Quote:
Originally Posted by rryles
I'm under the impression that RIPA requires consent from both parties in a communication. I'm trying to see how that could be satisfied for site owners using robots.txt.
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It can't, but there are two issues embroiled in my original post.
For RIPA there is an "implied" consent argument, as raised by Simon Watkins of the Home Office in his email (par 15):
http://cryptome.org/ho-phorm.htm
However Fipr argue that this consent can not be assumed, and provide several layers to their argument, starting with the premise that consent to read (through publication) does not imply consent to intercept - a legally questionable view that I have heard counterargument from several lawyers, hence my post, and ending with less contestable arguments that consent cannot be assumed when:
- reading private email
- a page is not linked from any other page, therefore remains unpublished
- where access controls are in place on the website
Now as far as robots.txt I agree this has no bearing on RIPA but it does on copyright control. Any person publishing a web page and is happy to have their page read and classified by an automated process e.g. Google is unlikely to win damages from Phorm. My view, and I qualify that by saying only for "published" content, i.e. non of the Fipr specific cases apply (password protected etc).
No need to shoot me for having an unpopular view on this. I think the best way to fight Phorm is on the fact that they cannot distinguish with certainty between private content (e.g. password protected) and published content, nor can they accurately and reliably ignore all web email services.