[A2k] Gordon Renouf - on Paris Accord

[James Love]

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Begin forwarded message:

From: "Gordon Renouf" <grenouf@choice.com.au>
Date: June 19, 2006 10:52:20 PM EDT
To: <james.love@cptech.org>
Subject: Paris Accord

Jamie - a copy of my previous comments below. Happy for you to forward
to the list.

Comments on Paris Accord draft by Australian Consumers Association

"8. Bloggers must be protected from frivolous or abusive threats and
lawsuits by copyright owners, or others that assert limits of speech
or the use or sharing of information, particularly in the context of
reviews or criticisms of important political, economic or cultural
figures or institutions."

Can I suggest that this problem is not limited to blogs - includes
forums and plain vanilla web sites?

There have been numerous occasions in Australia where organisations
criticised in such media have attempted to silence critics and often
succeeded.

One of many examples: Whirlpool is a popular site for geeky types to
comment on the quality of IT services, ISPs, phones and more. After
some pressure they chose to take down some information criticsing
'pranking' and naming DC Marketing as the culprit. [Australia does
not yet have a do not call register - which in any case is only a
partial solution].

On the other hand point 12 in the same part of the document seems
rather broad in scope (unless I have misunderstood its
intention)  ... I can't hold a private workshop? A conference in
Dili, East Timor has to spend money on wi-fi in preference to say
interpreters?

Regards


Gordon Renouf
Manager, Policy and Campaigns
Australian Consumers Association
ACN 000 281 925
57 Carrington Road
Marrickville NSW 2024

Phone: 02 9577 3399
FaxL (02)  9577 3377
www.choice.com.au