today

February 10, 2007: "Fake" bloggers soon to be ‘named and shamed’ says the London Times. Hotels, restaurants and online shops that post glowing reviews about themselves under false identities could face criminal prosecution under new rules that come into force next year. Businesses which write fake blog entries or create whole websites purporting to be from customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from “falsely representing oneself as a consumer”. From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court.

More important: The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon.

I wonder how far this law may go. There are numbers of persons who have clearly self-publicised on Wikis for example. And if the new law applies to books on Amazon, how far will it go to insisting on self-suppression of scientific literature, as this is often by books.

IMO: Are people in the UK about to have to suffer, simply for making clear the facts? I used to work at a UK University where anyone who as much as wrote a letter to a newspaper about some topic was very likely to be threatened with dismissal. Incredible but true. Now B.Liar and the yahoo Cameron are apparently trying to remove freedom of the Press, presumably only from the poor and not their own cronies.