UK Gov consultation on digital consumer rights
[usual if this is a re-post, don't think my other email is registered here] The UK Government’s Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) launched a consultation titled “Consultation on enhancing consumer confidence by clarifying consumer law”. The deadline for the consultation is 5 October 2012. The consultation proposes a range of options that seek to harmonise UK consumer law. What marks this out for digital industries such as social media, cloud computing, computer games, music services etc is that as part of the consultation the UK Government is proposing options for a set of consumer rights designed specifically for ‘Digital Content’. In short the proposal is to bring UK / European notions of consumer rights to the digital arena i.e. putting in place statutory notions of quality and rights such as return. The consultation makes direct or side reference to famous cases such as Amazon removing 1984 from Kindles and Sony forcing patches on users that stopped PS/3's running linux. Some of the proposed options would mean that companies would not simply have these rights. What's more the consultation makes is clear that the rights apply to all companies selling to the UK (wherever they are based) and they cannot be contracted out of. tVPN have created a short summary of the consultation here: http://www.virtualpolicy.net/ukcontentrights.html We are very interested in hearing from legal and other academics who would be interested in contributing to a joint response - see the link above for details. ren Ren Reynolds FRSA Founder: the Virtual Policy Network www.virtualpolicy.net --8<-- web: www.renreynolds.com Think Tank: www.virtualpolicy.net blog: terranova.blogs.com Skype: RenZephyr http://www.linkedin.com/in/renreynolds
FYI: My apologies for cross-posting. Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy (A Journal of Democracy Book) The revolutions sweeping the Middle East provide dramatic evidence of the role that technology plays in mobilizing citizen protest and upending seemingly invulnerable authoritarian regimes. A grainy cell phone video of a Tunisian street vendor’s self-immolation helped spark the massive protests that toppled longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Egypt’s "Facebook revolution" forced the ruling regime out of power and into exile. While such "liberation technology" has been instrumental in freeing Egypt and Tunisia, other cases—such as China and Iran—demonstrate that it can be deployed just as effectively by authoritarian regimes seeking to control the Internet, stifle protest, and target dissenters. This two-sided dynamic has set off an intense technological race between "netizens" demanding freedom and authoritarians determined to retain their grip on power. Liberation Technology brings together cutting-edge scholarship from scholars and practitioners at the forefront of this burgeoning field of study. An introductory section defines the debate with a foundational piece on liberation technology and is then followed by essays discussing the popular dichotomy of "liberation" versus "control" with regard to the Internet and the sociopolitical dimensions of such controls. Additional chapters delve into the cases of individual countries: China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia. This book also includes in-depth analysis of specific technologies such as Ushahidi—a platform developed to document human-rights abuses in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 elections—and alkasir—a tool that has been used widely throughout the Middle East to circumvent cyber-censorship. Liberation Technology will prove an essential resource for all students seeking to understand the intersection of information and communications technology and the global struggle for democracy. Contributors: Walid Al-Saqaf, Daniel Calingaert, Ronald Deibert, Larry Diamond, Elham Gheytanchi, Philip N. Howard, Muzammil M. Hussain, Rebecca MacKinnon, Patrick Meier, Evgeny Morozov, Xiao Qiang, Rafal Rohozinski, Mehdi Yahyanejad http://www.amazon.com/dp/1421405679/ref=pe_175190_21431760_M2C_SC_dp_1
Just a reminder that this consultation ends on 5 October so if you are minded to put in a response either via tVPN or directly there is not much time left. On 20 Jul 2012, at 09:05, Ren Reynolds <ren@aldermangroup.com> wrote:
[usual if this is a re-post, don't think my other email is registered here]
The UK Government’s Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) launched a consultation titled “Consultation on enhancing consumer confidence by clarifying consumer law”. The deadline for the consultation is 5 October 2012.
The consultation proposes a range of options that seek to harmonise UK consumer law. What marks this out for digital industries such as social media, cloud computing, computer games, music services etc is that as part of the consultation the UK Government is proposing options for a set of consumer rights designed specifically for ‘Digital Content’.
In short the proposal is to bring UK / European notions of consumer rights to the digital arena i.e. putting in place statutory notions of quality and rights such as return.
The consultation makes direct or side reference to famous cases such as Amazon removing 1984 from Kindles and Sony forcing patches on users that stopped PS/3's running linux. Some of the proposed options would mean that companies would not simply have these rights. What's more the consultation makes is clear that the rights apply to all companies selling to the UK (wherever they are based) and they cannot be contracted out of.
tVPN have created a short summary of the consultation here: http://www.virtualpolicy.net/ukcontentrights.html
We are very interested in hearing from legal and other academics who would be interested in contributing to a joint response - see the link above for details.
ren
Ren Reynolds FRSA Founder: the Virtual Policy Network www.virtualpolicy.net --8<--
web: www.renreynolds.com
Think Tank: www.virtualpolicy.net
blog: terranova.blogs.com
Skype: RenZephyr
http://www.linkedin.com/in/renreynolds
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participants (2)
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elham gheytanchi -
Ren Reynolds