EU Adopts Internet, Phone Rights Legislation

The European Parliament has adopted legislation giving phone and internet users broader rights than they had before.

In the internet arena, users will be able to challenge a disconnection by cell phone or landline operators, even if they are illegally sharing copyrighted material. The service provider would have to inform a user before cutoff and the user will be able to appeal to a national court.

A new EU-wide telecoms authority also would be set up to ensure fair competition.

By June 2011, The EU’s 27 nations must now implement the law in their national legislation.

For consumers, the most visible part of the law are the new rights they would get to switch cell phone or fixed line operators within one working day and to challenge disconnections, even if they are illegally sharing copyright-protected movies or music.

A service provider would have to inform users before cutting off access because of a copyright violation, and those users would be able to appeal to a national court.

Internet users still won’t have an automatic right to Internet access – as some EU lawmakers had originally intended. The European Parliament dropped that guarantee because of concerns it could hinder French and British efforts to cut off Internet access to persistent file sharers.