It only looks to involve the US and UK/EU at this point, but the broad plans of ACTA, the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, look like they could eventually become a de-facto standard for the whole wide world of e-commerce.
TechDirt is digging up shovels full of information on ACTA. The agreement is set up to protect against the boom in global media piracy, but the problem is that it’s almost impossible to solve this problem without trampling on multiple human rights at the same time.
That’s why the organizations Consumers International, EDRi, the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, ASIC (a French trade association for web 2.0 companies), and the Free Knowledge Institute have all banded together to protest the agreement and voice their concerns, or at least put on the breaks until cooler heads can have a look at this.
On Australian turf, the Australian Digital Alliance, Australian Library and Information Association, Choice (a non-profit consumer advocate), and the Internet Industry Association have formed a coalition stating much the same thing. In a package, reducing counterfeiting is important where it endangers consumer health or safety or constitutes commercial scale infringement is a good thing; but we shouldn’t have to roll heads to do it.