24 April 1996
PRESS STATEMENT

François Fillon proposes an international Internet initiative to his European partners at a meeting of EU telecommunications ministers in Bologna, Italy.

At an informal meeting of European telecommunications ministers, François Fillon, the French telecommunications minister, made it known that France feels that a concerted international initiative on conduct and consumer protection is desirable for the services of the information society, and most notably, the Internet. This proposal is based on the following convictions:

- The Internet is not a "network like any other": it is made up of different networks of different types, without an organised structure or central management system, and without precise details of the routes taken by information.

- The rapid development of communications on the Internet and of online services constitute an extraordinary source of riches for the international community but also includes serious risks for public order, risks confirmed by various problems noted in several countries (in the area of protection of persons and notably of minors and consumers, and protection of data, etc.)

- National regulations in each country are designed to ensure the respect of public order for online services of the country in question. Nevertheless, the trans-national nature of the Internet calls for appropriate international cooperation so that the decentralisation of servers does not make national regulations meaningless;

- This type of international cooperation would naturally not be designed to set up constraining Internet "regulations" as the very nature of this network prohibits all possibility of defining rules similar to those defined, for example, in the telematics domain. It is more a question of countries agreeing a minimum number of common principles which could form the basis of a "code of conduct" for the Internet.

It is for this reason that François Fillon suggests that these positions be incorporated into an international convention, which could cover the following subjects:

- minimal principles of a code of ethics applied to Internet services,

- determination of applicable rules (retaining the principle of application of the rules of the emitting country or receiving country for transaction signatories might be envisaged),

- principle of common responsibility for editors and site providers,

- basic principles of legal cooperation.

This convention should be debated in a multilateral framework, for example, through the OECD. With this in mind, France envisages adding the launch of such an initiative to the agenda of the G7 summit in Lyon, France in June 1996.

France also feels that this question should be treated in the perspective of an EU harmonisation policy. François Fillon also encouraged the European Commission to propose an EU action plan as soon as possible in the framework of the Green Paper on new services.

© Secretary of State for industry - France