Comment Articles

Illegal ISPs?

Guy Kewney AnchorDesk

Published: 24 Jan 2001 17:06 GMT

This is material which breaches commercial agreements in the movie industry. I acquired it by buying it from Amazon.com in America.

According to John Hutton, Minister of Health -- BT Internet connived in this; it displayed the illegal material (provided by Amazon) on its servers. It's a fair cop, Guv; and we'll all come quietly.

Well, it sounds absurd, of course; I intended that it should. But how is it more absurd than Hutton's claim that UK ISPs should not carry details of sites which offer babies for adoption?

According to the BBC, Mr Hutton said the warning was intended to help the ISPs stay within the law. "Recent High Court litigation in this country has confirmed that when an internet service provider becomes aware of illegal material on their server, they do need to take action to deal with that," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme.

Is it illegal to reveal that books are available for sale in the US which are not for sale in the UK? No, it isn't! Is it illegal to research how US people handle adoption? No it isn't! So what illegal material is Hutton on about?

And the answer: the examples I've given are no more absurd than Hutton's. It is a fact that people in other countries do things which are illegal in the UK; and it is also true that we do things openly, here, which would be grounds for imprisonment elsewhere. For example, we advertise beer on TV, and sell it in public.

In this country, adoption is carefully regulated. Some of those regulations don't apply to couples adopting children in the US. That information -- is it illegal, too?