4. Liability of
Intermediaries
To
remove existing legal uncertainties and to avoid
divergent approaches between Member States, the
E-commerce Directive establishes an exemption
from liability for intermediaries where they
just transmit information between third parties.
Service providers have only limited liability
for other "intermediary" activities such as the
storage of information (hosting) or enhancing
onward transmission (caching). This implies that
in most circumstances, as long as ISPs do not
take an active involvement in the information
they are transmitting and are not aware they are
transmitting illegal content, they are not
liable for transmitting it. If an ISP learns
that, for example, a web site it hosts includes
illegal material, the ISP is normally required
to remove this material as soon as possible. |
ISOC
IWA
ARTT
RTS
