Blog
Digital Privacy
31 Jan 2012 By Jim Killock
Protecting Internet users from tracking and profiling
For three days last week, a group of technicians and lawyers at W3C – the World Wide Web Consortium, headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee – has debated how to protect user privacy from ‘third party’ tracking websites.
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27 Jan 2012 By Peter Bradwell
ACTA rapporteur resigns over ‘masquerade’
Kader Arif, rapporteur for ACTA in the European Parliament, has quit his role as rapporteur.
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26 Jan 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Revealed: Proposed new powers over search results
We wrote last year, many times, about the discussions being hosted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport between rights holders and various ‘intermediaries’ – which to normal people means companies like Internet Service Providers and search engines.
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26 Jan 2012 By Peter Bradwell
ACTA: signed, not yet sealed – now it’s up to us
Today the EU and member states including the UK signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in Japan.
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Digital Privacy
23 Jan 2012 By Peter Bradwell
UK Mobile operators censor privacy tool ‘Tor’
Open Rights Group and Tor have established that UK mobile networks such as Vodafone, O2 and 3 are filtering UK users’ access to Tor’s primary website (meaning the HTTP version of the Tor Project website, rather than connections to the Tor network) on pre-paid contractless accounts.
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18 Jan 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Why we’re joining the black-out protest
Open Rights Group today blanked out its landing page in support of protests against two IP-related laws currently being discussed in the USA.
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09 Jan 2012 By Peter Bradwell
Giving copyright a sense of humour
Today, we’re launching a website and campaign calling for a new exception to copyright law for parodies and pastiche.
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05 Jan 2012 By Peter Bradwell
The Foreign Secretary’s reply on UK Internet freedom
To coincide with the London Conference on Cyberspace last November, Open Rights Group and nine other Internet freedom advocates, including Cory Doctorow and Index on Censorship, wrote to the Foreign Secretary about censorship and privacy in the UK.
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21 Dec 2011 By Jim Killock
O2 bans church this Christmas
For the last four months, and despite repeated complaints, O2 has blocked the website of a Sheffield church, claiming it features adult content.
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19 Dec 2011 By Kayahan Cantekin
How does mobile Internet filtering work?
All the major UK mobile operators have Internet filtering schemes that block certain content from users.
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14 Dec 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Government and private policing
As we posted about previously, ORG was present at the most recent DCMS roundtable to discuss ‘self-regulation’ and copyright enforcement.
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08 Dec 2011 By Jim Killock
Pressure for private Internet policing
Yesterday’s DCMS round table with rights holders and Internet companies to discuss online copyright infringement was attended for the first time by the Open Rights group and Open Digital yesterday.
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02 Dec 2011 By Peter Bradwell
ORG to attend DCMS © roundtable
We have been invited to the next roundtable focused on ‘self-regulatory’ measures to tackle copyright infringement, hosted by the Minister Ed Vaizey on Wednesday 7th December.
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29 Nov 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Self-regulation / private policing: not just a UK problem
I posted a week or so ago about the latest round of discussions hosted by DCMS regarding ‘self-regulation’ and Internet policy.
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25 Nov 2011 By Peter Bradwell
ACTA: time for a democracy catch up?
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is an international trade treaty, drawn up over the past five years, that aims to improve ‘global standards for the enforcement of IPR, to more effectively combat trade in counterfeit and pirated goods.
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23 Nov 2011 By Jim Killock
ISPA, LINX and ORG insist on Court Orders for domain suspensions
Today, ISPA, ORG and LINX have informed Nominet that we are unable to agree with the draft Issue Group statement on domain name suspensions.
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15 Nov 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Evidence, copyright enforcement and self-regulation
Mandarin admits ORG got it right about opaque evidence
This morning the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee began another evidence session looking at the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property and Growth.
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09 Nov 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Website blocking part 2: Newzbin2 and the costs of due process
Last week the BPI, apparently with a coalition (or gang, or cabal, or flock – perhaps even a ‘disaster’ – pick your preferred collective noun) of other rights holders, asked BT to block access to the Pirate Bay.
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09 Nov 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Website blocking part 1: two-tier policy making
In September ORG and a number of other groups met with the Minister Ed Vaizey (a meeting that we wrote up here).
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07 Nov 2011 By Nishma Doshi
Supporter Meet-Up: Censorship
This event is part of our new London supporter meetings, held every 3rd Monday of the Month.
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Digital Privacy
01 Nov 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Joint letter to the Foreign Secretary
To coincide with the start of the London Conference on Cyberspace, eleven organisations and experts on freedom of expression and privacy online have today written to the Foreign Secretary stating that Britain’s desire to promote these ideals internationally is being hampered by domestic policy.
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28 Oct 2011 By Jim Killock
Thank you Bytemark for our new server space
Open Rights Group is moving our web hosting to Bytemark, who are donating virtual server space to us free of charge.
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27 Oct 2011 By Nishma Doshi
EVENT: A Free Digital Society, with Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement and initial developer of the GNU operating system, explores our digital soceity, looking into how “inclusivity” online is shaped and why without a free, fair and just digital world, this process is not necessarily a good thing.
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19 Oct 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Can’t look now: finding film online
(Written with Jag Bahra)
Last week YouTube announced the opening of its movie rental service.
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13 Oct 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Evidence please
We have had a response to a Freedom of Information Act request that we made to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
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12 Oct 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Update: Julian Huppert’s Freedoms Bill amendment and DEAct Judicial Review
(Thursday October 13th update: Julian Huppert MP has been in touch to thank supporters for their efforts and update us on the situation after he tabled his amendment.
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Digital Privacy
11 Oct 2011 By Jim Killock
ACTION: Repeal Web Censorship!
Fantastic news: Julian Huppert MP has tabled amendments to the Freedom Bill to repeal the website blocking clauses of the Digital Economy Act.
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11 Oct 2011 By Jim Killock
Censorware or child protection?
Today’s news that Internet Service Providers are going to offer to “block” pornography may be an extreme example of “spin”, designed to satisfy morally outraged MPs: but it could still pose significant dangers.
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04 Oct 2011 By Javier Ruiz
Open Data Community Demands a Real Debate on Public Data Corporation
You can find the documents for the consultations we covered in the links below:
Making Open Data Real, which looks at the overall policy framework for open government data, but with a focus on opening frontline public services such as health and education.
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26 Sep 2011 By Jim Killock
Is Open Data ‘what the doctor ordered’?
Demos’ panel at Labour’s conference today, with the medical information company Dr Foster, the Royal College of Nursing and Andy Slaughter MP, understandably focused on the role of information in the NHS.
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20 Sep 2011 By Jim Killock
Ed Vaizey talks about website blocking
Today ORG and a number of other groups had a constructive meeting with Ed Vaizey to discuss approaches to copyright and enforcement.
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20 Sep 2011 By Jim Killock
Lib Dems say they want to scrap the Digital Economy Act
It was very heartening to see the Lib Dems reject the Digital Economy Act as a broken and anti-liberal measure at their Conference yesterday.
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17 Sep 2011 By Jim Killock
Nominet and domain suspensions
Last year, Nominet wisely started a process involving a range of organizations including ORG to consider how to handle requests from law enforcement agencies for suspension of domain suspected of involvement in criminal activity.
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12 Sep 2011 By Jim Killock
Term extension is a cultural disaster
This morning we heard that term extension in sound recordings has gone through the EU Council.
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07 Sep 2011 By Javier Ruiz
Public debate on the Public Data Corporation and Open Data consultations
Last night there was a debate on the Public Data Corporation and the Making Open Data Real consultations at BCS, without agreement on how good or bad the PDC really is.
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31 Aug 2011 By Jim Killock
Daily Mail donation and a thank you to Alice Taylor
We’ve just received a cheque for £1,000 from the Daily Mail’s publishers, after they admitted publishing photos from Alice in Wonderland blog without permission.
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30 Aug 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Copyright term extension returns. Again.
Back in April we asked ORG supporters to write to their MEPs to help campaign against a Directive that would extend the term of copyright protection in sound recordings (for the reasons why, see our previous posts and the campaign site ‘Sound Copyright‘).
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26 Aug 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Update on the Home Secretary’s social media ‘riot summit’
Yesterday Open Rights Group and 9 other human rights groups wrote to the Home Secretary.
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25 Aug 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Joint letter to the Home Secretary
Today a group of leading human rights and civil liberties groups, including Open Rights Group, have written to the Home Secretary, Rt Hon Theresa May MP.
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24 Aug 2011 By Javier Ruiz
Access to the Agreement between Google Books and the British Library
Access to the Agreement between Google Books and the British Library
The Google Books project has been the subject of protracted legal battles, generating a huge debate as to whether it will help authors distribute their work or turn them into low paid employees of the corporation.
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11 Aug 2011 By Jim Killock
Prime Minister’s attack on social media unwarranted
Prime Minister David Cameron stated today that:
Mr Speaker, everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media.
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03 Aug 2011 By Peter Bradwell
A welcome response to the Hargreaves Review
This morning brought a wave of very welcome good news.
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02 Aug 2011 By Peter Bradwell
A big week for copyright in the courts
Last week copyright court rulings were like London buses.
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21 Jul 2011 By Jim Killock
Website blocking minutes released
DCMS have responded a Freedom of Information request from ORG, releasing the proposal from the “rights holders group”.
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14 Jul 2011 By Jim Killock
The Government still wants to hack your phone
While politicians are convinced that Murdoch’s press has over-stepped the mark by routine hacking of citizen’s phones, let’s remember that plans for mass, pervasive hacking of our phones and emails is still sat waiting for revival by the Home Office.
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12 Jul 2011 By Jim Killock
Open Internet: how to be open about how closed you are
Today, the Broadband Stakeholder Group had the second meeting discussing what to do to protect the Open Internet: a process started after Ed vaizey’s meeting including Sir Tim Berners-Leee.
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07 Jul 2011 By Jim Killock
Meeting with Ed Vaizey
Following the many letters sent to MPs, and criticism concerning the broad and unbalanced proposals presented by rights holders, Ed Vaizey asked to meet ORG to discuss website blocking.
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27 Jun 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Replies from Ed Vaizey MP
We have received two replies from Ed Vaizey MP following letters we sent to him regarding the UN Special Rapporteur’s report on freedom of expression online and the lack of representation from rights groups such as ORG in the ongoing website blocking roundtables.
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22 Jun 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Rights holders’ proposed voluntary website blocking scheme
From these links you can access what looks like the proposals for a voluntary website blocking scheme, apparently put forward by the Rightsholder Group engaged in Minister Ed Vaizey’s roundtable discussions with ISPs and others.
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21 Jun 2011 By Jim Killock
Secret website blocking proposals
The Open Rights Group has learnt that detailed website blocking proposals have been presented by rights holder groups to Ed Vaizey.
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10 Jun 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Prevent strategy: ‘Internet filtering is essential’
The Home Office’s new Prevent strategy, aimed at countering terrorism and a refresh of the previous government’s strategy of the same name, was published this week.
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09 Jun 2011 By Jim Killock
Board and Advisory recruitment
ORG is looking for new Advisory members, and two Board appointees.
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06 Jun 2011 By Jagdeep Bahra
BT and Talk Talk appeal of judicial review decision
BT and Talk Talk have announced that they will be seeking leave to appeal the result of their judicial review of the Digital Economy Act.
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02 Jun 2011 By Jim Killock
UN Rapporteur says DEAct is ‘alarming’ violation of Human Rights
Tomorrow, the UN’s Human Rights Council will adopt a report which names the UK as violating Article 19 by allowing disconnection of Internet users in the Digital Economy Act.
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02 Jun 2011 By Jim Killock
UN Rapporteur says DEAct is ‘alarming’ violation of Human Rights
Tomorrow, the UN’s Human Rights Council will adopt a report which names the UK as violating Article 19 by allowing disconnection of Internet users in the Digital Economy Act.
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02 Jun 2011 By Jim Killock
UN Rapporteur says DEAct is ‘alarming’ violation of Human Rights
Tomorrow, the UN’s Human Rights Council will adopt a report which names the UK as violating Article 19 by allowing disconnection of Internet users in the Digital Economy Act.
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02 Jun 2011 By Jim Killock
UN Rapporteur says DEAct is ‘alarming’ violation of Human Rights
Tomorrow, the UN’s Human Rights Council will adopt a report which names the UK as violating Article 19 by allowing disconnection of Internet users in the Digital Economy Act.
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26 May 2011 By Nishma Doshi
EVENT: Catch up, Drink Up, Volunteer Up
Want to know what Open Rights Group is all about?
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25 May 2011 By Jim Killock
Ed Vaizey says Cookie Directive is meaningless
Today’s advice from DCMS shows that the UK has no intention of implementing any form of meaningful consent for tracking from advertising companies.
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20 May 2011 By Jim Killock
Domain seizures
I’m just back from the latest Nominet meeting about domain seizures.
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18 May 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Taking on Hargreaves’ ‘Digital Opportunity’
If you are interested in copyright or IP then today’s publication of Professor Ian Hargreaves’ Independent Review of Intellectual Property, ‘Digital Opportunity’ is something of an event.
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16 May 2011 By Jim Killock
Eco-labs.org raises money to fight
ORG supporters and BoingBoing readers have raised the £800 needed in legal fees for eco-labs.
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12 May 2011 By Jim Killock
‘We own Ecolabs’
A small UK based NGO, EcoLabs, using the domain eco-labs.
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09 May 2011 By Jim Killock
TalkTalk or StalkStalk plans should be opt-in
TalkTalk today announced their plans for their website malware software, which has been criticised for opening up potential interception issues under RIPA.
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01 May 2011 By Jim Killock
Corporations may not protect your free speech and privacy
Exactly how and why fifty Facebook radical groups’ user profiles were taken down is still being debated, although, perhaps surprisingly, it seems to be that more or less anyone can cause such profiles to be blocked.
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29 Apr 2011 By Jim Killock
Facebook takedowns: Burying bad news?
News has broken today that a number of activist groups pages and user accounts on Facebook have been deleted, mostly from the anti-cuts movement.
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27 Apr 2011 By Jim Killock
Ed Vaizey and lobby groups
News today from Who’s Lobbying demonstrates the benefits of a welcome commitment to transparency from the new administration.
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21 Apr 2011 By Peter Bradwell
The Digital Economy Act: where we go now
Yesterday morning Justice Kenneth Parker handed down his ruling on the Judicial Review of the Digital Economy Act.
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19 Apr 2011 By Jim Killock
Judicial Review: Judgement expected tomorrow
The Judicial Review judgement on the Digital Economy Act is expected tomorrow in the High Court, Court 28 at 10am.
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18 Apr 2011 By Jim Killock
Data retention: whitewash by EU Commission
In 2006, the EU passed a Directive requiring traffic details* of our phone calls, text messages, internet (IP) addresses and emails to be recorded and stored across Europe.
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15 Apr 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Joint letter to rights holders
Minister Ed Vaizey held another meeting about website blocking on Monday 4th April, again involving ISPs and rights holders.
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13 Apr 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Copyright term extension – you can help stop it
In 2009 Open Rights Group campaigned heavily against a proposed Directive aimed at extending the term of copyright protection for sound recordings from 50 to 70 years.
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05 Apr 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Silence from the website blocking Working Group
Yesterday Ed Vaizey’s website blocking ‘Working Group’ met to discuss a plans for a voluntary scheme to block access to websites accused of infringing copyright.
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05 Apr 2011 By Jim Killock
Nominet talks about domain suspensions
Nominet’s discussions about domain suspensions started yesterday.
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31 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Data retention rejected by Czechs
Data retention has been rejected as unconstitutional in the Czech republic.
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30 Mar 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Minister confirms site blocking discussions
We have received a reply from Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, about new website blocking discussions.
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30 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Freedom Bill: Protecting our privacy?
The Protection of Freedom Bill introduces a number of measures to help protect our fundamental right to privacy, particularly creating new Commissioners to deal with biometrics and CCTV, but did not seek to address many of the long-standing complaints about current protections.
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28 Mar 2011 By Jagdeep Bahra
DEA Judicial Review – Day 4
The final day of the DEA judicial review was split between the Defendants concluding their submissions and the Claimants’ reply.
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25 Mar 2011 By Jagdeep Bahra
DEA Judicial Review – Day 3
Day three of the Judicial Review of the Digital Economy Act – Counsel for the Defendants continued with their submissions.
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24 Mar 2011 By Jagdeep Bahra
DEA Judicial Review – Day 2
Day two of the Judicial Review consisted mostly of Mr White QC presenting submissions for the Claimants on the ground of proportionality.
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22 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Web blocking is not the answer
ORG today presented its views on web blocking to Ofcom, again outlining that it is blunt, easily avoided and likely to lead to breaches of civil liberties.
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17 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Nominet domain seizures talks
The Open Rights Group is one of twenty organizations picked by Nominet to discuss their proposed rules for domain seizures.
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16 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Ed Vaizey’s Net neutrality roundtable
Two hours of discussion this morning drew out the main challenges that the net neutrality debate brings: ISPs wish to be able to manage and restrict Internet traffic for their own business reasons, raising the spectre of a ‘two tier Internet’.
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16 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Ed Vaizey’s Net neutrality roundtable
Two hours of discussion this morning drew out the main challenges that the net neutrality debate brings: ISPs wish to be able to manage and restrict Internet traffic for their own business reasons, raising the spectre of a ‘two tier Internet’.
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16 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Ed Vaizey’s Net neutrality roundtable
Two hours of discussion this morning drew out the main challenges that the net neutrality debate brings: ISPs wish to be able to manage and restrict Internet traffic for their own business reasons, raising the spectre of a ‘two tier Internet’.
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16 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Ed Vaizey’s Net neutrality roundtable
Two hours of discussion this morning drew out the main challenges that the net neutrality debate brings: ISPs wish to be able to manage and restrict Internet traffic for their own business reasons, raising the spectre of a ‘two tier Internet’.
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16 Mar 2011 By Javier Ruiz
Public Data Corporation still a mystery
The initial engagement on the PDC – not consultation!
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14 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Transparency is not enough
Internet Service Providers will be given sweeping powers to discriminate against traffic as the result of new telecoms regulations this year.
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14 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Lib Dem fringe podcast
ORG participated in Mark Pack and Lib Dem Voice’s “Who controls the Internet” fringe at Lib Dem Conference, which is now available as a podcast, here and direct download here.
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11 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Supporter Update: March 2011
We’ve lots of exciting news, too much to mention, so here are the highlights:
New ORGZine
We have launched our new ORG supporters magazine, run and edited by ORG volunteers and publishing daily.
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09 Mar 2011 By Peter Bradwell
ORG writes to Ministers about web blocking
Only a couple of weeks ago Jeremy Hunt and Nick Clegg asked Ofcom to review the practicalities of the web blocking aspects of the Digital Economy Act.
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07 Mar 2011 By Peter Bradwell
ORG’s Hargreaves Review submission
On Friday the Call for Evidence for the ‘Hargreaves’ Review of Intellectual Property closed.
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04 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Copyright reform is needed in UK
We co-signed this letter, published today in the Telegraph, calling for copyright reform in the interests of economic growth.
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02 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
Is Bing doing a better job than Google on torrents?
Late last year, Google announced it would be blocking autocomplete on searches for “torrents” They did this in a rather blunt way, blocking any attempt to use the word in an autocomplete, regardless of the likely copyright status of the content searched for.
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01 Mar 2011 By Jim Killock
ORG invited to IT Inquiry
ORG’s submission to the Public Administration Select Committee review of government IT won us an invitation to present evidence on 15 March.
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01 Mar 2011 By Peter Bradwell
ORG files Judicial Review intervention
Early last week Open Rights Group filed and served its intervention into the Judicial Review of the Digital Economy Act.
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22 Feb 2011 By Javier Ruiz
Come to our Public Data Corporation workshop
Although we welcome this consultation on the Public Data Corporation, we have to raise a couple of issues that in our view may limit the opportunity for the public and interested parties to contribute to the fullest extent.
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10 Feb 2011 By Peter Bradwell
Concerns over the DEA Costs Sharing Order
If the Digital Economy Act were a celebrity, it would probably be phoning for Max Clifford.
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