FC: Spain plans to require all web sites to register, pay fees

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Mon May 14 2001 - 06:59:08 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Scientology critic Henson will be sentenced on Wednesday"

    [These complaints by the Kriptopolis folks against Spain's proposal, as 
    described, seem justified. Yet Kriptopolis appears to explicitly argue that 
    "free distribution of information" online should not be regulated, while 
    tacitly conceding that commercial distribution of information should be. 
    That's short-sighted. Just as the Net makes anyone a potential journalist, 
    it makes thousands of hobbyist sites (who put up banner ads to help pay the 
    bills) commercial publishers. Better to limit regulation as applied to all 
    sites, rather than make arbitrary distinctions. In fact, one could even 
    argue that relatively-wealthy universities and NGOs can afford registration 
    fees far more easily than the 14-year olds running Britney Spears and Star 
    Trek fan sites, or their Spanish equivalents. --Declan]
    
    ***********
    
    Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 08:29:56 -0400
    From: Robert Guerra <rguerraat_private>
    Subject: Say NO to LSSI. Freedom of Speech in Danger in Spain.
    Cc: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
    
    I thought this might be of interest to the folks on here.
    
    Let's support David Casacuerta and Kriptopolis <www.kriptopolis.com> on 
    this one.
    
    
    regards
    
    Robert
    
    
    
    --- begin forwarded text
    
    
    User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2106
    Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 12:38:09 +0100
    Subject: LSSi
    From: David Casacuberta <davidcat_private>
    To: Robert Guerra <robertat_private>
    Status: R
    
    Hola Robert!
    
    No sé si has leído la situación actual en España vía Kriptopolis, y la
    aprobación de la maldita ley esa, la LSSI, pero la situación es realmente
    muy grave.
    
    <I'm not sure if you've read the terrible LSSI new law that has been 
    proposed in Spain. It's really quite serious>
    
    Aquí te paso un texto en inglés por si lo puedes distribuir. Nos
    gustaría obtener también apoyo internacional. Internet es una cosa de todos,
    y es importante que se conozca en todo el mundo estos intentos censores en
    nuestro país.
    
    <I'm sending you along a copy of the text in Spain so you can distribute it 
    for us. We'd like to obtain as much international support as possible. The 
    Internet belongs to everyone, and it's important that the world know the 
    possible censorship which might be legislated in Spain>
    
    
    david
    ================
    
    Say NO to LSSI. Freedom of Speech in Danger in Spain.
    
    By:  David Casacuberta <davidcat_private>
    
    Freedom of expression is in real danger now in Spain, if the Electronic
    Commerce (Society of Information Services) Directive is approved, most
    websites that are not "properly" registered would be considered illegal and
    have to face enormous fees which will in fact paralyse their activity
    forever.
    
    This directive -ready to be approved in the Spanish Parliament any time- has
    invented the concept of "society of information services" and wants to
    legislate plain exchange of information as an economic activity, ruling out
    therefore, any publisher -like NGOs- which do not really perform any
    commercial activities and can not face all the legal and bureucratic
    activities that the Electronic Commerce (Society of Information Services)
    Directive wants.
    
    According to article 2, free distribution of information, even if it implies
    no direct payments from customers is an "society of information services"
    and, therefore, subjcet to this electronic commerc directive.
    You don't have to be paid to be considered an actor in the  "society of
    information services": as it is stated later in the article 2,  search
    engines or on-line compilation of information are also  "society of
    information services", which means that news digests, electronic libraries,
    a repository of academic papers,NGOs that publish regular news about
    violations of human rights... have to conduct their actions in cyberspace
    according to an electronic commerce directive, which is absolutely
    preposterous.
    
    
    Strangely enough, the only exceptions considered under this article are:
    Public Broadcasting -TV and Radio, TV Teletext" but no reference to NGOs,
    universities...
    e-mail is also excluded, as long as you don't use it for  "society of
    information services", but then, if you are an NGO and keep a newsletter
    about human rights violations you are again liable under this directive.
    
    As you can see, the scope of this directive is not at all electronic
    commerce, but the whole Internet
    
    Article 50 makes it mandatory to register any webs related to these
    "Services". Therefore this directive may turn ilegal any website that has
    not been publicly registered and has its own domain name, most websites in
    Spain, as you may suspect. Article 50 stablish a fee of 90.000 euros! if
    there is a "lack of communication to the public register in which they are
    registered, of the domain name or names which they use to offer society of
    information services".
    
    Article 11 makes impossible anonymous websites. According to this article,
    it is mandatory to give your
    
    a) Name, social/commercial address.
    b) All the data submited to a commercial/public register
    
    Plus several extra data if you are really developing electronic commerce
    activities.
    
    Also see that, as long as you are a "society of information services"
    provider it is mandatory to present data under b), the data submitted to a
    register, this clearly imply that you *must* register before opening a
    website. So, even if you don't mind to put your own name, but you are not
    registered anywhere, it means you are violating article 11 as well.
    
    Also article 30 makes it mandatory to conduct all the operations with the
    user as if it was a commercial transaction: that is, you have to provide a
    proper contract, language of choice and several other measures that make
    sense if we are considering a prper commercial transaction, but which are
    nonsensical if we are talking about just people exchanging information in
    the web.
    
    
    Let's consider this hypothetic case: a registered NGO in Spain with no funds
    to get a proper domain name or webspace has decided to put a website where
    they inform about human rights in Spain. They offer webpages with general
    information plus a mailing list devoted to these issues. According to the
    law, they should have registered a domain name, but they haven't, plus they
    are "publicizing some activities" and they didn't register themselves
    anywhere, so that's another illicit act, both violates article 50.4. Plus,
    they are not conducting this exchanging of information with a proper
    commercial model, so they are also violating article 30.
    Even worse, if they want to be anonymous, which is understandable if they
    are dennouncing human rights violations in Spain, they are also breaking
    article 11.
    All together, this poor NGO  could be faced with a fee of 29.000.000 pesetas
    (aprox 175.000 euros) just for publishing a website. The message for corrupt
    politicians/judges is clear. If there is some annoying group which keeps an
    annoying website, just use the directive and fry them with enormous fees.
    
    
    
    --- end forwarded text
    
    
    -- 
    
    --
    Robert Guerra <rguerraat_private>, Fax: +1(303) 484-0302
    WWW Page <http://pgp.greatvideo.com>, ICQ # 10266626
    PGPKeys  <http://pgp.greatvideo.com/keys/rguerra/>
    
    
    
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
    You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact.
    To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
    This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 14 2001 - 07:54:17 PDT