1. This is only about large-scale infringements
a. Criminal sanctions

There is no minimum-level of infringement that could be criminalised by ACTA. It requires parties to, at least, criminalise infringements which are for direct economic advantage, direct commercial advantage, indirect economic advantage, indirect commercial advantage or “aiding and abetting” such an offence.

In the absence of a definition of any these five activities, the European Commission has no way of knowing whether only large-scale infringements will be covered.

Twitter announced on 21 January 2012, on its official blog, its intention to introduce geolocation censorship, meaning that certain tweets will be censored in some countries based on different criteria according to the respective countries' legal framework.

Although a year ago Twitter, in its post "The Tweets must flow", declared in favour of free expression and proved to be a very useful instrument in the revolutions of the Arab world, supporting the coordination of the mass protests Egypt and by-passing the government censorship in Syria, it has now decided to change its policy.

Twitter's decision was justified by the "different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression" in the countries. "Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there.

There is a wide (and mainly unjustified) hype, in Italy, about a draft law proposed by a Mr. Fava, an MP belonging to the right wing party "Northern League".

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Deutsch: Weißrussland übt starke Internetzensur aus

--- Article corrected on 23.01.2012----

6 January 2012 saw the application of the Belarusian law imposing even more restrictions on online free expression in a country that is already viewed as a dictatorship.

Thus, a new law is enacting the sanctions applied for the violation of the decree issued in February 2010 by President Alyaksandr Lukashenko (and entered into force in July 2010).

What better way to raise awareness on private policing on the Internet than to organise a workshop in the European Parliament and let the stakeholders answer the question: "Self-regulation: Should online companies police the internet?" On 7 December 2011 MEP Marietje Schaake organized, with support from EDRi, an event on this issue.

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Deutsch: Die neuesten Versuche der russischen Regierung das Internet zu zensier...

Especially during the period before and immediately after the Russian parliamentary elections of 4 December 2011, government censorship attacked not only traditional media, but also the Internet, which plays now a very important role in the political debate in Russia with more than 51 million users.

An order from the Federal Security Service (FSB) asked social network Vkontakte, with more than 5 million Russian users, to block the websites of seven groups calling for demonstrations durin

On 8 December, the Council of Europe launched a very important Declaration on "the protection of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association with regard to privately operated Internet platforms and online service providers." The text picks up many of the themes and priorities of EDRi's study, published in January of this year, on the "Slide from Self-Regulation to Corporate Censorship".

The text explains that "although privately operated, they are a significant part of the public sphere through facilitating debate on issues of public interest; in some cases, they can fulfil, similar to traditional media, the role of a social "watchdog" and have demonstrated their usefulness in bringing positive real-life change".

In the context of the positive obligations o

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Deutsch: US-Razzien gegen Domains und IP-Adressen gehen weiter

US authorities have resumed their "Operation in Our Sites" in order to attempt to fight counterfeit and piracy-related websites. During this second annual "Cyber Monday" crackdown, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has shut down 150 websites from all over the world.

The recent introduction of draft bills, such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) now aims at providing a legal basis for domain names and IP address seizures.