ISPs Refuse Monitoring Role
February 18, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
British ISPs have rejected a move by the government that they should monitor what they customers download, citing the law in their defence.
Last week the British government suggested that it might deny Net access to those who persistently and illegally download material. Now the industry has issued its response. Speaking through its body, the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA), it’s claimed that it’s a “mere conduit” and that both legal and technical factors make monitoring an impossibility, the BBC reports.
The ISPA has cited e-commerce rules passed in 2002 that defined ISPs as conduits and not responsible for the traffic that flows through them, as well as privacy laws that prevent an ISP investigating data on its network without a warrant.
However, the ISPA spokesman did admit that ISPs conducted traffic management, meaning that at certain times some customers did experience slow or difficult downloads, the issue that has landed Comcast in hot water in the US.
"We know that all ISPs are involved in traffic management but that is to optimise the service for all their customers."
Although ISPs in Britain haven’t hidden the fact that they use traffic management, bringing it out into the open could bring a lot of criticism from users.
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