FRENCH EXPLORING INTERNET BLACKLISTS

22 February 2008

Interior minister announces the development of a best practices agreement with key internet operators to allow for the blocking and dismantling of specific sites


It may not yet directly include online gambling ventures, but the French are definitely looking at ways in which Internet content can be controlled, according to a report this week in The Web in France 'zine.

The report reveals that websites accessible from France that feature recipes for building explosives, terrorist propaganda, racial invective and incitement to hatred and violence will soon join child pornography on a ‘blacklist” of Internet sites prohibited in the country.

On a Valentine’s Day visit to France’s central crime-fighting offices in Nanterre, which have a “cyber crime” wing devoted to crimes related to communication and information technologies (OCLCTIC), the French Interior minister Michele Alliot-Marie announced the development of a best practices agreement with key internet operators to allow for the blocking and dismantling of selected sites.

In doing so, France will follow the example on Norway, where a similar scheme is being developed says the Web in France editorial. Before its decision to license and regulate online gambling websites, Italy flirted briefly with the blacklist and ISP intervention concept.

France’s Interior Minister stipulated that the move was not meant to set up a “Big Brother” scenario which would limit freedom of expression in France. However, she did concede that with great freedom comes also “more threats to safety”.

Until now, suppliers of internet access in France balked at the idea of policing the sites they host. Christian Aghroum, chief of the OCLCTIC said that in the beginning, the reaction of French ISP professionals was “no way”, but “their attitude has evolved,” he said. “Now we can work with them.”

Blocking the offending sites in France would mean that the pages would become inaccessible to internet surfers. The job is harder than just choosing which sites to block, however, as many of the offending web sites viewable in France are hosted not inside France but abroad, outside the jurisdiction of French authorities.

Of 14 465 complaints in 2007 against questionable web sites by internet surfers (when police in France were cracking down on illegal child pornography web sites), only 308 related to sites hosted in France. But even with heavy monitoring, prohibitions and fines, the sites in France did not disappear. “When they are closed, they are reconstituted the next day under another domain name “, admitted Karine Beguin, a monitor of internet crime for the gendarmerie in France.

When it comes to Internet gambling in the French state-dominated gambling industry, fighting online phenomenon has been an uphill battle for French authorities. Suppliers of internet access in France have so far refused to block any sites, so the police have hunted down offenders through their own advertising to try to stem the explosion of the pastime.

Police in France made some headway in March 2007, with the convictions of casino owner Patrick Partouche. He was given a sentence of twelve months of prison and a Euro 40 000 fine for his connection to a poker site hosted in Gibraltar, but the battle against online gambling in France is far from over.

More recently there appears to have been some rapprochment between France and the compliance authorities of the European Union, which seek to ensure compliance with EU requirements for the free movement of goods and services between member states, opening up the French gambling markets. Negotiations have taken place in Brussels as to how best to move away from the state monopoly protectionist policies presently in force.

The government of France has promised new measures against all forms in Internet crime. The first will be the doubling of the number of “cyber-investigators”.

In September 2008, there will be systems in place for anyone in France to report many different types of online criminal activity, including all kinds of scams. And the rules for closing a web site in France will be streamlined, simplified and speeded up.

Until now, long legal procedures following exhaustive investigations were necessary to close a site in France. But from now on, explains François Jaspart, general of the national police force in France and superintendent of the fight again internet crime, intervention will be possible as soon as there is any indication of possibly illegal activity.

With a relaxing of legal strictures, authorities in France will be able to pinpoint the geographic location of Internet users. Also, internet crimes will carry new and heftier penalties: identity theft over the Internet will soon make offenders in France liable to a year’s imprisonment and a fine of Euros 15 000.

French officials intend to go further, demanding international agreements to allow French authorities to obtain data remotely from servers in other countries, without it being necessary to first get permission from the country where the internet server is located.

The move has been coming for a while. In a meeting last October in Lisbon, European Union interior ministers, including Alliot-Marie of France, debated proposals to sanction or shut down Internet sites spreading “terrorist propaganda” and bomb-making instructions.

At the time, EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini urged the ministers to make punishable activities that misused the Internet, citing terrorism specifically. He exhorted the countries to introduce sanctions against those who disseminate terrorist propaganda or instruct on websites how to make a bomb. “This has nothing to do with freedom of expression,” he asserted.

The announcement February 14 suggests that Interior Minster of France Alliot-Marie took the EU Commissioner’s suggestions very much to heart.

Online Casino News courtesy off InfoPowa