New Protection for ISPs

Nik Barron - www.virus.org - 20 January 2010Security

Amendments to the Electronic Commerce Directive provide new protection

Amendments to the Electronic Commerce Directive provide new protection for ISPs operating in the UK where their systems are used to transmit "hate speech" material that falls foul of other legislation. Where ISPs act simply as a conduit or cache for such material they will not be held liable for its content.

However, such protection is unlikely to apply to corporate bodies, who have a clear duty of care to protect their employees from offensive material. Although not foolproof, use of a web content filtering system such as Smoothwall's Guardian range significantly reduces the risk and also demonstrates "best practice", as well as providing a wide range of other benefits.

More information:

• www.out-law.com: E-commerce Regulations updated