TechCrunch has a write-up of a Belgian court ruling, based on the EU copyright directive, that Internet Service Providers bear responsibility for stopping illegal file-sharing on their networks. Apparently, though, the ruling doesn’t create a general obligation to monitor.
We get a lot of benefit from treating ISPs as common carriers, empty vessels without any obligation other than to serve their customers. I wrote a piece in Regulation magazine a while back arguing against imposing a responsibility on ISPs to control viruses. Though they can do so as a service to customers, requiring it of them sets a precedent that leads to all kinds of regulation and monitoring being imposed through the ISP bottleneck.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.