kapow - 11:56 am on Mar 10, 2009 (gmt 0)

- Who can publish what?
- Who can profit from published material? - and it what way.
- Who can access what? (who can see your emails? who can access pirate software sites?... etc)
- Standards for service providers (speed, billing, descriptions...)
- Who is responsible for illegal things (offence, plagiarism...) on a website (the host, site owner, poster...?)
- Under what circumstances can your: emails, web viewing history, posts on social networking sites... be accessed/used by: Police, Insurance, Employers... etc

The fledgling legislation for this stuff is vague and incomplete. The web moves fast and law develops slowly. Its big news when a judge rules about a major web issue. There must be laws for the web, the problem (debate) is the difference of conflicting powers desperate to influence new legislation: governments, military, marketing, public, commerce, service providers...

In the uk lately parliament seems to get any freedom-restricting law through on the basis that it will protect us all from terrorism. Then they use such laws to spy on say mothers driving their kids to a school that is further away than the council recommended school.

I used to think governments should be free to legislate because they know best, i.e. "if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to fear". Now I reolise governments and authority must itself be regulated because they are not as neutral (or as competant) as their rhetoric. Now I think "if authority did nothing wrong, we'd have nothing to fear". I'm all for governments and legislation, but these guys are just people too - and have weaknesses and biases.

Does anyone know who is overseeing this lawmaking debate in the EU?