Home » UK ISP News Archive » Article Tag: Internet Law (445 Posts)

Articles for Category Tag - Internet Law

FREE WiFi Plan for Newcastle and Gateshead At Risk Over GOWEX Trouble

7th July, 2014 (3 Comments)

The new plan to roll-out a free wireless Internet (wifi hotspot) network across “scores of public areas” in Newcastle and Gateshead (North East England) could be at risk after it emerged that Spain-based GOWEX, which had been appointed to setup the new infrastructure, had falsified its accounts and filed for bankruptcy.

UK Government Agrees – Too Much Internet Content Regulation is Bad

4th July, 2014 (1 Comment)

The Government has just given its official response to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s inquiry into Online Safety, which in March 2014 warned that website blocking by UK ISPs was “highly unlikely to be a suitable approach” for tackling porn or violent material on the Internet (here). Broadly the government agrees, but you should still expect more filtering by ISPs in the future.

Small ISPs Launch Legal Action to Stop GCHQ UK Internet Snooping

2nd July, 2014 (6 Comments)

A group of smaller ISPs from around the world, including GreenNet from the United Kingdom, have lodged a legal complaint against the UK’s intelligence agency – Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) – after they were last year caught tapping into at least some of the world’s 10Gbps transatlantic fibre optic cable links and snooping on the related phone and Internet traffic.

UPDATE Total Ltd Win UK Trade Mark Infringement Case Against YouView

16th June, 2014 (5 Comments)

The High Court in London has today ruled that YouView, which offers a subscription-free broadband based TV (IPTV) service via retail and through ISPs like BT and TalkTalk, infringes upon a trade mark (YourView) owned by online billing firm Total Ltd.

EU Court Rules People Sometimes Have a Right to be Forgotten Online

13th May, 2014 (2 Comments)

Sometimes Internet privacy and freedom of information can come into bitter conflict with each other and that appears to be the outcome of a new ruling against Google by the European Union’s Court of Justice (ECJ). The outcome could lay the groundwork for everybody to have a “right to be forgotten” online.

RightsCorp Threatens More Bullying Piracy Letters for UK Internet Users

7th May, 2014 (12 Comments)

The shadow of “speculative invoicing” could soon return to our shores after the US-based copyright enforcement agency RightsCorp, which monitors public P2P File Sharing traffic for “illegal” activity before pursuing related broadband ISP customers with financial settlement demands, confirmed that that they are “investigating a launch in Europe” and had received a “great reception” from interested groups in the United Kingdom.

UPDATE4 Open Rights Group Call on UK ISPs to Clarify Data Retention Policy

11th April, 2014 (0 Comments)

The Open Rights Group (ORG) has written a new open letter that calls upon BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Virgin Media to clarify their positions on the storing of personal customer data / access logs, which follows a decision by the European Court of Justice to rule that the EU’s Data Retention Directive was now “invalid“.

European Court of Justice Rules ISP Internet Data Retention Law Invalid

8th April, 2014 (3 Comments)

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has delivered a significant victory to privacy advocates after it ruled that the EU’s Data Retention Directive, which requires member states and their phone / Internet providers to keep a basic access log of all website, email and phone call activity for up to 2 years, was now considered “invalid“.

ATVOD Demand Mandatory UK Internet Age Checks for Adult Websites

28th March, 2014 (2 Comments)

The Authority for Television On Demand has called on the Government to reinforce in law the requirement for UK operators of adult websites, specifically those that peddle pornography, to put workable Age Verification in front of R18 content or risk having their funding sources blocked. Now they just need to figure out the “how“.

European Court of Justice Says ISPs Must Block Piracy Websites

27th March, 2014 (8 Comments)

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has today ruled that Internet Service Providers (ISP) across the EU can now be ordered to block their customers from being able to access a copyright-infringing website (e.g. The Pirate Bay). But national courts will still have the final say.

Piracy Website Blocks by UK ISPs Trigger 20 Percent Fall in P2P Traffic

24th March, 2014 (12 Comments)

The annual Digital Music Report 2014 from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has claimed that the website blocking measures implemented by ISPs have become a “widely-accepted and effective way of curbing piracy online“, especially in Europe and the UK where BitTorrent (P2P) file sharing traffic is said to have fallen.

UK Online Safety Report Finds ISP Website Blocks Unsuitable for Tackling Porn

19th March, 2014 (5 Comments)

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which examines the expenditure, administration and policy of the Government’s related department, has published its latest (6th) Online Safety report and found that website blocking by UK ISPs was “highly unlikely to be a suitable approach” for tackling adult pornography or violent material on the Internet.

Is it the ISPs Fault if Your Home Broadband Router Gets Hacked?

11th March, 2014 (21 Comments)

As consumers we have a right to be huffy at our ISPs when something goes wrong. But is the Internet provider still to blame if, as in the recent cases of AAISP and now PlusNet, your home broadband router ends up being hijacked by a DNS redirection exploit?

UK Court Orders Big ISPs to Block Megashare, Viooz, Watch32 and Zmovie

11th March, 2014 (39 Comments)

A group of Hollywood movie studios have successfully won a case in London’s High Court that will require all of the country’s major broadband ISPs to block their customers from accessing the following websites – Megashare, Viooz, Watch32 and Zmovie. All were found to be facilitating Internet copyright infringement (piracy).

UPD Hackers Hijack 300K Home and Office Broadband Routers from Big Brands

4th March, 2014 (2 Comments)

Researchers working for Team Cymru’s Threat Intelligence Group have discovered that over 300,000 consumer-grade small office / home (SOHO) broadband routers, including those from brands like ZyXEL, D-Link, Micronet, Tenda, TP-Link and others, have been hijacked as part of a man-in-the-middle style attack.

Labour Party Moot 3rd Attempt to Revive UK Internet Snooping Law

3rd March, 2014 (6 Comments)

The British Labour Party looks set to take a 3rd swipe at reviving their failed Internet Snooping laws, which over the past 6 years have twice been rejected due to issues of unpopularity, cost, technical viability and general confusion.

Common Sense as EU Court Moves to Protect Free Use of Website Links

13th February, 2014 (2 Comments)

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that providing a link (hyperlinks) between one Internet website and another does not equate to copyright infringement, which is a victory for common sense. Indeed any ruling in the opposite direction would have been almost unworkable to enforce. But there is a caveat in the ruling.