I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. You wouldn’t hear of shops being asked to pay the cost of policing against shoplifters or car manufacturers being told to cover costs of policing reckless driving.

The ISPs pay corporation tax to fund law enforcement etc., the same way every other company does.

This is surely an example of legislation that we can’t afford to enforce and so, instead of giving way to practicality, we’ll victimise a group of firms that has a convenient connection to the issue.

If the lobbyists want the legislation so much, why don’t *they* pay for its enforcement?

All the costs of this, (assuming that the ISPs eventually have to pay), will be passed on to the consumer. Internet connection is expensive enough in the UK, especially considering our woeful network infrastructure, where something like 2Mb/s is the national average connection speed.

The human rights aspects (and there are more than just disconnection, there is the issue of collective punishment, and a potentially massive issue of libellous accusations) haven’t been challenged yet, because disconnections are part of the code that Ofcom are writing. Until the code is written, it can’t easily be challenged.

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2011/rights-holders-propose-voluntary-website-blocking-scheme