More realistic Internet measures called for
Calls have been made in two Member States for a more realistic timescale and breadth for national measures to build an information society. In the UK, the British chambers of commerce (BCC) has called for the government to drop its commitment to getting 1 million small firms online by next year. Instead, it says that more effort should be directed into ensuring that the companies that are online offer world class e-business services, with help from the government in the form of capital allowances for the firms' investment in appropriate hardware and software. The call is based on research available to the BCC indicating that the level of SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) online has reached a plateau at around 500,000. The target of 1 million small firms online by 2002 in the UK is being overseen by the UK's e-commerce minister, Douglas Alexander. Meanwhile in Spain, the country's ministry of science and technology has published the results of the latest study analysing Spanish progress towards the Information society. Whilst showing progress in areas such as online banking and educational centres with Internet access, where Spain is above the European average, other indicators are less encouraging. Overall use of the Internet, use and availability of broadband and the number of hosts and secure servers are all areas in which Spain is lagging behind the European average. The survey was carried out jointly by the ministry and the association of Spanish information technology businesses (SEDISI). The Spanish government announced on 15 November that its Information society programme will have a 499 million euro budget in 2002, with an additional 49 million euro added to help, among other objectives, spread telecommunications services to rural areas. The country's telecommunications regulator, the Commission for telecommunications markets, helped to bring another key element of the Information society closer on 16 November when it introduced a series of measures which will make the unbundling of the country's local loop easier. Opening access to the last mile of Telefonica's network should lead to more competition and lower prices. Finally, a US project has called for more realistic filtering of e-content. Filtering software is designed to ensure that inappropriate content is screened out for users of the Internet, but the results of a survey by the Free expression policy project of the national coalition against censorship (FEPPNCC) found that too much was often screened out. The survey was designed to assist policymakers in their approach to further use of filtering software. Describing the tests, the FEPPNCC said that 'nearly every one revealed massive over-blocking by filtering software.' Results which were innocuous but which were screened out by certain filter software included part of the website for the city of Hiroshima, the US declaration of independence, Shakespeare's complete plays, as well as sites advocating monogamy, condemning drug abuse and monitoring human rights abuses.
Kraje
Spain