The expansion of the internet has become a process of no return, constituting an increasing number of Internet users and economic sectors that need this informational structure. Although the internet began its expansion in Brazil in the 1990s, until the beginning of 2014 there was no specific legislative regulation on its use. It is to remedy this gap that the so-called Civil Law of the Internet.
Known as the “Constitution of the Internet”, the Marco Civil intends to establish rules, rights and duties within the internet in Brazil. To create the text that became a bill of law, several debates were held with various sectors of society to reach a consensus on the subject. The Marco Civil establishes the guidelines for future laws and projects around the use of the world wide web.
As the bill has not yet been voted on, and there are interests within the National Congress to change some points, the debate on the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet is permeated by the guarantee of democratic and private access to the Internet, without any differences very large economic data, even if users' personal data is used by companies and governments against their own freedom. individual.
There are three main points in the debate: neutrality, internet privacy and the removal of content.
Neutrality
With neutrality, the Marco Civil da Internet seeks to ensure that Internet provider companies can discriminate against the use of certain services. Data packages must be treated equally among all users, without changing the connection speed according to the economic interests of the companies.
Some examples: with neutrality, companies will not be able to offer a package with different speed and price for those who access social networks and emails only and another package for people who watch videos, in addition to the other services previously indicated.
Nowadays, the user hires a speed and has unrestricted access to the entire internet, without discrimination of a package offered by a company. The contracted broadband speed must be complied with by companies, contrary to what happened before the law.
Another measure intended with neutrality is to ensure that people can also produce content on the internet, like having a blog or a website, without being charged too high a price for it. Neutrality would prevent only large business conglomerates from having domains on the internet.
Defenders of the existence of this point claim that neutrality guarantees democratic access to the internet, as it would not limit access or content production. Companies that offer the service claim that neutrality can make the services even more expensive.
Opening up to the production of content by everyone is also one of the goals of the Marco Civil da internet
Privacy (keeping of logs, data, among others)
Another controversial point in debate is about internet privacy. The bill stipulated that servers should be located in Brazil and keep the information of users (the records called logs), such as date, time and duration of internet access, by a year.
People and groups opposed to this measure defend that no data of this nature is stored, since, in doing so, it would violate individual freedom. In this sense, the stored data could not be sold to other companies and people nor accessed by government agencies. An example used against the storage of records is the case of the NSA, a government security agency from the US that has spied on millions of people around the world, whose case was recently denounced by Edward Snowden.
Privacy was the most controversial point of discussions and the only one blocked by the Chamber of Deputies. Servers must store user information, but they do not need to be located in Brazil.
Removal of content – the defense of freedom of expression
At this point, the issue of liability for content posted on the internet is discussed, especially content considered illegal. With Marco Civil, the content must be removed after a court order, being responsible only the user who posted the content.
The objective is to avoid censorship on the internet, as the accusation of offense or illegality must be made through the courts, guaranteeing the right to adversary proceedings. But cases of illegal content already provided for by law, such as pedophilia and racism, will be an exception or can be removed immediately after a court decision.
Approval in the National Congress dragged on for three years. The commercial interests of telephone companies weighed on the position of parliamentarians. They were contrary to many of the points of the Marco Civil on the internet, and a considerable part of parliamentarians and their parties have their electoral campaigns financed by such companies.
On April 23, 2014, the Law was sanctioned by President Dilma Rousseff, after the bill was approved in the Senate the day before and discussed in the Chamber of Deputies. Brazil is the first country to create this “Internet Constitution”, providing other countries with parameters for regulating the use and provision of internet services.
By Me. Tales Pinto
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiab/debate-sobre-marco-civil-internet.htm