a problem.
At least here in Sweden, when you try accessing a 'forbidden' page, you get directed (via forged DNS answers) to a page on a (police ?) server, telling you what you are trying to access and that this is forbidden.
This makes finding out what sites are banned easy: a simple script that does a DNS query for every possible domain will turn up the entire list used by the ISPs.
To make things easy on the ISP the DNS-bombardment could be distributed among a few hundred volunteers with fast connections. The only results that would have to be stored are those that generate the IP-address to the server showing the you-have-tried-accessing-child-porn-warning. These results would then be merged to a single list.
And, in my mind, this list, since it has not been leaked by the police but created independently of the authorities, cannot be considered secret. Thus, the list of banned sites would be out in the open.
If I remember correctly, the very same filter was used to deny access to www.lapsiporno.info/ (childporn.info). The only problem was the the blocked site was not about child porn per se, but about the child porn filter. Thus the filter was used by the Finnish police to silence their critics! "Very handy" if you happen to be the authorities and don't care about such things as freedom of speech.
That way the censored sites could find out why they get censored, and could do something about it should they want to.
Further, each and every site on the list, irrespective of where it is located, has to be able to appeal being on the list. And appeal not only in connection with being placed on it, but at any time afterwards. This is to handle sites who's content varies over time.
As an example of internet censorship gone wrong, the Finnish site www.lapsiporno.info is censored in Finland by the ISPs. The "lapsiporno" translates into "child porn" in English. Yet the site has nothing to do about child pornography per se, it is about the child porn filter the Finnish ISPs have been force to implement. The result is that the filter is being used to silence one of the filters critics! And the owner of the site has no way to get off the list....
Please pardon me if you find me rude or obnoxious, but since when does the USA care about the WTO? Since when does the USA care about anything other than itself?
The _people_ of the USA might very well care for more than their own country, but the impression I get is that the federal governments do essentially what they want to with respect to agreements with other nations or international bodies.