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ISPA announce Internet Hero and Villain Finalists
Monday 22 June 2009 11:21:32 by John Hunt

ISPA have announced the finalists for its Internet Villain and Internet Hero awards, the winners to be announced at it's annual award ceremony. The villain award is aimed at those that ISPA feel have had a negative impact on the Internet industry, where as the hero award, at those who've had a positive impact.

Internet Hero Finalists

  • Featured Artists Coalition - "For recognising publicly that the focus of music companies should be the development of new business models for distributing content online rather than attempting to pass responsibility to ISPs to take action against users"
  • Community Broadband Network - "For their relentless pursuit and support for next generation access at grass roots level"
  • European Parliament - "For rejecting by a significant majority an amendment to the Telecom Package designed to allow disconnection of users' Internet connections for alleged copyright infringement without direct judicial oversight"
  • Lord Carter - "For his attempt to bring a holistic view to government policy across the communications spectrum"
  • Thomas Gensemer - "For showcasing the enormous power of the Internet in leading Barack Obama's online presidential campaign"

Internet Villain Finalists

  • Baroness Vadera - "For excluding a number of ISPs and Rights Holders in agreeing a Memorandum of Understanding that was exclusive and ineffective in progressing relations between the two industries"
  • European Parliament - "For supporting an amendment to the Telecom Package on cookies which could yet bring the Internet to a standstill"
  • President Nicolas Sarkozy - "For his continued commitment to the HADOPI law, which advocates a system of graduated response, despite repeated arguments suggesting the law is disproportionate from a number of important groups including the European Parliament"
  • Stephen Conroy and the Australian Government - "For continuing to promote network-level blocking despite significant national and international opposition"

Last year saw the Hero award go to Peter Robbins, Chief Executive of the IWF with the Villain award going to HM Revenue and Customs for failing to take the security of personal data seriously.

[ Topic: Broadband | 24 comments | link to this item ]
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Comments

Posted by chrysalis 9 months ago
that list seems a bit of a joke? how are the australian government guilty of promoting network blocking, yet the uk one isnt when the uk one tried to get internet filtering and traffic shaping implemented in the EU communications law and are now likely to give ofcom unprecendented powers to order isps to block websites, ips, ports etc. just to wrap cotton wool around the media industry. and of course lord carter a hero? haha
Posted by devsen 9 months ago
I agree with chrysalis. The UK and US governments really have to first their houses in order before crticising other nations on censorship, intercept and blocking. And somebody might like to explain how Lord Carter with is nutty ideas is a hero - hero from whose point of view?
Posted by amforbes 9 months ago
Lord Carter a hero don't make me laugh, he's got everyone who's on a fast connection down as a pirate.
Posted by mikeblogs 9 months ago
For Heros

Heroes
Stephen Carter for daring to suggest we need a plan and to invest in access rather than tax it.

For iPlayer for making it clear, that our XX Mbps Broadband service is really only 30Kbps when everyone else is on online.

For Villains 1) MEP Malcom Harbour for introducing net discrimination clauses into the Universal Service package.

2) Ofcom for advising EU that Internet could be treated like a Cable TV service for regulatory purposes.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
Err the access will still be taxed (business rates) and will be partially paid for with tax (50p levy).
Posted by mikeblogs 9 months ago
Dixi - from little seed corns, even acknowledging the need to invest needs encouraging. The fact Ofcom collected £232m in spectrum/AIP fees in 07/08 for Treasury is another matter.

The net take by Gov from the sector would be an interesting calculation.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
There's very little acknowledgement of a need to invest there mike, quite the opposite in Carter-world most of the country is absolutely fine and can be left for BT and VM to screw over with obsolete technology, some he'll hand the public purse to companies to abuse with nothing to show for it bar again obsolete technology.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
Oh yea, so in your fantasy world the fact that OFCOM have to clear BT products has nothing to do with it, VM's chronic failure to engage with their customers isn't their problem and somehow leaving it up to the massively regulation-encumbered BT to invest with no returns makes sense? Sigh.

Try lifting the regulations /first/
Posted by chrysalis 9 months ago
here we have 2 problems.
(a) if unregulated BT will rollout (supposedbly) but we can expect completely ridiculous prices?
(b) if regulated BT rollout either wont happen or will be limited and slow and the technical capabilities will be artifically limited.

What if openreach was not for profit? and it also had a remit to not worry about leased line sales?
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
chrysalis - Well afaik your (a) is a supposition. And I'm not arguing for *no* regulation, I'm arguing for *sensible* regulation, such as 3rd party access for simple cost+margin.

And we're seeing what happens with regulation atm, very slow rollouts because there isn't the commercial benefit to BT of pushing it faster.

Leased lines are not at threat anyway for any sizeable business, ADSL is only good to them for backup internet access...
Posted by mikeblogs 9 months ago
Dixinormous - the numbers, rates, vat, aip fees, auction heists suggest your right, but you look for hope.
Chrysalis - Dawn - We pay £95pm per household for TV/Broadband/Fixed/Mobile - Ofcom think this is a bargain.

A Digital Britain report might have suggested how that £95 pm would be split in the future, more on connectivity less on micro-billed services I would suggest, with some measures to help get there.

see next
Posted by mikeblogs 9 months ago
BT 21C - + FTTC = what you pay today + some more for the same set of services + plus more speed. Ditto on Cable. No notion of a UK data transport network to die for!

Interconnect should switch to bulk data transfer and provide incentives (efficiency gains) for early adopters, so all traffic is counted for in a common pot. There must be someway of making more progress.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
Once again Mr Falcon BT's NGA is as far as I'm aware price unregulated. Indeed this regulation gap one would expect to ENcourage NGA deployment from BT.

Can I also point out that I said nothing about regulation or otherwise, my comments were actually referring to public monies purchasing no share of the networks they pay for, and the criticism applied equally to BT and VM.

Paranoia doesn't become you, sir.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
mikeblogs - If you're paying that much for under a dozen people, I'm going to suggest that you're blaming OFCOM but need to look closer to home.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 9 months ago
Mr. Dixi's conspiracy theory is once more amusing, but a single of several "controls" being lifted does not make a huge difference, and it requires a *completed* NGA rollout before they can be effectively offered.

And so you want the companies to be offered funding for a stake in company by a "shareholder" which has an unstable, unpredictable policy and applys external controls as well? There is simply no way BT or NTL would go for that, and rightly so.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
I'm totally lost as to what the conspiracy theory is, I'm merely stating the fact that the BT NGA doesn't have price control on its' wholesaling. This applies from the very first line installed on pilot so I've no idea what you're talking about. The only requirement is to wholesale the thing on equivalent terms which is hardly unreasonable.

Yes I do want the companies to be offered funding for a stake in the company, while the government share is under 50% there's no 'control' issues.
Posted by Dixinormous 9 months ago
I should mention that by 'the company' I am not referring to the company as a whole but that each new NGA build in a locality should be under its' own ring fenced company which will be split according to the funding provided by each party, not that any government gets shares in VMED or BTA.
Posted by Dawn_Falcon 8 months ago
And on products only avaliable with no direct equivalent on the NGA, only, right. Otherwise there immediately is the issue of "unfair access".

And there are certainly control issues, there are major legal implications for the government being even a minority shareholder.

And you're talking about creating a complex, expensive situation. I'd rather simply tender contracts to offer NGA's in various areas for a fixed period of time, with the infrastructure going to auction after that time (say a decade).
Posted by Dixinormous 8 months ago
I actually agree with you on the legal implications side of things, this is where legislation and robust *guidance* from the government are important. It may be a complex situation but it doesn't have to be expensive necessarily and, purely my opinion, the government are being lazy with the approach of straight subsidy.
Posted by wilsenda 8 months ago
This started out as an interesting debate on the rights and wrongs of ISPA's hero/villain finalists, but then developed into such an obscure to-and-fro that most of us happy-with-what-we've-got home PC users haven't a clue as to what you are talking about! Come down to earth and give us rookies some clear advice, please.
Posted by TGVrecord 8 months ago
I am surprised that the folks responsible for Phorm have not been nominated as villains.
Posted by Dixinormous 8 months ago
Sure wilsenda - if you want state of the art broadband lobby your council and MP or emmigrate, there's some clear advice. :)
Posted by wilsenda 8 months ago
Thanks, Dixinormous (is it really?), even with poor spelling!!!!
Posted by Dixinormous 8 months ago
No it isn't, the name is sadly purely compensatory :(
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