So an honest question for the sites operators, who appear to be an injury solicitors. What's the deal with your Privacy Policy [1]? Is it a copy/paste from another site or did you mean it to be that bad? It's the reason I'm telling people not to supply the site with any personal details. It clearly says details will be used for "market analysis" (whatever that means) and the site operators can contact (spam) people by any means of communication the user gives them. I can't see a way to opt-out. I don't want to come across as offensive but I care about my privacy.
Yeah, it looks like it's been dragged over from the solicitors' other sites, which have entirely different purposes.
(I just had a word in person - I'm the one keeping the server up but that's the beginning and ending of my involvement.)
Response: "Yes. Sorry. That needs fixing and will be fixed asafp. We're not going to mail people, and 'market analysis' means 'analytics' in this case but is moot because we have none enabled anyway. It'll get removed/replaced as soon as the phones stop melting and we can put 10 mins into it."
As others have said, a large part of the problem is that the legislative change is not made public, and debated; instead the change to the existing law can be made by ministerial order - so there's no definitive text to link to, at the moment.
Basically, IANAL, but my understanding is that EMI (the recording company) took a case against UPC (a big ISP here), demanding that UPC block websites linking to illegal content (e.g. pirate bay). EMI lost the case, as the judge decided that copyright law did not provide that remedy.
But the judge in the case interpreted EU law as requiring such a remedy (I believe this is a controversial interpretation), and so the government (or rather, relevant junior minister) is going to update the law accordingly.
And that update, which we probably will not see, until after it is signed, is what the current campaign is about.
Personally, I think its great to see this campaign, and terrible that law with such potentially wide consequences could be enacted without debate. (I should note, this is all only a laymans interpretation; I'm not familiar with any legal subtitles.)
Since its been established that the Irish data protection commission has authority over Facebook (since their EMEA HQ is based in Ireland) what implications would this legislation have for FB I wonder? I know Facebook passed the recent privacy audit that the commission carried out but would the ability of record/movie companies etc. to have offending sites blocked through the courts here would obviously affect FB right?
I don't believe the final text has been released yet but my understanding is that it wouldn't effect Facebook anymore than it would effect a website which doesn't have a base in Ireland. The law is 'SOPA-like' because it gives Irish courts the right to tell an ISP or hosting service or other third party to block the site.
It is unclear at this time if infringing websites will be given notice that they are about to be blocked. Again, the final draft hasn't been released.
The scary thing is that they are trying to get this passed without a vote in parliament.
The scary thing is that they are trying to get this passed without a vote in parliament.
But, unlike the USA, a vote in parliament is a rubber stamp of government's opinion, based on the party whip being used, and pairing with the opposition parties.
This will pass. There are no big sites or organisations backing the opposition so there will be no world effecting black out or protest. Boot licking allies of the US gov will implement SOPA like legislation for them.
[1] http://stopsopaireland.com/privacy/