Friday, September 05, 2008

Tiscali brands innocent customer criminal

Two articles caught my eye this week on the proposed EU Telecoms's package, a law that if passed, will effectively mean that ISPs will become unwilling Enforcers for the Digital Rights lobby.

The first is the surprise involvement of the European Data Protection Agency, whose Supervisor has come out against the act, stating that parts of it relating to the tracing of IP addresses, breaks existing EU data protection legislation, enabling the mass surveillance of Internet users. If true the ISPs will be spending a lot of money on legal fees.

The second proves that there will be trouble ahead for ISPs. It appear that Tiscali wrote to a chap accusing him of illegally downloading a TV show. OK, but this chap isn't a customer of theirs; he had left them a year before and his old IP address had been dropped back into the pool. The cause "Computer error" Nothing to worry about then, that hardly ever happens.

Imagine the damage to Tiscali's Brand, had it gone all the way to the guy being permanently expelled from the Internetit would have made national/international news; it's the modern equivalent of having your eyes put out...

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