ACTA is a proposed plurilateral agreement which aims to establish international standards on IPRs. The treaty is not part of any international agreement and it is criticised as being too severe. From Latin America, the only country that has joined the negotiations is Mexico; other countries are the US, the EU, Japan, Australia, Canada among others.
This week the European press has covered the 7th round of negotiation of this agreement - held in Mexico. The focus has being in a leaked document from last meeting. In this text, the United States proposed to establish a new role for Internet Service Providers (ISP) requiring them to engage fully in the fight against piracy. According to analysts, this role will put the Internet under total surveillance by private actors because they will need to block and filter sites.
To this effect, the European Data Protection fears for the privacy of the citizens and thus, it call for transparency in these negotiations. The next meeting of ACTA negotiators will take place in New Zealand in April.
For more info see also a report in the Numerama magazine (in French).
Sunday Surprises
9 hours ago
