A Spanish choose has ordered the web messaging service Telegram suspended in a case introduced by broadcasters alleging violation of mental property. One shopper group has criticized the ruling.
Judge Santiago Pedraz of the Audencia Nacional, a senior courtroom that handles delicate instances, ordered a “temporary suspension” of Telegram’s assets.
The order was issued on Friday, however at noon on Saturday, the platform was nonetheless up and operating in Spain.
Consumer rights group Facua criticized the ruling as disproportionate, warning it will trigger “enormous damage” to the platform’s tens of millions of customers.
“It is as if they shut down the internet because there are websites that illegally host content protected by copyright,” mentioned Facua’s normal secretary, Ruben Sanchez, in an announcement.
Facua named the media teams concerned within the case as Mediaset, Atresmedia, Movistar and Egeda.
Telegram is an encrypted messaging platform permitting customers to arrange their very own channels to broadcast content material.
The choose issued the order after officers within the Virgin Islands, the place Telegram is registered as a business, failed to reply to a July 2023 courtroom request for info.
The media corporations have complained that their materials is getting used on Telegram with out their consent.
The courtroom needed info that may permit it to determine who was behind the accounts in query.
In Friday’s order, the choose mentioned the dearth of cooperation from the Virgin Islands led him to take this “precautionary measure.”
The order met the ideas of “necessity, appropriateness and proportionality,” he added.
“No other measure exists that can stop a repeat of the actions denounced,” he argued.
Telegram, which claims 700 million month-to-month lively customers internationally, stresses the pace and safety of its platform.
Source: www.dailysabah.com