The report of the Deputy Jean Dionis du Séjour on the application of the LCEN was updated on 16 April 2008, after the first version was submitted to the Parliament on 23 January. The update concerns some of the latest court decisions in France that established the responsibility of some websites for others' RSS feeds or for user-generated content. The report specifies that the law has created a hosting status that is different from that of an editor and that "this distinction must not be emptied by the court decisions."
The report also claims that the law needs to be changed in order to comply with the new applications available, such as hosting collaboratives websites or online auctions. This could be helpful in order to avoid the situation already presented in EDRi-gram, when Paris Tribunal condemned 3 different French websites for linking to another website containing gossip information on a French actor.
But the report also suggests increasing the obligations on the hosting companies, especially by making public the methods used to fight illegal activities, that would prove their good will. This provision could be enforced by an independent authority, like the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL).
But the French Government does not seem to share this opinion. The new State Secretary in charge with information society, Eric Besson, made clear in the first public appearance that he didn't think that the law needed to be changed. "I will not be the Minister of Internet castration" he declared in a public meeting to Dailymotion, one of the biggest video-sharing French websites.
Since Mr. Besson has an objective to present to the French Government by 31 July 2008 the new plan on information society, he may discuss also the problems of the new type of applications on the Internet.
