Voluntary code for European bloggers?

New Europe: A report from the European Parliament’s Culture Committee calls for a voluntary code for bloggers to identify the authors’ interests, clarify their legal status and provide an ombudsman, to allay fears of bloggers’ potential malice or misinformation. The author of the report, an Estonian Socialist, said, “We do not see the bloggers as a threat. They are in position, however, to considerably pollute cyberspace. We already have too much spam, misinformation and malicious intent in cyberspace.” Get the draft of the report here.

Editorial: The report is not long (8 pages, 6 if you take off the title page and table of contents), and it doesn’t contain much to get too hyped up about, with one exception. In among all the “whereases” is a small section: “It [European Parliament] recommends clarification of the legal status of different categories of weblog authors and publishers as well as disclosure of interests and voluntary labelling of weblogs.” It’s one thing if it’s voluntary — another if mandated. And what kinds of categories did the Parliament or the author have in mind? Cooking vs. sewing, or more like liberal vs. conservative?

Would a non-voluntary categorizing scheme for bloggers fly in the U.S.? I doubt it.