Web Privacy? (fwd)

[Heiko Recktenwald <uzs106@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>]

Entire French web to be archived
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The French government has adopted a law that requires every French web
page to be officially archived, a requirement similar to the procedures
for traditional media.

In principle, every site-publisher would be responsible for this task
himself, but for technical reasons the law allows the French national
library, BNF, and the national audio-visual institute, Ina, to
automatically 'hoover' the entire French web, including personal home
pages, at regular intervals.

It is not yet clear how the French web should be defined: does it
include only web pages which are physically stored on French territory,
or does it consist of pages which belong to French citizens?

There are also technical problems to be solved. Archiving HTML-pages is
simple, but the storing of streaming ingredients and Flash-animated and
other dynamic sites still requires a lot of research before it can be
carried out.

Ina estimates that about 100,000 sites have to be archived. The site
publishers will not note any problems due to the archiving, assures Ina.
In fact, in many cases they will not be aware of it, which raises
questions about whether privacy rights will be infringed.

Source: http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=4075 - Europe
Media