Internet Censorship Bill
Submitted by fyl on Wed, 2011/11/16 - 05:39.
The US Congress is currently debating a new Internet censorship bill.This bill would effectively move copyright enforcement from the courts to the Congress. Some of you may remember that NicaLiving was a victim of an over-zealous enforcement of the DMCA a few years ago. We have since moved to a hosting company who doesn't treat its customers as criminals who only have 24 hours to prove they are innocent but this bill would move that decision from the company to the government.
This matters because so many Internet sites (including NicaLiving) are hosted in the US. The result of this regulation would likely cause companies to move their hosting outside the US which would both decrease business investment and employment. In addition, it would create web sites that could not be viewed in the US. In other words, creating a new China in Internet control.
You can read about this and voice your concern through Avaaz.
Actually...
I am pretty conversant on the multiple bills that the various recording industries are trying to slip through. Thankfully all but one have been shoved to the back burner (at the least) and the unwashed masses (the public) are waking up to how paid, special interests are trying to shape and control pretty much every aspect of their lives. And they are pissed.
What these bills do is completely remove the courts from the equation. One complaint from... well, anyone, and the site will have to be taken down or else the ISP will be subject to the same penalties as the offender. Since no business in their right mind would be willing to risk this the entire site will instantly vanish, with no judicial oversite. In addition, all banking services to that site will also be blocked and, even if later proven innocent, the bank(s) don't have to reinstate service if they don't happen to want to.
Frankly, this kind of BS is one of the main reasons I am looking to move outside of the US. Over 40,000 new laws were passed last year. The US is becoming a police state and they are doing absolutely everything they can get away with to extend their control to every other country in the world.
http://www.techdirt.com/ is a blog that keeps you up to date on a lot of the tricks and mis-information that is going on by the various industries. Lol, it keeps me pretty steamed.
the "cloud"
I was recently talking to someone who does consulting for companies that want to move their internal systems to the cloud, essentially outsourcing everything to an external server farm. He said that some European hosting companies are refusing to take American clients because of existing US regulations.