Regulating content and Internet services: from PRS to net neutrality

This chapter examines the regulation of third party content transmitted by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), though that general term of art needs definition for the purposes of the chapter. The chapter considers in turn three aspects of the transmission of content over ISPs, though not the provision of content owned by or affiliated with those ISPs. The aspects considered are in turn: • The general liability of ISPs for third party content and its enforcement; • The self-regulatory schemes established by ISPs to take down illegal content(eg the Internet Watch Foundation); • New laws and regulations regarding permissible Quality of Service between ISPs, which is termed ‘network neutrality’. European law provides the framework for ISP Quality of Service (QoS) to be regulated by National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) in the 2009 revisions to the Electronic Communications Services (ECS) package.