EFF Releases 'Best Practices for Online Service Providers' Whitepaper

eff.org: "Online service providers (OSPs) are vital links between their users and the Internet, offering bandwidth, email, web and other Internet services. Because of their centrality, however, OSPs face legal pressures from all sides: from users, industry, and government. As an intermediary, the OSP finds itself in a position to collect and store detailed information about its users and their online activities that may be of great interest to third parties. The USA PATRIOT Act and other recent legislation have also provided the government with expanded powers to request this information. As a result, OSP owners must deal with requests from law enforcement and lawyers to hand over private user information and logs. Yet, compliance with these demands takes away from an OSP’s goal of providing users with reliable, secure network services. In this paper, EFF offers some suggestions, both legal and technical, for best practices that balance the needs of OSPs and their users’ privacy and civil liberties..."

EFF has drafted a thoughtful resource intended to help both OSPs and consumers. Read the full whitepaper online or download the PDF at www.eff.org