French green-light radical overhaul of internet and telecoms

The French internet landscape is taking on the look of a battlefield, after the country's MPs approved a second reading earlier this month of the 'Confidence in the digital economy' bill. The bill aims to clarify legislation in several areas: e-commerce; service providers' legal responsibilities; the various remits of regulators; cybercrime; and telecoms.

However, the bill raises as many questions as it gives answers and has polarised opinion over whether it will actually be effective.

The debates over the bill seem to have taken the form of a war of lobbies. What the French term 'cultural industries' - including everything from the music and film world, telecoms operators, access providers, online shopping services, direct marketing professionals, consumers' associations, web users' associations - have laid siege to the French parliament and demanded their voices be heard.

The debate remained heated right up to the last minute, with French MPs trying to keep everyone happy by making concessions to the most powerful pressure groups every time an element of the bill met with opposition.

No one's claiming victory, however, and the uneasy truce looks set to last only until the next reading in the upper house.

The MPs adopted an amendment that would make the bill the basis of internet law in France, differentiating it from previous legislation used to cover the subject, passed in the eighties, which dealt with the "audiovisual" spectrum.

The amendment didn't find favour with internet content professionals irritated by illegal downloading, who demanded their work be protected by the same legislative framework as their counterparts in TV and radio. The French parliament intends to tackle the issue of the creation and dissemination of 'cultural works' and respecting intellectual property in a separate bill.

Hosting companies would, if the law is passed, also have to monitor their networks for any illicit content they may be hosting. The debates on the subject pitted the hosting industry, backed up by web users' associations, against the cultural industries.

The Senate proposed that hosting companies should only cut off access to a site after having it warned of the presence of illicit content, while the MPs demanded a provision that if the companies don't act as soon as they know about the "illicit nature" of the content, they will land themselves in legal hot water.

ISPs should beware too. In a concession to the music industry, ISPs will no longer be able to use the speed of download as an advertising hook and any mention of downloading files has to show a clearly visible reminder that illegal downloads hurt artists.

Direct marketing companies may, on the other hand, have scored a small victory. They can continue to market by email without any restricitions as long as they include an unsubscribe option. Emailing an individual who hasn't physically given their consent, however, isn't allowed. After the law goes into effect, marketers have six months to get the consent of the people on their databases. If they get no response, it's counted as the equivalent of a refusal.

On the telecoms side, local authorities in French overseas will have the right to become telecoms operators if the bill becomes law. Thierry Breton, CEO of France Télécom, came out against such a move last week, requesting the government reject the proposal.

Other proposals will win favour - with consumers. Calls from both landlines and mobiles will have to be charged by the second, aside from connection cost, and 0800 'free' numbers will be free from mobiles, as they already are for landlines.

Estelle Dumout writes for ZDNet France