Internet News

A Paris appeals court has rejected requests to block the most popular adult tube sites in the country.

Following months of statements and threats pressuring tube sites to implement undefined age verification schemes, French media censor ARCOM went to court in March and April to demand that French ISPs block Pornhub, xHamster, xVideos, Cliphunter and Xnxx.

Meanwhile 2 morality campaign groups are also pushing for ISP blocking via the courts, and their blocking requests add YouPorn, RedTube and Tukif to the list.

ARCOM had  sent formal notices to tube site operators demanding they find a more robust solution than the simple declaration of age. The porn sites did not comply, seemingly because ARCOM had not defined what age verification methods would be acceptable.

French reports now reveal that the Council of State, an appeals court, issued a ruling rejecting the ARCOM blocking requests. The reasons for the rejection are not wholly clear so far but the most plausible is that recourse to blocking should be the last resort rather than the first call. It seems that ARCOM should be doing more work to define what age verification measures the porn websites should be taking.

The Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA), the censor for premium rate services (PRS) in the UK is to hand its responsibilities over to telecoms censor Ofcom by late 2023.

Subject to approval from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) , the PSA will then cease to operate as an independent body. The PSA says that it anticipates Ofcom will assume responsibility for regulation in the second half of 2023, with PSA staff transferring to Ofcom. Ofcom will look to retain the key components of Code 15 to continue regulation in the consumer interest. PSA rules and Code 15 will remain in place until the transfer.

The PSA Chairman, David Edmonds said:

The work of the PSA in recent years has reduced risks to consumer to historically low levels. We introduced in April this year a new set of regulations which further protect consumers. And the industry -- both phone companies and service providers -- is increasingly conscious of its own responsibility to ensure dubious services are not operated. Complaints to the PSA are down by over 90%. We are also conscious of market trends and as a result the Board decided that future regulation of an industry increasingly dominated by larger players would be better served by an organisation with the capacity and breadth of Ofcom rather than a free-standing body. We already work closely with Ofcom who designate the PSA to deliver the day-to-day regulation of the market, by approving our Code of Practice. We look forward to working with them on this transition.

This proposed transfer of responsibilities has already been approved by the Ofcom board.

India's cybersecurity censor, the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), will require  cloud and VPN providers to register their users. Custodial wallets, exchange, virtual asset providers, cloud providers and even VPN providers will have to keep records of their customers (KYC) and records of financial transactions for five years. Service providers will maintain logs of their systems for 180 days.

This would defeat the purpose of using a VPN and creates honeypots of data that could be misused for surveillance or stolen.

CERT-In are claiming that the new requirements will improve the overall cybersecurity posture and ensure a safe and trusted internet in India.

Update: VPN Providers Threaten to Quit India

6th May 2022. See article from wired.com

VPN companies are squaring up for a fight with the Indian government over new rules designed to change how they operate in the country. On April 28, officials announced that virtual private network companies will be required to collect swathes of customer data204and maintain it for five years or more204under a new national directive. VPN providers have two months to accede to the rules and start collecting data.

...

There's a worry other, more liberal governments will follow the Indian-Chinese model, too. Attacks on end-to-end encryption are commonplace in the UK, while the US joined India, the UK, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand in signing an international statement asking for backdoor access that would subvert encryption standards.

Read the full article from wired.com

Update: India's New VPN Policy Explained

10th May 2022. See article from beebom.com

A good write of how Indian government policies will effect the use of VPNs in India