Mr. Billy Hawkes:

That is a very interesting question. I know the context in which it has arisen, with the tragic cases of suicide linked with bullying activity on a particular social network which allowed anonymous use. We have been challenged because, as part of our audit of Facebook which comes under our jurisdiction, we have accepted that it is entitled to insist on a real names policy, but this approach was challenged in another member state which took the opposite view because of the right in its law to operate anonymously. I do not have a solution. All I can say is we were perfectly happy and upheld Facebook's right to insist on a real names policy and accepted its argument that it limited, somewhat at least, the potential for the bullying of people. It is a debate which will probably go on. It is not affected as such by the new regulation, except I suspect that there may at some stage be a formal ruling on whether there is a right to anonymous use of the Internet, or whether, as Facebook asserts, it is entitled as a matter of its terms and conditions to insist on a person using his or her real name.