Every year the ISPA anoints a hero and a
villain of the internet, and Reding and the whole European
Commission were this year's villains over their handling of the new
top level domain (TLD) .eu.
"Commissioner Vivianne Reding and the European
Commission received the award for foisting the most arcane set of
rules yet seen for prior registration of .eu domains, requiring UK
registered companies to submit legal affidavits to justify the
authenticity of their business," said an ISPA statement.
Reding, who is Commissioner for the
Information Society and Media, has been praised recently for her
attempts to lower the roaming charges levied by mobile phone
operators when someone uses a mobile phone abroad. She is trying to
persuade operators to lower tariffs voluntarily but has threatened
to force changes via the Commission if they do not.
That counted for nothing with the ISP
representative body, though, which decided that controversy over
the complex registering and queuing system used in .eu's 'sunrise
period' was too big a mistake to leave unpunished.
The hero of the awards was Vodafone's content
standards manager Annie Mullins. Mullins has worked on initiatives
to boost the safety of the internet for children.
"Annie Mullins received the award for her work
with the Home Office Task Force on Protection of Children on the
Internet and the European Union's Safer Internet Programme," said
an ISPA statement.
Mullins beat off regulator Ofcom, the Home
Office and the European Union to the title 'hero'. Reding's rivals
for the villain award were the US government and file-sharing
opponents the British Phonographic Industry.
