CyberCrime Treaty: Hidden costs expensive for all

linuxtelephony writes: An article at Ziff Davis' CIO Insight shines a light on a Cyber Crime treaty drafted in Europe with help from the US that has implications for just about everyone with a network. From the article:
...sweeping authority given to participating countries to seize information from private parties as they investigate cybercrimes, even when the activity being investigated isn't a crime in the country where the data is located. If France is investigating a sale of Nazi memorabilia on eBay, the U.S. must cooperate, even though such transactions are not illegal in the U.S. ...data-retention policies for network traffic, and require any operator of a computer network to respond to requests for information from any participating country without compensation of any kind...These investigative and supervision costs will invariably be imposed on businesses without any real controls. Worldwide law-enforcement agencies, in other words, may now avail themselves of the opportunity to outsource their most expensive problems to you.