Secretive international trade negotiations intended to clamp down on counterfeiting risk undermining the openness and innovation-friendly nature of the Internet, said EuroISPA, a trade group representing Europe’s Internet service providers (ISPs), on Monday. If the ideas under discussion are adopted, ISPs may be forced to snoop on their subscribers and cut them off if they are found to have shared copyright-protected music on the Net. […]
The trade agreement would hand copyright owners a powerful weapon with which to beat ISPs, but ISPs question whether it would actually help combat illegal filesharing. “Such heavy-handed measures would create a serious danger of undermining and restricting the open innovative space that lies at the very heart of the Internet’s success,” said Malcolm Hutty, EuroISPA’s president, in a statement. “This agreement would have a negative impact on Internet users without having an appreciable impact on fighting illicit use of copyrighted material,” he added.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/183333/european_isps_lash_out_at_secret_acta_negotiations.html