Broadband News

Internet heroes and villains of 2007

(15-01-08) - The Internet Service providers’ Association (ISPA) has announced its internet heroes and villains nominations for 2007.

On the heroes list are the massively popular social networking site Facebook “for respecting peoples’ browsing privacy by retracting the Beacon service, a system which automatically records user’s online spending habits, by making it an opt-in not opt-out service,” and Stephen Timms, the Minister for Competitiveness currently pushing for a next generation broadband network in the UK and “for leading the push to increase Internet access speeds, paving the way for services such as high-definition Internet TV”.

Other nominees include the Financial Services Authority, for keeping a “keen eye on the promotional websites of financial services,” Peter Robbins, chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation for, for his approach to “fostering extensive partnerships with the Internet industry, the government and law enforcement agencies to tackle illegal online content,” and finally Derek Wyatt MP for his work as the chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group since 1997.

On the other side though, a number of villains were nominated, including BT Wholesale and Tory leader David Cameron MP.

BT Wholesale - not to be confused with the provider's retail arm BT (www.BT.com), was named a villain for “changing the whole engineering plan for 21CN only six months before the launch date”. The BT 21 Century Network, due to launch this spring, will provide nationwide ADSL connections at speeds of up to 24Mb, while Mr Cameron was nominated for “buddying up with the music industry and trying to appeal to a younger audience”.

Another high profile villain was French President Nicolas Sarkozy for “his proposed new tax on internet access and mobile phone use to fund France's two public television channels, which would be free of advertising”. The other two nominees were HM Revenue and Customs for failing to protect peoples’ personal data, and the BPI for its “heavy handed approach” against consumers with regards to music filesharing.

Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “This year’s nominations clearly represent two of the internet’s most talked about issues in 2007; a superfast fibre optic broadband connection and illegal file sharing - issues that will remain controversial through 2008 as the Government and ISPs thrash it out over who will fund a costly fibre-optic network, and proposed legislation aimed at making ISPs accountable for customer’s illegal downloading if nothing is done to curb the continually increasing use of illegal peer-to-peer networks.”

Related article - 2007's fastest ISPs are named.

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