Contact details
EuroISPA 38 Rue de la Loi 1000 Brussels
Tel. +32 27 89 66 18
Mail. secretariat@euroispa.org
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Committee work
The EuroISPA Intermediary Liability committee considers the responsibilities of Internet intermediaries in law and practice, the balance of legal obligations and the impact of legal measures in maintaining the balance of responsibilities that allow's Europe's digital economy to thrive, while also supporting effective law enforcement within a framework of respect for fundamental rights in the online environment. As the European Commission is in the process of preparing its revision of the E-Commerce Directive, through a Digital Services Act, EuroISPA will continue to be engaged to promote innovation-friendly liability protections as the key infrastructural element of the Digital Single Market.
Committee work
Legal certainty, trust and confidence in the data protection framework is of paramount importance for both businesses and European citizens, in order to meet the aims of the Digital Single Market Strategy and to make Europe competitive in the global markets. EuroISPA believes that European citizens’ personal data should be granted a uniform level of protection, regardless of the geographical location or the economic sector of the service provider. In today’s ever-changing digital environment, data protection rules are reflexive to the emergence of new services such as cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence and must not burden the internet industry with crippling compliance costs.
Key ongoing dossiers
Committee work
EuroISPA’s cybercrime and cybersecurity committee enables its members to exchange knowledge about current security challenges and national good practise models. The Committee also works with the European institutions and international organizations to ensure a harmonised framework for digital security in Europe. Our members’ technical expertise and experience can guide policy that protects key network infrastructure and citizens fundamental rights, improving the cooperation between governments and industry and allowing the Internet industry to thrive as an economic enabler.
Key ongoing dossiers
Committee work
EuroISPA’s Innovation and Growth committee brings together various Internet services providers with experience and insight on how to make Europe’s online content framework optimal for the digital age. The development of a virtuous and cross-border online content market in the EU is a key factor for the completion of the Digital Single Market. In the previous years, various legislative interventions have reformed, with different outcomes, the European online content framework in the area of content portability, audiovisual and VoD, rights management, levies, geoblocking and copyright. Amongst them the Copyright Directive reform has been the crux of this Committee’s work. EuroISPA, alongside other industry and civil society representatives, advocated against automated upload filters, and against what is known as the “link tax”, an ancillary copyright on snippets. Going forward, EuroISPA will closely follow the implementation of the Directive, and will share its expertise within the European Commission’s Stakeholder Dialogue on the implementation of Article 17. Euroispa is also eager to work with the new Commission about new proposals in the area of online content and audiovisual.
Key ongoing dossiers
Committee work
Following the agreement reached on the European Electronic Communications Code in 2019, the Committee is instrumental in allowing our members to exchange information on national developments regarding the implementation of the Code, and the regulatory framework applicable to the sector. This Committee also oversees matters regarding accessibility requirements.
Key ongoing dossiers
Committee work
EuroISPA members are at the forefront of efforts to protect children online, and use their practical experience and infrastructure control to assist law enforcement authorities. In addition to cooperating with law enforcement under the Notice and Takedown Mechanism EuroISPA members are strong supporters of the European network of Internet Hotlines, with four member associations actually managing the national Hotline in their countries. Our members also share bests practices by ISPs for preservation of evidence and policy development with public authorities.
Key dossiers
Committee work
The EuroISPA International Affairs committee represents the views of the European Internet industry in discussions around Internet governance and international ICT cooperation.
Key dossiers
ICANN
EuroDIG
Internet Governance Forum
Council of Europe
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May 2016: EuroDIG and CENTR to host joint-workshop on content control at EuroDIG 2016
The European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) is an annual open multi-stakeholder platform to exchange views about the Internet and how it is governed. The 2016 installment will take place in Brussels on 09-10 June.
As part of the event, EuroISPA is teaming up with CENTR to organise a policy workshop for EuroDIG participants. The workshop will be titled Technical basics everyone should know before discussing online content control.
The session will be divided into two parts:
More information on EuroISPA's EuroDIG workshop can be found here.
Time has been blocked in the EuroISPA GM programme to allow members to attend the workshop.
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February 2016: ICANN finalises proposal to transition stewardship of key Internet functions from US government
Following its latest meeting in Marrakesh, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board submitted to the U.S. Government a plan developed by the international Internet community that, if approved, will lead to ICANN taking control of some key technical Internet functions.
Should the proposal be accepted by the US government, it will relinquish control of the IANA function (management of protocols, the Country Code Top Level Domains and maintains the IP Address allotments). The US government had demanded strong guarantees of ICANN transparency and independence as a prerequisite for transitioning IANA control to the multi-stakeholder grouping.
The U.S. Government will now review the package to ensure that it meets transparency/independence criteria. If approved, implementation of the plan is expected to be completed by the end of September 2016.
EuroISPA is represented at ICANN by International Affairs committee chair Malcolm Hutty. We will dedicate time for an ICANN debriefing at the next EuroISPA General Meeting in Amsterdam.
More information can be found here.
January 2016: EuroISPA joins forces with CENTR to propose EuroDIG 2016 technical workshop
Building on successful collaborations in 2015, EuroISPA is joining forces with CENTR to propose a workshop at the 2016 European Dialogue on Internet Governance. The conference will take place in Brussels and will coincide with the June EuroISPA General Meeting.
The joint EuroISPA-CENTR proposal is titled:
CONTENT CONTROL: The impact of voluntary and/or mandatory actions on the different layers of the internet, from a technical perspective and in the context of questions including jurisdiction, censorship, enforcement
The workshop is inspired by the technical trainings CENTR and EuroISPA have provided to officials from the European Commission in recent years.
More information on the proposal can be found here.
December 2015: Internet Governance Forum on the ‘evolution of internet governance: empowering sustainable development’
From 10 to 13 November, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held its 10th conference on the “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development”. The press release can be found here. Eight sub-themes were discussed during the conference:
Over 150 thematic workshops were held at the 10th IGF which focused on an array of topics; from zero rating and network neutrality to freedom of expression online and cybersecurity. One of the issues figuring prominently in the discussions was the issue of online privacy. Participants stressed that encryption and anonymity needed to be reinforced and agreed on the need for privacy, transparency and security issues to complement each other.
Amongst the participants was also the Vice President Ansip and various Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). A Joint Declaration (here) was signed by the Vice President and the MEPs which argues for improved internet access all over the world, an open and interdependent internet as a global resource, and the need to find solutions related to cybersecurity and cybercrimes. The EU delegation further recalled its support for the development of the Global Internet Policy Observatory (GIPO), an organization that will monitor Internet related policy, regulatory and technological developments across the world.
Next steps
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) will gather for the 10-year review of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) on 15 and 16 December 2015. During the WSIS, the UNGA will discuss the renewal of the IGF mandate and the further strengthening of its resources.
September 2015: US Government Accountability Office gives endorsement to IANA transition as Republicans voice discontent
A highly-anticipated report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has given an endorsement to transfer control of the IANA functions from the US government to domain overseer ICANN. The report was published in mid-September, and can be read here.
Alongisde this, four leading US Congressional figures, including presidential candidate Ted Cruz, have questioned whether the Obama Administration has the legal right to transfer control of the internet's key technical functions outside the US government. In a letter to the US Government Accountability Office, the lawmakers note that the Internet’s Zone Root File is designated a "national IT asset" by the federal government, and argue that its creation was "funded by the American taxpayer and coordinated by the Department of Defense." As such, it constitutes property of the United States and cannot be legally transferred to a third party. Read more here (links to external site).
August 2015: Internet governance: ICG publishes draft IANA transition proposals as ICANN contract extended until September 2016
On 17 August, the US government announced that it would extend the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) contract with ICANN through to September 2016. The move comes as the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) concedes that it needs more time to complete its work, have the plan reviewed by the US government and then put it into action if approved.
The ICG recently published its draft proposals on transferring the IANA contract to a multi-stakeholder group, under the auspice of ICANN. But work on developing a system of governance to ensure manage the transition and ensure future accountability has been a considerable challenge, and it is unlikely that the final proposal will be ready to submit to the US government until next summer.
Since 1998 the United States has contracted out, through the Commerce Department, the management of the master database for top-level domain names like .com and .net and their corresponding numeric addresses to ICANN. On the back of international pressure, the US government decided to ultimately allow its contract with ICANN to expire, and to pass on oversight of the agency to a global governance model.
Next steps
Draft proposals by the ICG for transition and accountability are currently available for public consultation. The aim is to finalise the proposals by the time of the ICANN meeting in Dublin on October, before beginning the process of seeking approval for the proposals from the US government.
“The main dossier for the Intermediary Liability Committee in 2018 has been the proposal on Preventing The Dissemination of Terrorist Content Online. We warned of the consequences of demanding algorithmic detection of terrorist content and introducing an undefined and unbounded duty of care, while calling for a robust mechanism to verify the authenticity of law enforcement requests. Looking ahead, the new European legislature will continue to work on sectoral or horizontal revisions of the intermediary liability regime, where EuroISPA is ready to represent European ISPs to ensure that policy-makers take industry’s views into account.”
“The Copyright Directive reform has been the crux of this Committee’s work. EuroISPA, alongside other industry and civil society representatives, advocated against automated upload filters, and against what is known as the “link tax”, an ancillary copyright on snippets. The next European legislature will pursue its work on topics relevant to the Committee, such as geo-blocking.”
“The landmark in 2018 was the entry into application of the GDPR, signaling a new era for European data protection legislation. In 2019 we will continue to closely follow GDPR implementation, continuing engagement in the ePrivacy debate, and dive deeper into new avenues as technologies such as Artificial Intelligence develop and multiply in their applications.”
“This year, we witnessed several important developments, the most notable being the agreement reached on the European Electronic Communications Code. In 2019, a review of consumer protection legislation is expected to be undertaken by the European Commission, which will be central to the Committee’s work.”
EuroISPA 38 Rue de la Loi 1000 Brussels
Tel. +32 27 89 66 18
Mail. secretariat@euroispa.org
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