Author Archives: Paul Thompson

Opinion: Cameron’s false porn panacea

From suggesting that the Blackberry messenger service be shut down during the 2011 riots, to proposing that the food standards agency can monitor your home internet usage It’s clear that Cameron, or those around him, have a limited appreciation of how the internet works.

Yesterday Cameron announced another clanger – default internet filtering for every household in the country, so unless you tell you ISP otherwise, pornographic content would be blocked – or at least some porn, as Cameron was today forced embarrassingly admit that the Sun’s Page 3 topless models wouldn’t be blocked.

So isn’t it a good idea to …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged , , and | 15 Comments

Opinion: Snoopers Charter about to resurface

Negotiations are currently taking place deep within the coalition that could change our relationship with the internet forever.  The second draft of the Data Communications Bill, or Snoopers Charter is currently being negotiated and if it’s anything like the 1st draft that was rejected in December, it could effectively spell the end of privacy as we know it on the internet.

The Data Communications Data Bill will force internet service providers and other internet businesses to collect and store all of your electronic communications for at least 12 months.  This will include all your emails, websites you’ve visited, Skype calls, social media, telephone calls etc.  …

Posted in News | Tagged and | 7 Comments

Vince Cable scraps Labour plans to block websites, outlines widespread changes to our copyright law

The government’s controversial plans to block unlawful file sharing websites were scrapped today by Vince Cable. Brought in by the last government in the hastily put together Digital Economy Act, the plans to force ISPs to block websites was shown to be unworkable in a detailed report from Ofcom.

The report, withdrawn embarrassingly hours after publication when it emerged that the redacted sections of the report could be read by simply cutting and pasting the document, detailed how website blocking as set out in the DEAct could be easily circumvented, would not be suitable for reducing copyright infringement …

Posted in News | Tagged , , and | 9 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Tristan Ward
    “Let’s start by arguing that the economic benefits of the Single Market far exceed having to accept freedom of movement into the UK, and take it from there....
  • Chloe
    'Needless to say the poorest in British society paid the price for this' I remember canvassing , the poorer the area the less interested they were. Membership ...
  • GWYN WILLIAMS
    A balanced and fair assessment of the Senedd campaign. Unlike in Scotland, Wales has not as yet polarised into for and against Independence camps. The Welsh Lib...
  • Jana
    The logic of this article is that we should be rejoining the Single Market. That is different from signing up to complete political Union by joining the EU. ...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    Good piece, Tom. I would just split it into two things 1/ The principle: someone living off their assets should not pay less tax than someone living off a wage...