The European Union’s Council Of Ministers will convene today to discuss issues such as spam and internet service provider liability, in the latest stage of the controversial e-commerce draft directive’s path through the EU legislature. The issue of ISP liability is likely to be the most hotly debated, as current legal wrangling in the UK suggests ISPs could be liable for content hosted on their servers, if they are notified of the illegal nature of the material. Articles 12 and 14 of the EU directive are less vague, saying ISPs should be liable if they know the content to be illegal, rather than merely being notified of the possibility, which will be little comfort to ISPs. They argue that they could find themselves caught between the rock of possible legal action and the hard place of being sued for removing a legitimate (and possibly commercial) web site.
The issue of spam is also bound to come up. When the EU Parliament passed its first reading of the directive last month, it rejected requests from ISP associations and consumer groups to have spam outlawed. The architect of the draft directive and leader of the committee which drafted the proposal, a then UK Labour Member of the European Parliament, Christine Oddy, didn’t seem to properly understand what spam is. She once told the Parliament she liked having commercial email sent to her, as it could keep her in touch with current events in the theater.
Claims from trade associations such as EuroISPA that the Parliament is out of touch were echoed when Oddy and fellow Labour MEP Ian White lost their Parliament seats in elections held 10 days ago. Now, claims Oddy, there are no MEPs with any real or informed interest in internet matters.
Oddy’s exit will likely cause few tears, however. Indeed, some observers are happy to see the departure of the MEP who supported Article 7 of the directive – which essentially endorses the practice of spamming – and who recommended dropping a clause which would have outlawed email address harvesting.
