January 19, 2004
Development of the Internet in France will be endangered if a piece of legislation entitled a Bill to Promote Confidence in the Digital Economy becomes law, the Association of French Internet Access and Service Providers (AFA) said Tuesday.
The association called on French Internet users to sign an online petition to show their opposition to the bill, which was approved by the French national assembly last Thursday.
If the bill becomes law, it will force Internet service providers to filter Internet traffic and take responsibility for the content of Web pages they host, and will abolish e-mail's protected status as "private communication."
This constitutes a menace to freedom of expression on the Internet, and endangers the 10,000 jobs and €2 billion (US$2.5 billion) annual revenue of the French Internet industry, AFA said in a statement.
French legislators have been influenced by the music industry into mandating ineffective filtering measures, which until now have only been imposed by states with little democratic freedom, such as Burma, China or Iran, AFA said.
Source: IT World Canada
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