British internet providers press for protection from libel

12:00 PM By CLAYTON HIRST

A group of more than 100 internet companies is to ask the British Government to pass laws to prevent organisations being sued for defamatory material online.

The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) – whose members include BT, Freeserve, Thus, AOL and Easynet – is expected to vote in favour of lobbying at a meeting on Wednesday.

The initiative is being driven by Thus, the Scottish telecoms company that owns Demon Internet, with 177,000 UK subscribers.

Last March Demon settled a libel case and paid damages to an academic who claimed he had been defamed by an anonymous posting on Demon's bulletin board.

In a paper to be presented at Wednesday's meeting, Thus claims that under existing UK law internet companies are being forced to play "judge and jury" with the material that appears on their websites.

Written by Thus's internet expert Richard Clayton, the paper says: "The lack of filtering by professionals before publication makes defamation several orders of magnitude more likely to occur than in traditional media."

The paper adds that "there is very little to prevent" internet companies hosting their sites abroad to avoid UK law.

The Supreme Court ruled last year that in the US internet service providers have full protection against libellous messages posted on the web.

Unlike the US, Mr Clayton said that under UK law internet companies are exposed to potentially huge libel damages.

Thus wants the Government to introduce primary legislation under laws already passed by the European Union, contained in the e-Commerce Directive. The Government has until January 2002 to bring its e-commerce laws in line with Europe.

The Department of Trade and Industry is expected to launch a consultation into the legislation in the spring.

Diana Wallis, a Liberal Democrat MEP, who was involved in lobbying on the European directive, said: "Internet companies should not be classed in the same league as publishers. They simply can't be expected to police everything on their sites."

On Wednesday the ISPA will vote on one of two possible solutions to the problems facing internet companies.

The simplest is to give companies total immunity from defamation laws. Internet companies would only remove material after a court order.

The second, more complex, solution would require an internet company to remove material if it receives a complaint. The author of the material would then have the right to respond. Under this system, an internet company would be legally protected.

Mr Clayton said: "The ideal solution would be to have total immunity. But we have to be realistic, and I suspect that the second solution may be more acceptable to Whitehall."