A Networked Nation

There has been a lot of discussion today about Martha Lane Fox's Manifesto for a Networked Nation - available here which she, as UK Digital Champion is presenting to the Prime-minister. It's an interesting manifesto which could have far reaching consequences particularly because a majority of the millions of people who do not have access to the internet are the over 65s, unemployed people and young families. There is a compelling argument that these groups should be given equal opportunites to access the potential of the internet at its best.

Digital Economy Bill Now Act

Having been wandering about the Digital Economy Bill's status, today I found out that it was passed in the final days before the dissolution of Parliament and is now the Digital Economy Act.

The Digital Economy Bill comes out of the Digital Britain Report which was published in June last year and involved everything from the digitisation of Government services to the transfer from analogue to digital radio in the coming years. Being over 300 pages long it may not be your chosen night time read(!) but it will have far reaching consequences. You can find the full Digital Britain Report here. Most relevant to what this blog discusses is Chapter 4: Creative Industries in the Digital World as well as the discussion of privacy and safety in Chapter 7, although it is very detailed. A useful introduction to the Report's consequences can be found here.

A question about the Act also formed part of the very sparsely covered Youtube/Facebook primeministerial debate yesterday. This has had 160,000 views at the time of writing. Interestingly far lower than the TV debates...