Around one month ago a UK ISP British Telecom was ordered to block traffic to filesharing site Newzbin 2 and people were freaking out about the possibility or more site blocking from ISP’s, now they dont have to worry that much, the European Court of Justice has denied media owners demands that ISPs should track people who are doing illegal downloads.
The court ruling stated that it was illegal to force any ISP to install and maintain a filtering system that monitor all of its user’s traffic as this would infringe customer privacy rights. This might not be a welcome decision in the money hungry corporation but will surely be a sigh of relief for a normal internet user. The ruling states:
The Court finds that, in adopting the injunction requiring Scarlet to install such a filtering system, the national court would not be respecting the requirement that a fair balance be struck between the right to intellectual property, on the one hand, and the freedom to conduct business, the right to protection of personal data and the right to receive or impart information, on the other.
Accordingly, the Court’s reply is that EU law precludes an injunction made against an internet service provider requiring it to install a system for filtering all electronic communications passing via its services which applies indiscriminately to all its customers, as a preventive measure, exclusively at its expense, and for an unlimited period.
Source: (Endgadget)
