5 years ago... Wire-tapping laws set to cost UK ISPs millions

20.08.99The UK government's amendments to the Interception of Communications Act (IOCA) could cost large ISPs more than £1m a year, according to Demon Internet - the first ISP to complete a cost analysis of the proposals.

Following the launch of a vague consultation document, and after talks with ISPA and LINX, the Home Office has announced that large ISPs such as Demon Internet must be capable of intercepting one in 500 dial-up or one in 1,000 leased lines carrying IP data traffic, and it is expecting them to foot the bill.

20.08.04 The so-called 'wire-tapping bill' was a source of angry debate and much concern throughout 1999. Concerns were expressed about it in the Commons, among the police and unsurprisingly among telcos and ISPs.

Since 1999 attempts to involve ISPs more actively in policing the internet and reporting crimes and identifying those committing them have increased in number - to differing degrees of popularity.

The idea that ISPs should take a more active role in controlling the use of their chatrooms, with regards to grooming and the dissemination of child pornography was popular with many, but suggestions that ISPs hand over customer information to the RIAA as it pursued file-sharing convictions was not so popular.

Also ISPs have been called on to do their bit in limiting the amount of spam travelling over their networks, though many initiatives at the ISP end owe as much to 'peer-pressure' and customer loyalty - and the need to compete - as they do to actual legal obligation. Many ISPs now claim to block spam entering and leaving their networks because customers want them to and expect it of them - not because they have been forced to. And that underlines the key issue regarding ISPs and their role - they are first and foremost businesses, with business concerns.