UK ISPs stand firm, not responsible for packet content
The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) are standing firm against government pushes to force ISPs to start inspecting packets and banning people who download content illegally. The ISPA says that ISPs are “mere conduits”, and cannot be responsible for the contents of the packets passed through their networks.
Last week, the British government began tossing about the idea of recruiting ISPs in the fight against online piracy. Now, the ISPs are coming back saying that even if they had the capability to inspect each packet, doing so would be in direct violation of several laws.
There are other ramifications as well. For instance, peer-to-peer traffic typically used for transporting copyrighted material, is also used by legitimate services to distribute music and TV legally.
For some time now, ISPs have been “shaping traffic”. This involves setting a priority for certain types of packets, voice or streaming video being an example, over types of traffic that are less sensitive to latency.
Recently, a US ISP has been criticized for shaping traffic. I know that this is something that is very close to people’s hearts, but if it were not for this, virtually everyone would suffer when trying to use voice or streaming video over the internet. However, this is a far cry from actually looking inside the payload to see what the content is. I think that this would be an invasion of privacy, and should not be allowed to take place.
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