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Comment by utybo | Hacker News Reader

As far as I understand it, this is only about implementing a blocklist for scam and phishing sites, like what Edge's SmartScreen already does. The agency in charge of this, Arcom, will have to comply to that requirement. While the principle in itself isn't great, this isn't as bad as Mozilla or comments on HN make it look like.

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It is, until it isn't, and you don't want to put trust in the hands of a bunch of 70 y-o politicians to handle this.

It just is, the law specifies exactly under which law articles websites can be blocked, and all of said articles are quite specific about scamming, phishing, extortion of personal data, etc

Yes, but now you have established that the government is allowed to mandate such blocklists. The entire history of the world tells us that what is included in that blocklist will not remain as constrained as it currently is.

Laws are easier to add than revoke. Might be just for scam websites now (haven't checked your claim), but it's a single majority vote away for any website in the future that those in charge want to label as terrorist, propaganda, unethical, or whatever else the next group that comes to power finds as an excuse for information that is against their own agenda.

Depending how the law is implemented, it may only be a ministerial decision away.

If these sites are scams or fishing, then the law should pursue them and put them in jail.

Its rather difficult for the French government to pursue the owners of a site when they happen to be in Russia/China/wherever.

Isn't the issue though that such laws are usually abused so a website spreading "misinformation/fake news" about the government is labelled a "scam"...?

Doesn't seem to apply to this law. IANAL but after a quick check of the proposed law text, it is directly referencing French laws about scamming, and only allows the blocking procedure if the government agency finds these sites to be in violation of those laws.

Once again I have not fully checked this as the text is very long.

It’s coming from the same crowd as the anti crypto people, ie. we need KYC and transaction tracking to prevent fraud and terrorist funding! But we might as well use those facilities to go after privacy coins and arrest people for trading derivatives with their own money. It’s a classic case of “we’re here to help, please don’t resist”.

Well, look at the EU level https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/nternational-rights-gr...

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