Dear Public Policy wikifolk,
As some of you may be aware, I've been working with Jessica Coates (cc'd) -
of the Australian Digital Alliance(ADA) - formerly from Creative Commons
international - on a Wikimedia advocacy campaign in Australia with regards
to the possibility that Fair Use legislation could be introduced into the
Australian Copyright Act. This has been recommended many times before by
various government enquiries, and the Library and Education sectors of
Australia have long hoped for its introduction. Our current system - known
as Fair Dealing - is extremely limiting and prescriptive, which is why it
was illegal, for example, to use a personal VCR recorder in Australia until
2006, just to take one example...
Having sought and received confirmation from WMF-Legal that the proposal is
technically and legally allowable, and also received confirmation from the
ADA that their staff/communications/documentation resources would be
available to do the 'heavy lifting' in terms of public communications, I
have been running this straw poll/consultation with the Australian,
english-Wikipedia community:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians%27_notice_bo…
You can see there the details of the proposed advocacy campaign on-wiki,
and also the background details of why this legal issue is relevant right
now in the Australian political landscape.
In short - I'm proposing to run banners on en.wp to logged out users in the
Australian-IP range who are viewing WP articles which include a Fair Use
image (e.g. corporate logo, album cover, film title card...), which will
point them to a landing page [probably on meta] explaining what Fair Use in
Australia would mean in practice, and why it's not nearly as scary as the
Copyright Lobby would have them believe. It can then point people to
further resources on the ADA website, ask them to contact their local
politician on the matter etc. [I do NOT intend for wikimedians to be
collecting a petition]. In this regard it is rather similar to the FoP
advocacy campaign run in Europe.
here's some local political context:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/productivity-commission-to-say-fair-use-could…
and here's a video that ADA produced a couple of years ago for their
previous lobbying campaign in this topic (which was pitched to an audience
of online-creative industry in general)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ACreationistas_-_Aust…
And here's the actual government enquiry report which is currently sitting
in front of the politicans waiting for a formal reply:
http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/intellectual-property/report
As you can see at the Straw Poll/Consultation page the comments so far are
heavily (though not unanimously) in favour of running this advocacy
campaign on-wiki. It has been advertised through watchlist notifications in
the Australian IP range, emails to the Australian-chapter mailing list, as
well as talkpage notices to the 1700 people in the category:Australian
Wikipedians.
So, as people involved in wikimedia/open-access advocacy in general, you're
welcome to comment on that page yourselves (though - do please indicate if
you're actually going to be affected by this proposal, since it's only
going to be visible in Australia). Equally - I'd love your feedback and
help in designing the banner and landing page (on meta?) IF the
consultation is eventually closed as demonstrating confirmed
relevant-community consensus to support. Obviously there's a Communications
side of this as well.
Sincerely,
Liam / Wittylama
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
Hi all,
As we have stated in our annual plan [1], “currently, community members
must search many pages and places to stay informed about Foundation
activities and resources.” We have worked in the past two quarters to
create a single point of entry. We call it the Wikimedia Resource Center,
and its alpha version is now live on Meta Wikimedia:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center
As the movement expands to include more affiliates and more programmatic
activities every year, newer Wikimedians are faced with lack of experience
in the movement and its various channels for requesting support. In order
to expand Wikimedia communities’ efforts, we want to provide easy access to
resources that support their very important work. The [[m:Wikimedia
Resource Center]] is a hub designed in response to this issue: it is
intended to evolve into a single point of entry for Wikimedians all over
the world to the variety of resources and types of staff support they may
need to develop new initiatives or also expand existing ones.
This version of the Resource Center is only the beginning. For phase two of
the project, we will enable volunteer Wikimedians to add resources
developed by other individuals or organizations to the Wikimedia Resource
Center, and in phase three, the Wikimedia Resource Center will include
features to better connect Wikimedians to other Wikimedians that can
support them.
We want to hear what you think about this prototype and our plans for it!
If you have comments about the Wikimedia Resource Center, you can submit
your feedback publicly, on the Talk Page, or privately, via a survey hosted
by a third party, that shouldn’t take you more than 4 minutes to complete.
A feedback button is on the top right corner on every page of the hub.
Looking forward to more collaborations!
Best,
María
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2016-2017/…
--
María Cruz
Communications and Outreach Project Manager, Community Engagement
Hi,
I attended a Munich conference on platforms and intermediaries in copyright law last week on Thursday and Friday <http://www.platforms.jura.uni-muenchen.de/index.html>, slides and other material will be published at <http://www.zr11.jura.uni-muenchen.de/aktuelles/index.html> The conference was organized by the Munich University in close connection with the Munich IP law center, the MPI and some GRUR people. Attendands came from many European member states, the US and Japan. Both the Commission and some national Governments for the Council were present.
The (in)official purpose of the conference was to get academics and practitioners from many fields together in preparation of the upcoming EU directive on the Digital Single Market. We talked about Art. 11 and 13.
If you are concerned about Art 11, the neighboring right for publishers, you all can sleep softer, Art. 11 is dead. Not a single person out of almost 200 attending the conference defended it in a straw poll, besides of course the representative of the commission and the NL ministery (on behalf of the council).
Art. 13 is the big elephant. I talked to a representative of the Commission and a high level lawyer with the NL ministry of security and justice (which has the lead on the subject matter for the council). Both assured me that they are aware of Wikipedia and want to keep us completely out of this regulation. They confirmed my concern that the draft wording of Art 13 is ambiguous and might cover Wikipedia as it is. So the movement needs to check in with all contacts and bring this matter to their attention until this is resolved! I presented both of them with the small Wikipedia pin.
And if someone from Germany or on the Union level has any contact to GRUR, it would be useful to brush that up, as they will be heavily involved in the further process. There will be a GRUR conference on the Digital Single Market directive in Brussels on June 12. I believe WikiMedia should be present with someone who can be convincing at a law conference. Show yourselves and make everyone aware that Art. 13 is of concern to us and the wording needs to be changed, and soon.
BTW: Everyone was really happy about seeing me, they appreciate Wikipedia to attend such events. That we become visible and participate in discussions on ongoing issues. Please keep that in mind for further events. And bring pins. Everyone loves them.
Henning Schlottmann, Munich
([[User:H-stt]], admin on deWP and Commons)
Hi policy folks,
-----
tl;dr: Please check out and participate in the new copyright strategy on
Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_strategy>, and attend the
accompanying IRC office hour
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours> on
September 15.
-----
As you may have already seen on other mailing lists or through messages
on-wiki, we on the WMF legal team have been putting together a new strategy
for identifying, prioritizing, and addressing copyright issues that affect
Wikimedia <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_strategy>. The goal of
the strategy is to improve how Wikimedia does its copyright-related work by
providing a centralized place for everyone—staff and non-staff alike—to
organize and collaborate on that work. There’s more information on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_strategy
The strategy is designed to work with all sorts of issues, including things
like MediaWiki feature design, Creative Commons license compliance and
project copyright policies. I’m hoping the copyright strategy pages will
also become a place to track and discuss copyright-related public policy
opportunities and developments. If a copyright lawsuit is filed, copyright
legislation is proposed, or an opportunity arises to share Wikimedia’s
perspective on copyright with policymakers, it can be added to the
strategy’s list of issues
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_strategy/Issues>. We can then
all talk about it and propose responses or activism.
The goal of the strategy is not to replace this mailing list, the public
policy portal <http://policy.wikimedia.org>, or anywhere else where policy
discussions are already thriving, but to supplement existing forums. By
documenting discussions and keeping them active on-wiki, we can help make
sure we don’t lose track of anything.
If you have questions about all of this, I encourage you to leave a comment
on the copyright strategy talk page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Copyright_strategy>. The legal team
will also be holding an office hour on IRC
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours>to
discuss the strategy on September 15 at 14:00 UTC.
I hope you’ll participate!
Best,
Charles M. Roslof
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
croslof(a)wikimedia.org
(415) 839-6885
NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged
information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please
delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the
Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice
to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff
members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see
our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.
Hello everyone,
For your reading pleasure, here is our fourth issue of our newsletter. Here
is what has happened in public policy in February and early March 2017:
Policy Issue Highlights
Supporting collaboration across borders
On March 14, along with 50 other organizations, we signed an amicus brief
in State of Hawaii v. Trump before the United States District Court of
Hawaii to support the issuance of a temporary restraining order against a
new executive order that imposes restrictions on travel and immigration
based on national origin. Judge Derrick K. Watson granted the temporary
restraining order after the first hearing, and we are happy with this
outcome. We believe that international collaboration for free knowledge
benefits from people’s ability to travel without undue restrictions. We
will share more as the case proceeds.
See the amicus brief:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Tech_Amici_Curiae_Brief,_Hawaii_v…
Read our blogpost for more context:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/03/15/amicus-brief-us-travel-restrictions/
See also our blogpost about the amicus brief we joined against a similar
executive order in early February:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/06/amicus-brief-immigration-travel-restr…
Transparency Report
In February, we released the transparency report for the second half of
2016. The report sheds light on the requests we receive to alter or remove
content from the Wikimedia projects, or provide nonpublic information about
users. Between July and December 2016, we received 13 requests for user
data, including six from government entities. We produced data in only one
of those cases. In the same time period, we received 187 alteration or
take-down requests, including two from government entities. And we are
proud to say that we granted none of them.
We believe in protecting the privacy of Wikimedians and in the importance
of freedom of expression on the internet. They are critical values for the
Wikimedia movement, and through the transparency report, we document the
kinds of threats they face and the work we do to defend them.
Read the whole transparency report:
https://transparency.wikimedia.org/
Read the blogpost about the transparency report:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/13/sixth-transparency-report/
EU Copyright Reform
In September 2016, the European Commission presented its Proposal for a
Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Now, the Committees of
the European Parliament have published their draft opinions. We are closely
following the debate and observing at least two positive trends: the
proposal to require internet platforms to implement automatic content
detection systems (Art. 13) is getting some serious pushback in both the
draft opinion of the Internal Market Committee and Rapporteur Comodini’s
draft report. In addition, the Culture and Education Committee’s draft
opinion proposes Freedom of Panorama, albeit only for non-commercial use.
MEP Julia Reda has commissioned a study about the compatibility of Art. 13
with the current legal framework of the EU. The study finds that the
proposed norm is in conflict with EU copyright law, the e-commerce
directive, and three fundamental rights protected by the Charter of
Fundamental Rights. The author of the study, Dr. Christina Angelopoulos of
the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge,
suggests deleting the norm altogether.
We are in close contact with Dimi, who does amazing work on the ground in
Brussels and also regularly sends updates about his work to this list, and
optimistic about positive changes to European copyright law.
Follow the legislative procedure here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2016/…
Read the study on Art. 13:
https://juliareda.eu/2017/03/study-article13-upload-surveillance/
See also EFF’s blogpost on the draft report of the Legal Affairs Committee:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/leaked-report-slams-european-link-tax…
Comments to the U.S. Copyright Office about Sec. 512 (second round)
In addition to our support of free knowledge in the EU copyright reform, we
are also engaging in a consultation by the U.S. Copyright Office about the
rules for intermediary liability in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA). In February, we submitted our comments on improvements to the safe
harbor of Sec. 512 and addressed questions about diversity of platforms,
public interest, measures for the effectiveness of the current rules,
tackling abuse of the system, and the need for additional educational
resources for users. Broadly speaking, we believe that any changes to the
current system need to take into account the diversity both among service
providers and creators. In our comments, we point out how Sec. 512 has
promoted the growth of the internet and diversity among service providers
and voice our concerns over a “notice-and-staydown” system that would
require automatic content detection.
We look forward to seeing more empirical research around Sec. 512 and hope
that the Copyright Office will base its recommendations for changes to the
law on this evidence.
Read our submission for this second round of comments to the U.S. Copyright
Office:
https://policy.wikimedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wikimedia-foundatio…
See also our blogposts from 2016 about the first round of comments:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/06/save-safe-harbors-open-web/https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/06/16/copyright-law/
Further reading:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170222/11214836767/why-dmcas-notice-tak…https://blog.archive.org/2017/02/23/the-internet-archive-pushes-back-on-not…https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/eff-copyright-office-safe-harbors-work
Update on IMDb.com, Inc. v. Harris
In our previous newsletter, we told you about the amicus brief that we
joined in support the right to publish truthful information, in IMDB.com’s
case against a new law in California, AB 1687, that would require websites
like IMDB that offer employment services to remove information about an
actor's age or birthday upon request. Recently, a United States District
Court Judge issued a preliminary injunction to temporarily suspend the law
while the lawsuit is pending. Opponents of the law have voiced concerns
over its restrictions on freedom of expression. And indeed, Judge Chhabria
found that “it’s difficult to imagine how AB 1687 could not violate the
First Amendment.” While this is a positive sign and the law remains on
hold, there will still be further hearings before the case is resolved.
Read the amicus brief:
https://www.eff.org/files/2017/01/13/026-1_amicus_curiae_brief_of_eff_fac_m…
Further reading:
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/ninth-circuit-court-order-suggests-it-m…http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=39fa9cb4-6d09-4cfd-ba2b-3d327…
Met releases 375,000 images under CC Zero license
Early last month, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (“The Met”)
released 375,000 images under a Creative Commons Zero dedication. The
release is part of the world-renown museum’s open access policy, “which
makes images of artworks [the Met] believes to be in the public domain
widely and freely available for unrestricted use, and at no cost [...]”.
The WikiProject Metropolitan Museum of Art will add these images to
Wikimedia Commons and document the artworks with metadata on Wikidata.
We are very happy to see this initiative coming from such a high-profile
museum and hope that others will follow the Met’s example. Promoting the
use and enjoyment of works in the public domain -- rather than locking them
up -- is good for creators and everybody’s participation in our cultural
heritage.
Read the blogpost:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/07/the-met-public-art-creative-commons/
The Met’s announcement:
http://metmuseum.org/press/news/2017/open-access
The Met’s open access policy and images:
http://metmuseum.org/about-the-met/policies-and-documents/image-resources
WikiProject Metropolitan Museum of Art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art
Misc.
Tackling harassment to increase access to knowledge
We work to support a welcoming environment on the Wikimedia projects and
the larger web to promote diversity and inclusivity. Reducing harassment
increases the number of people who can actively and safely participate in
free knowledge. In its project Detox, the Wikimedia Foundation’s research
team has used machine learning models to develop tools that can detect
toxic comments in discussions on talk pages and measure their prevalence.
Jigsaw, the Google-owned company who was part of that research project,
recently launched the Perspective API, which allows websites to give users
real-time feedback on the comments they are writing.
We support new ways of improving community health that are mindful of
freedom of expression and access to knowledge. Tools like Detox or
Perspective can help to make discussions and conversations productive and
fruitful and ensure that everybody is able to contribute to free knowledge.
Read more about Detox:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Detox
Find more information about Perspective:
https://www.perspectiveapi.com/
Your Input
We would love to hear from you! If you have any feedback or would like us
to include things that you see happening in your country or elsewhere,
please fill out this form
<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/forms/d/1-_XXZ3CC0tqX0vRQyU2cHjXxf3…>
or follow up with me by email at <jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org>.
All the best,
Stephen and Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Dear Wikimedians,
If you are a representative of an Affiliate, committee, or other
organized group in the Wikimedia Movement, please read this email
carefully and forward it to your peers.
I am writing you today in my role as the Movement Strategy Lead for
organized groups (Track A), and would like to encourage you to
actively participate in Wikimedia’s movement strategy process.
Together with you, we would like to find answers to the question “What
do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15 years?”
https://2030.wikimedia.org is the universal start page to the strategy
portal on Meta.
== This is our time! ==
This is the time many of us have been waiting for for years. I would
love to see each and every one of you make your voice heard and take
the chance to shape the future of our movement together.
== Timeline and process ==
The timeline up to Wikimania 2017 is organized in 3 consecutive
discussion cycles that are designed to explore, cluster and sharpen
the strategic direction and define 3-5 focus areas for the movement.
After Wikimania, we will discuss the movement structure, roles, as
well as 3-5-year goals and starting in 2018, organizations will
incorporate the findings into their strategic and annual planning.
Today, we are kicking off cycle 1 which is running until 15 April.
Organized groups will find all relevant information on the Meta page
for Track A.[1]
== Get involved! ==
Last week I reached out to all Chairs and EDs of Affiliates as well as
to active members of other organized groups and committees. While I
have heard from many, I would like to remind everyone to appoint a
discussion coordinator for your group that will act as the linker to
the strategy process.[2][3][4]
As an organized Group, you can invite all your stakeholders to join
your conversation: Board and staff members, members, external partners
and allies as well as members of your communities. Track A is closely
connected to Track B (Individual Contributors)[5], as many organized
Groups have close bonds with their local or thematic communities. We
encourage Track A and Track B coordinators to sync on their plans.
Your conversations can happen on- and offline. To host a conversation,
please read the discussion guide[6] that provides material to prepare,
conduct and document each conversation in each format. Before you and
your peers enter the conversation, please make yourself familiar with
the briefing[7] which provides a high-level overview of what we know
about the future and about our movement today.
I also look forward to seeing many of you at the Wikimedia Conference
in Berlin where we will discuss our future, generate thematic
statements, identify keywords and create thematic clusters of our
ideas. The rough outline of the program will be adjusted in the coming
days.[8]
Let’s make this happen! Please reach out to me with any question or
feedback you might have.
Sincerely,
Nicole
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Strategy/Wikimedia_movem…
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Toolkit/Di…
[3] Sign-up to become a Discussion Coordinator here:
https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.de/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyzOcB9FmgWWrenoe0…
[4] Overview of organized groups’ discussions
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Outreach/L…
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Track_B
[6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Toolkit/Di…
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Process/Br…
[8] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017
--
Nicole Ebber
Adviser International Relations
Movement Strategy Track Lead: Organized Groups
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Dear all,
Many of you have helped translating and sending out our position paper on
the EU copyright reform addressed to the Council (i.e. the national
governments). [1] Thank you so, so much for that! We have gotten in touch
with 16 Member States' governments in their national language and are
expecting at least three more countries to be covered before this month
ends. This an excellent geographic spread. We are getting close to the
number of language versions and national campaigns organisations like the
WWF, Amnesty International and Greenpeace achieve. In order to make sure
our voice doesn't get lost in the national capitals, we will have to follow
up in each of these countries by requesting a (in some cases second)
meeting with the copyright authorities and localising our asks. This will
be the main focus of the upcoming Big Fat Brussels Meeting. [2]
In the meanwhile, the European Parliament has also started working on the
reform. The rapporteurs in the four responsible committees (Legal Affairs,
Internal Market, Industry & Research, Culture) have published their draft
reports (i.e. the changes they are proposing). I have re-mixed and slightly
updated the position paper, so it makes sense if given to MEPs in the
coming months. [3] The most meaningful change is that we can now
realistically support a user-generated content exception. This was an
absolute non-starter a few months ago, but is suddenly being seriously
considered in at least two committees. I would be grateful for your
comments and edits to the new text this week.
Thank you and keep up the good work!
Dimi
[1]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_Policy_Consultations
[2]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Big_Fat_Brussels_Meeting_4
[3]
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ew_4mazCgoFne8lUs60TpZPp6FI9_vBYEByec91…
Note: Apologies for cross-posting and sending in English. This message is available for translation on Meta-Wiki.[1]
As we mentioned last month, the Wikimedia movement is beginning a movement-wide strategy discussion, a process which will run throughout 2017. This movement strategy discussion will focus on the future of our movement: where we want to go together, and what we want to achieve.
Regular updates are being sent to the Wikimedia-l mailing list,[2] and posted on Meta-Wiki.[3] Each month, we are sending overviews of these updates to this list as well.
Here is a overview of the updates that have been sent since our message last month:
Update 7 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (16 February 2017)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10195092
- Development of documentation for Tracks A & B
Update 8 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (24 February 2017)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10201503
- Introduction of Track Leads for all four audience tracks
Update 9 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (2 March 2017)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10207604
- Seeking feedback on documents being used to help facilitate upcoming community discussions
Sign up to receive future announcements and monthly highlights of strategy updates on your user talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10153505
More information about the movement strategy is available on the Meta-Wiki 2017 Wikimedia movement strategy portal.[3]
A version of this message is available for translation on Meta-Wiki.[1]
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updates/Ov…
[2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
List moderators may request that their mailing list not receive future updates by contacting Gregory Varnum (gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org).
Dear all,
I can finally share with you some more practical information about the
venue, times and facilitation of this year's Big Fat Brussels Meeting,
which is to take place on the 22 and 23 of April.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Big_Fat_Brussels_Meeting_4
If you can confirm your presence by adding your user names to the page,
that would help me and the facilitator prepare.
Thank you and don't hesitate to ask any questions!
Cheers,
Dimi
I think the privacy implications here are worth taking a stand on.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Evan at FFTF <team(a)fightforthefuture.org>
Date: Sun, Mar 5, 2017 at 1:29 PM
Subject: Comcast wants to spy on you
Urgent: Comcast’s friends in Congress are planning a sneak attack to
gut basic privacy protections that prevent your Cable company from
spying on you. The vote could come as soon as next week. Take action
now:
The same Big Cable companies that are trying to dismantle net
neutrality are now trying to destroy online privacy too.
Corrupt lawmakers are planning to use the Congressional Review Act
(CRA) to bulldoze important rules that prevent cable companies from
spying on you and selling your personal information to advertisers.
[1]
The worst part is, if they succeed, the change will be *permanent.*
The current or future FCC will not be able to reinstate the rules. But
they’re racing against a deadline, and if we can delay the vote, we
can still stop them.
Click here to contact Congress and tell them not to use the CRA.
The stakes are incredibly high. Cable companies wouldn’t just be
surveilling your browser history, they’d be collecting -- and possibly
selling -- your geolocation data, financial information, even your
social security number. [2]
Internet users fought hard to get these basic privacy protections
passed in the first place. We can’t let greedy ISPs take them away
from us.
There’s still time. Contact Congress and tell them not to use the CRA.
We need to spark a massive outcry right now to delay this vote and
foil Comcast’s plan. Please forward this email widely and share the
link with your friends.
For the Internet,
-Evan at Fight for the Future
[1] EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/congress-contemplating-making-it-ille…
[2] Daily Dot: https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/gop-rollback-broadband-privacy-cra/
[3]