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Clandestine ACTA Treaty Could Contain ISP Filtering

By: Justin Bourne

Posted: 06/06/2008

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has been secretly negotiated by trade negotiators from affluent countries around the world, according to ARS Technica. 

No text or hard-copy information exists, despite a recent leak involving a four-page memo about possible Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement provisions. 

Unidentified sources close to the development of the agreement discreetly presented more details to William Patry, Google's senior copyright counsel. Patry said things sound bleak.  

Patry recently noted in his blog that two separate sources discussed filtering. 

"The rumors of what is in the draft are pretty much all bad, and the scope is growing, not shrinking," he said. "It is even said that the latest version has filtering language in it. The second report was similar." 

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiators are gathering in Geneva this week to discuss further details of the proposed deal, but their work is already drawing online opposition from people like Patry. 

"The attitude of the United States Trade Representative toward copyright is a blinkered, one-sided view that copyright is good and, therefore, as much of it as possible is even better," Patry said.