Posted: 26th May, 2011 By: MarkJ
The UK
Internet Service Providers Association (
ISPA ) has officially revealed the finalists for its 2011
Internet Hero and
Internet Villain gongs at the forthcoming 13th annual industry awards. The two categories seek to identify an individual or organisation that has either done the most or least to help the wider ISP industry over the past year.
ISPA Internet Hero Finalists 2011
• Rory Stewart MP – For his trailblazing efforts to bring broadband to his rural constituency of Penrith and the Borders.
• Twitter – For its role in helping people communicate during the Arab spring.
• Judge Colin Birss QC – For his considered and damning judgement on the ACS Law that it was “chaotic and lamentable”.
• The Australian Internet Industry Association – For taking the lead and launching a voluntary industry code on infected machines in Australia.
• Prof. Ian Hargreaves – For authoring a review that makes recommendations on how IP can be made fitter for the digital age
Villain.
ISPA Internet Villain Finalists 2011
• ACS Law/Andrew Crossley – For demanding payments from members of the public on behalf of certain rights holders with poor evidence which brought the “legal profession into disrepute”, and for failing to secure the data of those accused.
• New Zealand Government Commerce Minister Simon Power – For being the latest country to put in to law a three strikes rule enabling the disconnection or prosecution of the owner of an IP address alleged to have infringed copyright three times.
• Commissioner Barnier – For the lack of transparency and cooperation with industry and other commissioners on the IPR enforcement and IPR strategy as a whole.
• Tayfun Acarer, the chairman of the Turkish Information and Communications Technologies Authority – For looking to impose mandatory filtering on all ISP connections in Turkey against “international norms”.
In terms of the Internet Villain award, there's no question in our minds that it should go to ACS:Law (Andrew Crossley). By contrast the Hero award is far more difficult to pick, depending upon whether you choose to focus upon the UK or internationally. For us it's a toss of the coin between Rory Stewart MP and Judge Colin Birss QC.
All of the winners will be unveiled on the 7th July 2011 at the Lancaster London Hotel.
For more information go to:
www.ispaawards.org.uk