Saying they were aimed at helping safe use of peer-to-peer file sharing programs and networks, P2P advocacy group P2P United has announced a series of consumer advisories they say they developed “in coordination” with the Federal Trade Commission.
The advisories include cautions about copyright infringement, data security, unwanted porn exposure, spyware, and malware, and include links for P2P users and other consumers to seek information or even report possible problems incurred through the P2P experience.
The group announced December 8 that the new advisories will be built variously into every part of the user's P2P experience, including individual member companies' Websites, software installation screens, and the interface screens first viewed by consumers each time they open their P2P program of choice.
P2P United was careful to say the advisories came from “voluntary coordination” but not official approval by the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection as well as developers of P2P programs BearShare, Blubster, eDonkey, Grokster, and Morpheus. The group said this project also fulfilled a pledge they made when testifying to the Senate Commerce Committee in June, promising to expand their active consumer protection efforts.
"Wonderful and productive as the Internet is, P2P United has acknowledged from its inception that every distributor of general purpose internet tools has a responsibility to educate and empower consumers to protect themselves and their families," said P2P United executive director Adam Eisgrau, announcing the new advisories initiative.
"P2P United and its member companies are pleased and proud today to again voluntarily provide consumers with additional tools to understand, and put in appropriate perspective, both the promise and the pitfalls that go hand-in-hand with the use peer to peer software, just as they do with any kind of Internet-based communications technology, such as IM, email, and chat-rooms" Eisgrau continued.
"We commend and thank the FTC and hope that the agency's measured, objective and utterly professional approach to these issues, and its provisional investment in industry self-regulation, will be widely adopted by legislators and other federal and state authorities as an effective and taxpayer-friendly means of promoting both internet innovation and the public's welfare."
Eisgrau said the coming weeks and months would see P2P United working to assure millions learn about and review the advisories. “We also expect and look forward to the active help of the movie and recording industries to disseminate the specific text we've developed given the literally millions of dollars those industries have spent to sensationalize these issues for their own ends over the past 18 months,” he said. “That would be a truly meaningful Hollywood holiday gift to consumers."
He also said the new advisories wouldn’t be P2P United’s last effort at helping consumer protection, in light of P2P programs often as not being seen as conductors for spyware, adware, and even malicious code, usually sent through the networks without their administrators knowing about it, at least according to various comments in the past two years from such personnel.
P2P United plans to address “multiple panels” December 15 and 16, when the FTC conducts a workshop on P2P issues which is free and also open to the public with no advance registration required.
