Italian Decree Highlights Creeping Internet Censorship

While the vocal war over China’s Internet approach and Google’s “partnership” with NSA continues, Internet censorship and controls are quietly being implemented in other countries around the world.

In Europe, a recent EU decree known as the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) directive, designed to “respond to technological developments and create a level playing field in Europe for emerging audiovisual media,” has given some member states the excuse to try pushing through legislation that will effectively censor online content and, in some cases, directly benefit interested parties linked to high-ranking government officials. This is far removed from the directive’s stated intention to “preserve cultural diversity, protect children and consumers, safeguard media pluralism and combat racial and religious hatred.”

In Italy, for example, undersecretary for telecommunications Paolo Romani has interpreted the EU directive in a bill called the “Romani decree” that will require anybody uploading videos to the Web to obtain a license, bringing “direct streaming” and video channels into line with live TV broadcasting and, thereby, under the same provisions for blackout and copyright violation.

Opponents to the legislation suggest that the directive will open the backdoor for Mediaset, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s media company founded in 1970, to gain further control of broadcasting media, including online content of YouTube and Google, of which Mediaset and Berlusconi have been openly critical.

Also proposed is the formation of a new Italian police-led agency to censor Websites considered “harmful to minors,” although protesters claim that Italian law already covers Internet infringements.

This sounds surprisingly similar to the current situation in Australia, where last week’s ruling that Internet service providers could not be held responsible for the downloading habits of their customers revived fears of a “three-strikes rule” being introduced to mandate the cutoff of offending users. This was denied by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), despite rumors of a deal being discussed at a recent meeting of big player countries (the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and nations within the European Union) to simultaneously enact a three-strikes rule.

What has not been denied is the Australian government’s direct request to Google to filter out Refused Classification (RC) material, promptly rejected by the Internet giant as going further than their existent measures and raising questions about what the Aussies would do next to restrict “undesirable” online video content.

Meanwhile, the French Hadopi Law, better known as France's "Three Strikes Rule," is facing bureaucratic delays in the form of the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), which questions whether the proposed disconnection policy is in line with freedom of speech and communication. Furthermore, with protectionism ever close to French thinking, President Nicolas Sarkozy has singled out Google as an example of the type of overseas Internet portal whose advertising revenues could be taxed, a measure seen by opponents as a way of favoring homegrown ISPs.

In the U.K., opposition to Britain’s Digital Economy Bill is growing, with groups from the media industry, hoteliers, public institutions, and educational establishments claiming that a cut-off policy would penalize them rather than the customer at fault.

There is a fine line between what censorship is and isn’t. Last week, at a meeting of the U.S. Online Safety and Technology Working Group created by Congress and organized by the U.S. Department of Commerce, FBI representatives called for data retention by Internet providers, including transmission records, non-content records, and data about the addressing, routing, and signaling of the communication, although how far-reaching these proposals are is unclear.

Previous similar suggestions have been rejected by Congress, but with continued pressure from law enforcement agencies it is only a matter of time before some form of data-keeping is commonplace or a legal requirement virtually everywhere.

So as we can see from all of this, Internet censorship and data retention is not exclusive to China. Around the world, Google may come under more pressure to censor its content and be taxed in order to follow increasingly various national requirements.

We shall see if Google sticks to its guns.