TPP signed: the ‘biggest global threat to the internet’ could bring huge new internet restrictions
TPP signed: the ‘biggest global threat to the internet’
agreed, as campaigners warn that secret pact could bring huge new restrictions
to the internet
The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement covers 40 per
cent of the world’s economy, and sets huge new rules for online businesses as
well as traditional ones
By Andrew Griffin Monday 5 October 2015 15:13 BST
An agreement that some campaigners have called the
“biggest global threat to the internet” has just been signed, potentially
bringing huge new restrictions on what people can do with their computers.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the conclusion of five
years of negotiations, and will cover 40 per cent of the world’s economy. Its
claimed purpose is to create a unified economic bloc so that companies and
businesses can trade more easily — but it also puts many of the central
principle of the internet in doubt, according to campaigners.
One particularly controversial part of the provisions
make it a crime to reveal corporate wrongdoing "through a computer
system". Experts have pointed out that the wording is very vague, and
could lead to whistleblowers being penalised for sharing important information,
and lead to journalists stopping reporting on them.
Others require that online content providers — such as
YouTube and Facebook — must take down content if they receive just one
complaint, as they are in the US. That will be harmful for startups looking to
build such businesses since they'll be required to have the resources to
respond to every complaint, experts have pointed out.
In 2013, when the partnership was still being discussed,
the Electronic Freedom Foundation called TPP “one of the worst global threats
to the internet”. The changes are dangerous because to unify the various
countries in the partnerships’ rules on intellectual property and other
internet law, they are opting to take the US’s largely very restrictive rules.
“The TPP is likely to export some of the worst features
of U.S. copyright law to Pacific Rim countries: a broad ban on breaking digital
locks on devices and creative works (even for legal purposes), a minimum
copyright term of the lifetime of the creator plus seventy years (the current
international norm is the lifetime plus fifty years), privatization of
enforcement for copyright infringement, ruinous statutory damages with no proof
of actual harm, and government seizures of computers and equipment involved in
alleged infringement,” wrote Katitza Rodriguez and Maira Sutton.
The changes could also lead to huge new rules about
surveillance.
“Under this TPP proposal, Internet Service Providers could
be required to "police" user activity (i.e. police YOU), take down
internet content, and cut people off from internet access for common
user-generated content,” write Expose The TPP, a campaign group opposing the
agreement.
As well as imposing strict rules on those on the
internet, activists point out that some of the parts of the agreement could
limit central parts of the internet and modern computers. A restriction on
breaking “digital locks” for instance — which is meant to allow companies to
control their products even after they have been bought by customers — could
stop disabled people from making important changes to their computers or using
different technology.
The agreement has been made in secret and will not be
fully published publicly for years.
Tech experts wrote to the US Congress in May to demand
more transparency about the agreement.
"Despite containing many provisions that go far
beyond the scope of traditional trade policy, the public is kept in the dark as
these deals continue to be negotiated behind closed doors with heavy influence
from only a limited subset of stakeholders," they wrote.
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