The British communications regulator has been asked to review domain name seizure legislation introduced last year by the previous administration.
Britain’s culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has called on Ofcom to look into the Digital Economy Act and decide whether the domain name seizure rules outlined within it — which are similar to those being used by the U.S. government — are actually enforceable.
Mr. Hunt claimed that the British government is committed to protecting businesses’ intellectual property via the Internet and claims that copyright infringement costs businesses around £400 million a year.
He said, “I have no problem with the principle of blocking access to websites used exclusively for facilitating illegal downloading of content.
“But it is not clear whether the site-blocking provisions in the Act could work in practice so I have asked Ofcom to address this question.”
Meanwhile, the UK’s deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said that reform of the Digital Economy Act was not a key pillar of the coalition government’s policies, but suggested that the results of any investigation by Ofcom would have to be taken into consideration.