Issue-by-issue: parties' tech policies compared
Summary: Tech election 2010: having spoken to a range of political parties, ZDNet UK lines up their tech policies on the key issues for a side-by-side view
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BALANCE BETWEEN ONLINE PRIVACY AND COMMERCIAL INTERESTS
Labour: insists the Digital Economy Act allows for consultation, full parliamentary scrutiny and a robust appeals process.
Conservatives: welcome the Digital Economy Act; want to educate people about the "wrongs of illegal downloading".
Liberal Democrats: worry about the lack of safeguards in Digital Economy Act regarding technical measures such as account suspension and bandwidth throttling; oppose the act's website-blocking provisions.
Green Party: believes existing policy has favoured commercial interests over citizens' rights; supports online privacy and anonymity in all cases except where national security justifies a breach.
Pirate Party UK: opposes any monitoring of people's internet connections; wants all "secretive surveillance" to be a criminal offence.
UKIP: opposes the Digital Economy Act, based on the way it was hurried through the legislative process in the pre-election 'wash-up'.
BNP: supports copyright law but opposes a crackdown on downloaders — thinks uploaders should be targeted instead.
SNP: wants more collaboration with "global partners" to ensure harmonised laws; favours copyright enforcement but opposes the business secretary being able to amend copyright law without parliamentary scrutiny.
Plaid Cymru: did not answer this question.
Photo credit: David Meyer/ZDNet UK
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