French website Note2Be.com closed by court order
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
Following the legal action initiated on 14 February by several individual
teachers and SNES-FS union, a French court ordered on 3 March 2008 to
Note2be.com to eliminate from their site the names of the teachers graded
by students.
The site, launched on 30 January 2008, that allowed students to grade and
evaluate their teachers, got immediate vivid reactions from the Ministry of
Education, teachers and parents accusing the site of breaching privacy and
inciting “to public disorder”.
The court decided the site could no longer identify the teachers by name,
asked the site to pay a symbolic 1 euro fine and the legal expenses for some
of the teachers that were part of the case and advised the site owners they
were facing a 1000 euro fine for every infringement.
Stephane Cola, co-founder the site, expressed his disappointment related to
the decision considering that an evaluation of the teachers on the Internet
was “a fundamental principle and a primary motor of the Internet around the
world”.
The Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), also gave
its verdict on 6 March backing up the ruling of the court and considering
the site as “illegitimate in relation to the personal data protection”. CNIL
considered that on the basis of art. 7 of the Information and Freedoms Law
the teachers should be given the option of giving or not their consent for
the publication of information on them, option which is not provided by the
site especially as Note2be.com is a commercial activity “relying on the
audience of an Internet site which does not grant the necessary legitimacy,
in the legal sense, to proceed to an individual grading of the teachers”.
However, CNIL did not consider it was necessary to take any penalty action
having in view the decision of the court but stated it would continue to
monitor the site in case of future infringements of the law.
The site owners will probably file for an appeal and, in the meantime, on 15
March, D & E Investments will open a similar site, Note2bib.com for the
evaluation of the health professionals.
French court says site cannot grade teachers (3.03.2008)
http://www.news.com/2100-1030_3-6232855.html
Note2be Internet site will have to remove the names of the teachers it
grades (only in French, 4.03.2008)
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/03/04/le-site-internet-note2be-devra-retirer-les-noms-des-enseignants-qu-il-note_1018583_3224.html
CNIL judges the site grading teachers, note2be.com, as “illegitimate”(only
in French, 6.03.2008)
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/03/06/la-cnil-juge-le-site-de-notation-des-professeurs-note2be-com-illegitime_1019770_3224.html
Note2be.com judged “illegitimate” by Cnil (only in French, 7.03.2008)
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39379361,00.htm
EDRI-gram: Note2be.com under investigation by CNIL (27.02.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.4/note2be-cnil-france