I'm wondering if you've heard about the new laws in Italy concerning the web. They are active since 2 months or so.

Having a business (website which offers information) in Italy is really going to make us all crazy. The law says that:

- YOU (webmaster/ceo) have to take responsability for
the content of your site (and that's normal), BUT you
are also responsible for the content your users post.

- YOU (webmaster/ceo) have to register your website in
a sort of italian register, so that your website will be
like a newspaper for the italian law! This means to
have to spend a lot of money. If you do not register,
the law will say that you are "illegal" and you will have
to pay a huuuge ticket... otherwise prison.

- YOU (webmaster/ceo) have to keep the logfiles of your
website for 10 (ten) years. If you do not have them,
and if something happens on your site, YOU are
responsible

Did they talk about this also in other countries? I mean... this law is against the european rules.... but nobody seems to be really shocked by this... except italian webmasters or start ups... :angry:

BTW... I'm not a lawyer therefore my info could be not 100% correct or complete. Sorry for this... but fact is that something like this.... is now law in Italy :bawling:

P.S. probably you know that we had elections... and Berlusconi won, but this law (as far as I know) was made by the the old government.... (left)

hey, you really should take the P155 if your box is hosted in the USA its goverened by US laws, afaik

therefore it looks like any of your servers are going to have to be shipped out to the USA they should then be safe :D

does this sound right to anybody?

xtstrike.. the matter is that the law is sooo "good"... they say that:

as soon as the data is coming inside Italy... there is italian law... and therefore it is not important where the server is :(

there was also one politician (a very, very inteligent one) who said that he will discuss to have ONE isp controlled by the government, so that they will be able to exclude illegal websites.

I've heard that people is even happy about this, thinking that this will prevent child pornography, and other *real* illegal stuff.

the problem here is that an ISP can easily be boycotted, if they do that then it will protect the controlling country but by the wonders of DNS/IP Routing and proxying its extremely simple to bypass the ISP completely.

A simple change of your machine configuration and you instantly access a proxy server in a remote country directly, you could even encrypt the data from that proxy server to your machine.

then you have IP routing, which most other countries will boycott italy and their servers and simply set a high cost on that particular route through the country and hey presto every single piece of trafic avoids the country as much as possible, its a cruel world out there, but somebody's got to boycott it :D

xtstrike you are right... there will always be ways to boycott something like this..... but I (and nearly all my friends who are running bigger sites in italy, like I'm doing) am really shocked by this.

The Euro is soon coming.... the mentality of the people is or should becoming always more european... but this seems not to be a problem for brainmel**d politicians to do something like this... inside Europe.

Instead of investing or even helping (money) companies and people to become more involved into the web... the same old mentality seems not to be disappearing.

A country inside Europe is trying to get full control over the media ..... and nobody seems to be really scared about it.... and on the other hand we go on hearing people saying that "information" means "power", and therefore everybody, worldwide, should be able to have access to the web.

Concluding.... all the money I earn every month comes from my italian website... my website pays the rent of my small flat, pays my bills and so on. Such a law is going to kill thousands of smaller italian companies. Even if we go on the illegal way... should the idea of a "1 ISP for the entire country" become reality... this would mean going down from 3,000,000 banner ads per month... to perhaps 300,000... and this means ..... I do not even want to think about it

Funny world... or better said... funny Italy....

most people live for one reason, to gain as much control as possible, its very common in this world.

politicians try to legally gain control where as the rest of us are left to "re-gain" control illegally.

Its strange that people still try to get control of the world, the billions of people will always prevail, no matter what you do, if the task you are trying to complete is not agreed by the majority then it will be boycotted.

Back to computers, there are far more hackers than police, therefore, no matter how much any government does to control the internet they will fail miserably.

Theyre scared, its the first thing they have been unable to control by force, they cant lock it down, they cant bomb it, they cant controll it AT ALL, as far as i can see theyre frightened of the internet.

Its too complex to understand for a politician, have you ever tried to explain the concepts of the internet to anybody not interested in computers? its damn difficult, im an IT Trainer, explaining what an IP address is can be difficult, never mind the rest of it.

Imagine being used to so much control over your country, then finding out there is something you will never have control of no matter what you attempt to do, what precedures you put in place or what laws you create.

"IF" i were to have illegal material on my computer, be it warez... etc... whats it stored on? a magnetic disk if you really didnt want to get caught then go out, buy yourself a hard disk caddy and make sure you have a solid brick wall and they call on your door, rip the caddy out and throw it at the wall as hard as you can, whats the result? a complete loss of ALL data, and a complete loss of all proof.

you see, there is nothing that can be done to control computers or the internet, its impossible, conventional law does not apply.

*ok, i was bored, i admit, i went OTT, LOL*

control over the world?

it's a pitty that politicians are not as far as funny as "Pinky and the Brain" ... at least we would have something to laugh everytime they try to be the masters of the universe ;)

you where OT? I'm veeery OT now ;)

and yes... you are absolutely right about:

have you ever tried to explain the concepts of the internet to anybody not interested in computers? its damn difficult

it was even so difficult to explain my father how important it is for his company to get a website. I made him a nice one for free (of course)... and he is still not sure if this is ok....

damn, you get "Pinky And Brain" over there ? i havent seen that in ages...

/me goes off to download some pinky and barin episodes to write to CD...

Legal Notice: to all law enforcement officers on this board, im actually going to "think" about downloading them but not actualy do it :D :stickout

while you are thinking about a potential download, you will not make :D sure I get Pinky and the Brain.... I'm paying something like $20 per month to get all the digital channels... including all the kids :rolleyes: channels

They rule the world... not brainm**ted politicians ;)

hmm, this is inded dificult, whilst "thinking" about downloading some episodes (but not actualy intending on downloading them)

my finger wildly clicked a few thousand times, and i cant find any frigin episodes, grrr...

looks like im gonna have to wait till i get home to do some intensive searching (without any intent on downloading any media) as looking at cartoons while you manager is behind you is difficult :eek:

I have to keep :spiny: my head around just incase hes looking over my shoulder while im looking at pinky and the brain :rolleyes:

*lol* :D come on... don't worry about your manager... perhaps he is "pinky+brain addicted", too ;)

oh, i dont worry about him, i mean lets face it, he lets me browse the internet for 8 hours a day :D

I just thought browsing for Cartoons might just push him that little bit too far, lol

hemmm... you are in liverpool right :rolleyes: does your company need somebody with good web skills, german, italian, and really disposed to get paid to surf around about 12 hours per day (7 days a week)?

*lol* such a lazy morning ;)

hmm, company I work for is General Motors :D (Vauxhall Motors UK)
you could try, but you have to get past the personnel department first.

You could try General Motors Germany ??? or even General Motors Italy ???

hemmm... no thanks. General Motors Liverpool or nothing :) it's more fun to surf around with a friend ;)

Totellini ?

LOL



__________________
I had some pasta fagoli yesterday ;)

pastafagioli rulez!!! but.... they are veeery dangerous... :D

tortellini -- Do you have any URL's (preferably in english) you could paste for us about these new laws in Italy?

The Australian government just introduced some wacky legislation too. Well, it's not nearly as bad as the Italian law you mentioned but it's certainly got some holes.

It concerns Internet gambling. It's now illegal in Australia. But Australian gambling sites can still serve overseas patrons, and Australian citizens can still use overseas gambling sites... so all it really prevents is Australian gambling sites having Australian patrons. Then, as a further proviso, online betting is still legal (as in sports betting, horse racing etc).

Australia has one of the highest rates of gambling addiction I believe. So I think the intent was there, the bill just got a nice watering from the Senate... :eek:

(not in the mood right now to explain Australia's parliamentary system for those who aren't familiar with it :))

Torti ( :) ), there were discussion regarding such regulations in a few european countries but none were implemented. Personally I can't believe that it's exactly as you told in your first posting. Do you have any URLs about this in English?

hi walter.. sorry nothing of this in english but perhaps with an onlinetranslator...

http://www.interlex.it

but anyway... believe me that "la nuova legge sulla editoria" is something like that.

I'm trying now to make a really short translation of the most important things stated on interlex.it (and believe me ... this site is really good).

1) if your website offers information and if it updated periodically, it must be registered into the register of the "editoria" ... something like all the newspapers have to do

2) when registering to this register of the "editoria", you have to say thename of the responsible director (therefore the name of the owner of the company if there are not special managers for this).

3) the person which is nominated as the responsible person, must be already registered as a journalist in another italian register.

Therefore if you offer information, periodically... you are outlaw if you do not do as stated here.

Since now, nobody is sure what exactly the wordperiodically means. A lot of friends of mine (including me), have started to update our pages with a chaotic timing. F.eg more than once daily, or 2 or times a week... and so on.

Oh... further on every website in Italy there must be:
a) the name + address of the owner of the website
b) the name + address of the responsible person/journalist
c) the name + address of the hosting company/companies

if you goto www.altavista.co.uk and click on the "translate" button and change the language to "italian - english" you will see a full english version of the site :-)

ok, ive just tranlated it all and i kinda think the translator has done a "really" bad job

its saying some very strange stuff to me, lol

*lol* online translators do still su**. Anyway... I think I've pointed out the most important things in my veeery short summary. In fact the most scaring thing is, that the responsible person of a periodically updated website which offers information, must be a journalist.

Therefore no freedom of speech... which is an universal right of everybody (except for spaghetti eaters).

As a result of this law, you can find hundreds of offers inside newsgroups... of journalists shouting around "take me, take me, I'll do this for you for 5.000.000 lire per year" (aprox $2000).

Great law Brain!!


P.S this laws apply for all the companies worldwide, which have pages online in italian (!), therefore even if your company is outside Italy... and even if your server is outside Italy.... this law is there!

I can't believe that there wasn't a loud cry of all ISPs, hosts, webmasters.... before this law was settled. Aren't there any country-specific host- or webmaster-forums in Italy? What do they all say?

Originally posted by tortellini
Therefore no freedom of speech... which is an universal right of everybody (except for spaghetti eaters).
Actually, it's not. It should be though it isn't. There are many countries where its citizens are not free to speak their minds.

That is a terrible law, one that seeks to turn all web hosts into censors and, as such, an extension of the government. You should seek to have it overturned. It will end up stifling expression, punishing hosts for not removing what others write, and can have long lasting detrimental effects for the country.


P.S this laws apply for all the companies worldwide, which have pages online in italian (!), therefore even if your company is outside Italy... and even if your server is outside Italy.... this law is there!
Only the ones located in Italy, of course, where the law can reach them.

Duster -> I fully agree with you

Walter -> we knew that a law like this was discussed early during this year. Some people (including me) got paranoic and started talking about this in so many mailinglists, newgroups and so on. But the crazy (perhaps normal) thing was, that nobody did really care about this.

Now that the law is out, media did a really bad job. I mean, all the 'hobby' webmasters out there do not know about it, but only the really envolved guys do. No comment on TV, no comment on the newspaper. At least a lot of websites started to inform their users about this, and things seem to be moving a bit right now. A lot of opinions (all negative) have been collected and have been sent to the government. But... nothing happened... the only thing happening is that the traditional media (newspapers + tv stations) are going on saying that this law is good -> on the web!

Therefore most of the people is still not informed, and we professionals are just fooled around. Sure, the big boys are happy for this... they already have done the necessary things to be ok with the law... and now they are just waiting that we big boys, without money, are going into big big trouble.

Another personal opinion: as you know Walter I do not live in Italy since about 4 years, and I'm really glad about this. Even if Italy is a democratic country... well, citizens do not live in a democratic situation. Did you know that in average it takes about 4 years to be able to go to a court, to have an official decision of a judge? Did you know that even if you are 100% right, it's only advisable to initiate legal steps against smbdy, if the damage you have is higher than $20,000? F.eg. if I go to an italian family... and steal their fridge, tv and hi fi (worth $1,000), they will not even start taking legal steps against you, coz.... it's not worth?

Conclusion -> if it takes 4 years to bring your "enemy" to a court... it will take even more if you want to do something against the italian laws. All we can do is hope and pray that the EU will finally see what's going on, and react.

Austria did get heavy sanctions .... Italy is killing the freedom of speech (did already do it with this law)... and NOBODY is thinking about doing something.

There are going to be so many ways around these laws+they will be so hard to prosecute that I don't know why they bother.

Hi tortellini, I have invested some time regarding this topic. I have found an interesting article on Telepolis (from Heise, the makers of c't) at http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/on/7375/1.html (in German!, title "Schafft Italien die Meinungsfreiheit ab?").
And I have sent email to the redacteurs at c't, they promised they will investigate this. Maybe it helps?

Hi Walter! Thanks a lot, will read it immediately. The only chance we (italians) have, is to let all the people around (living in 'real' democratic countries) know, what they are doing in Italy. Thanks a lot!

Well, all the info on this page is the same as I already got in Italian. At least I'm glad, that Heise published something about it. Did you already see an article on c't? I do read it quite often...

Originally posted by tortellini
Did you already see an article on c't?

No, no article in c't - I would have known about the topic. I read Telepolis not often. But Florian Rötzer from the c't red. assured me that they will look after it.
Probably you should write to other red's also (in Italy and elsewhere!)

Also we are waiting for new rules also

but they sucks
in addition to Italy
laws we will have

we wont give money to register but we must get approval for ever page we done

it is almost impossible think newsspaper pages they have tons of page and all need to register

also think porn sites:)

WE??? hemmm what country?

Turkey

Parliment doesnot approved this law yet(they didnot approved it first time)

But there are alot deputies want this law to be approved

Hi Walter,

Originally posted by Walter
Torti ( :) ), there were discussion regarding such regulations in a few european countries but none were implemented. Personally I can't believe that it's exactly as you told in your first posting. Do you have any URLs about this in English?

I am not tortellini but I know how to make them, in case you need the recipe ( ;) )!

Jokes apart, what he said is very true and there is a big (BIG) movement going on in the Italian www. Left-wing and right-wing internet people are all together on this issue: we all agree that this new law needs to be changed or at least made less vague and interpretable than it is now. As things stand now, any judge could decide one thing or its exact opposite and website owners are all at risk as they are all included in the dictations of this law.

Laws are not literature: they should be as clear and detailed and precise as possible in order to avoid as much as it is humanly possible the necessity to interpretate them.

In the case of this law, there are clearly many interests involved:
a) parties who want their websites to be funded by the goverment and therefore need for them to be enclosed in this regulation;
b) newspapers and information editing companies that are probably suffering because of the competition of other non-regulated (and not sponsored) websites;
c) politicians (again) who probably like the idea of regulating the information that goes around in the Italian internet: this law grants them a powerful tool when they need it. Of course to turn against whoever they need to "shut up".

Finally the links: the only one I have found in English is the following: http://snail.utenti.org/ but you must click on the English flag to get the info you need.
They have links to the law there and to other websites that cover this story.

If I find a site that talks about the law in English, I will post it here.

bye for now,
arabnity