France

Under the pressure from the European Commission  to open access to the local loop, the French governement had proposed a draft project and submitted it to the French National Assembly for discussion on 26 April 2000. To the surprise of many observers, the French Naitional Assemvly did not adopt the project, mainly because a fierce oposition came from the PCF ( Communists party in France). the main reason alledged for voting against the project was to protect jobs at France Telecom. But France will be forced a,ywa to unbundle access to the local loop because  the Communication adopted by  the European Commission will force it to do so by the end of 2000.

More information can be found in French at :

http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,2320,seq-2058-52453-QUO,00.html

The French CSA ( Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel) has been examining the possibility to authorise Internet sites to advertise on television, but this decision will only be implemented after  1st September 2000.the major media operators are afraid of the potential market distorsion that this decision may induce. In order to reduce the fears of such market operators, the CSA presented the way it could impact the existing media practices.

But opponents to the CSA decision should be happy because the decision is now to be examined by the French "Conseil d'Etat" (the French highest administrative court) for compliance with national and internationall media rules.

The French grouping of online services known as the "GESTE" adopted on 26 April 2000 the final version of its Internet Chart. The idea has been launched by various  French Newspaper Publishers such as le Monde, les Echos, Libération, la Tribune, Investir, ZDNet and Agefi. This text is a self-regulation approach which aims at ensuring consumers that the publishers or suppliers who are signatory provide trustful services on their Internet sites. Its enforcement will be followed and monitored by an independent Internet Council which will be composed of representatives of content providers, host providers, access and mere conduit providers

The fisrt part of the Chart sets up general defintions of Internet actors, access, host, mere conduit and content providers. Access providers defined in this context include mirror sites' providers and proxy servers. They are alll designed by the generic term Internet service providers (ISPs). The second part includes a description of the object of the Chart, and the general principles to be respected by web sites publishers. A transparency obligation is put forward, together with some rules regarding privacy and databases protection, and IPR protection specifications.

More information can be found at the GESTE 's web site: http://www.planete.net/code-internet/ccode2.html

The French operator France Telecom may be a potential bidder for the acquisition of Orange, which will be sold by Vodafone Air Touch. France Telecom asked strategic and consultative advice form the Rostchild Group, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley consultants. The other expected bidders are NTT DoCoMo Japan, Vivendi and KPN. Orange is currently bidding with NTL Mobile for a 3G licence in the UK and France Telecom's chairman, Mr Michel Bon, stressed that France Telecom will wait until the licence auction is complete.

On 20 April 2000, France Telecom announced its aim to launch next month a big " WAP" offensive on mobile phone. Packages of OLA mobile phone incorporating the WAP( Wireless Application Protocols) norms should be launched on the market on 17 May 2000, for less than 1000 FF ( around 150 euros). SFR and Vivendi are also planning to do the same in the same timeframe. The company would provide an "i-service "package giving information through mobile phones on stock exchange courses, sports, weather forecasts, and other services, and the Voila mobile will be a mobile search engine offering access to more than 180 web sites. France Telecom also plans to set up GPRS norms ( General Packet radio services) on its mobile phone until the end of 2000. The company thinks that the increase of traffic will allow costs to remain reasonable for the users of WAP mobile phones, and plan to get remuneration through the increase of traffic. More information can be found at : http://www.francetelecom.fr/france/actualite/f_actu.html

After its adoption by its Board on 16 December 1999, the French "Bureau de Vérirication de la Publicité" finally released its Recommendation on the way to advertise on the Internet. It is based on the following main principles : - advertisements should respect the basic idetification principles and be faithful, truthful , honest,decent, and must respect the principles of human dignity. - they shoull take account of the worldwide spread of internet and of the specificity of the public targeted. - advertisers should respect basic transparency rules : they should provide the user with a possibility to opt-out, online, for unsolicited advertising or spamming - on spamming, BVP adopts the EU view, i.e that all unsolicited advertisements must be identified as such and somebody opting out should not receive unsolicited communications. The advertiser should also inform the user if the cost of viewing spamm messages is at his own cost or is borne by the advertiser.

The French deputy Yves Nicolin proposed a motion for resolution for the creation of an inquiry committee on the ECHELON system. This comes just  after the debate held on the subject at the European Parliament on 3 April 2000 and also just after the decision of the Committee of Defence of the French National Assembly to constitute a mission information on surveillance systems and electronic interception in telecommunications for national security purposes.

More information can be found at  : http://ww.juriline.com/web/actualité/

The case was brought before the French " Conseil de la Concurrence" by 9 Telecom, the French subsidiary of Telecom Italia for abuse of dominant position in providing access to Internet via ADSL technology. The "Conseil de la Concurrence " stated on its judgement that France Telecom was infringing concurrence practices.
In its judgement of 30 March 2000 , the French Court of Appeal confirmed this judgement and required France Telecom to provide technical and commercial possibilities for accessing ADSL network to the other telecommunications operators.It should be done in respect of the maximum delay of eight weeks which was imposed by the first instance court, i.e before 17^th April.More information on this case can be seen (in French only) at : http://www.juriline.com

Discussed on 23 March 2000 by the French National Assembly, the bill on freedom of communication reopens the difficult debate on host providers’ liability on the Internet. After a controversial amendment on art 43-4-6 , aiming to reinforce host providers’ liability had been laid down by Mr Bloche and endorsed by the French Senate, the National Assembly finally decided to lower the wording and kept the two following aspects regarding host providers of online services :

• Obligation to verify proper identification by the author of the site : Art 43-6-4 of the Bill requires that host providers shall ask the author of the site they host for a proper identification and the host provider can be held liable if the identification is false. This can lead to either a six months’ jail sentence or to a 50 000 FF ( 7622 euros) fine. The identification required depends on the legal status of the author of the site :

• for individual persons, their name and address.
• for legal persons, their name, address and trade name.

 

• Liability of the host provider in case of an infringing content : the same article states that host providers may be held liable if they host a site with illegal content in the three following cases :

• If upon receipt from a judicial authority of the infringing nature of the site they host, they do no act promptly to remove access to the illicit content. They can therefore be condemned either to a six months’ jail sentence or to a fine up to 50 000 FF( 7622 Euro).

• If they directly contributed to produce or create illicit content

• If upon notice of an infringing activity send by a third party, they did not apply duties of care concerning this site.This last paragraph is very controversial because it does not clearly require from the host provider to take down the content of the site and one does not know how judges will interpret the notion of ‘duties of care". Moreover, the same paragraph states that the judge remains the only person able to assess the infringing nature of the content of the site. Therefore, it is difficult to predict how French courts will apply this provision.

  The tendency has been so far to hold host service providers liable as in the Estelle Hallyday or in the Altran cases.

  The text of the bill can be seen ( in French only) at : http: //www.assemblée-nationale.fr/2/pdf/ta0473-01.pdf

On 8 February 2000, the French Senate adopted in First Reading the bill on electronic signatures. The aim of this project is to recognise that electronic signatures should be as valid as the written ones, and to accelerate the development of electronic commerce in France. Senators included some small modifications in the bill, particularly a provision stating that a signature by public officer confers authenticity to an act. The text will also reform the French "Code Civil" which was based on the written nature of the legal proofs.

The electronic signature is now recognised as being as valid as the written one provided that it can be identifiable and is kept in conditions which guarantee its authenticity ( art 1 of the bill which adds a new art 1316-1 to the French Civil Code,). Article 3 of the bill adds a new article 1322-2 to the Code Civil explaining the requirements an electronic signature has to meet to be considered as reliable.

The text of the bill can be downloaded in French from the following web site address :http://www.senat.fr/l

The text of the debate in the French Senate can also be seen at the following web site address: http://www.senat.fr/cra/s20000208/s20000208.htm