The Marco Civil Act was approved on Tuesday (22) by the full Senate and signed into law by President Dilma Rousseff on Wednesday (23) during the opening of the NETMundial meeting , held in São Paulo.
The act — considered a kind of constitution for providers and internet users — establishes principles, guarantees, rights and obligations for use of the network in Brazil and it goes into effect in 60 days, at the end of June.
The law published in the Diário Oficial did not have any president vetoes. The project was processed for less than a month in the Senate. The text, approved in March by the House of Representatives, also did not change the content by Senators. The government barred the proposed changes to speed up the approval.
The so-called net neutrality, a principle considered one of the pillars of the project, has been approved and will become effective with the enactment of the new law.
However the storing of data in Brazil — which was a priority for the government in order to prevent acts of espionage — was not approved. This obligation had already been overturned by MPs to enable the passage in the House (see rules below).
The design of the Civil Framework Internet is not new. Was sent in 2011 by the Executive to the House of Representatives and approved only on 25 March this year after intense negotiations between parliamentary and Plateau.
Neutrality
Passed along in the project, net neutrality assumes that providers can not offer different connections, eg for access only to emails, videos, or social networks. The text establishes that principle is still regulated by the Executive, to detail how it will be implemented and what are the exceptions.
This will be done after consultation with the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) and Internet Steering Committee (CGI). Exceptions will serve to ensure priority to “emergency services”.
Critics say the neutrality principle restricts the freedom of providers to offer differentiated connections as specific demands of customers and their mandatory application can endear service for all without distinction. It does not prevent the provision of packages with different speed.
Withdrawal of Content
According to the project, connecting to the web and internet applications providers will not be liable for any use that netizens do network and publications made by others.
Currently there are no specific rules on the case and court decisions vary – some judges punish sites like Facebook and Google over offensive pages created by users, while others choose to penalize only magistrates responsible for the content.
According to the new legislation, the entities that offer content and applications will only be liable for damage caused by third parties are not heeding court order requiring the removal of these publications. The purpose of the standard, according to Mr Alessandro Molon, rapporteur of the project is to strengthen freedom of expression on the web and end up with what he calls “private censorship.”
End of targeted marketing
For the text adopted, companies can not access ” spying “content of information exchanged by users on the network. There is interest in doing so for commercial purposes such as advertising, similar to what Facebook and Google are to send ads to your users according to messages they exchange.
These standards, for example, will not allow the formation of customer bases for targeted marketing, according to Molon. Monitor, filter, analyze or monitor the contents of packets, except in cases provided by law shall be prohibited.
Confidentiality and Privacy
The privacy of communications of Internet users can not be violated. Internet access providers will be required to keep records of the hours of access and the connection of the end users for six months, but it must be done in a controlled environment.
The responsibility for this control should not be delegated to other companies.
There is hereby authorized the registration of pages and content accessed by the internet. The collection, use and storage of personal data by businesses may only occur from that specified in the contracts and are not prohibited by law.
via G1 – Marco Civil Sanction to the Internet is published in the ‘Official Gazette’ – News in Politics.
