Sunday 23 September 2007

No Rights, Just T&C

You have no rights on the Internet. Just a series of Terms & Conditions that you blindly accept. There is no freedom of speech unless you have your own server and don't have to worry about an ISP. You have nothing.

This was shown today by the closing of a UK blog host after receiving lawyer's letters. Under UK law, no crime had been committed. Under UK law, no legal authority had requested that the site(s) be closed down.

It’s extraordinary, but true, and even though we live in a image democracy where freedom of speech is a right we can enjoy, that freedom does not extend to your blog if you upset a rich and powerful person.
That is the gist of Iain Dale’s unbelievable post outlining the shutting down of Tim Ireland’s Bloggerhead’s site, as well as Craig Murray’s, former Ambassador to Uzbekhistan.
They both spoke out against the Russian/Uzbekh billionaire, Alisher Usmanov, (pictured) who is trying to buy Arsenal FC. Lawyers letters followed which led to the webhost pulling the plug.

Outrageous shutting down of British blogs

Link to More4 News clip (interview starts about 60 seconds in). Nothing at the time of posting on the BBC news, their technology pages merely saying that we should "fight cyberbullies" - oh, that's in schools, not in the real world. So, the BBC isn't being ironic.

As news items change rapidly, I'll add a caveat that this information is what is known to me at the time of posting. (link to my legal representative)

4 comments:

Duncan said...

Thanks, Hugo. I'm one in 251.

I don't recall saying there were more women bloggers than men. I vaguely recall a survey (probably something on BBC News) about there being more female users of the Internet. In 2001, the split was almost 50/50.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, yes, mistake, I think it was Ian Steele at Altens, must get my facts right.

Duncan said...

There's lots of these surveys coming out all the time, but it's the BBC News that I tend to get my reports from.

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