Swedish Pirate Party to set up an ISP

The Swedish Pirate Party is going into business as an ISP

Sweden's Pirate Party is to set up its own internet service provider business, according to a party spokesman.

Gustav Nipe, Pirate Party member and chief executive of the Pirate ISP, said in an interview during the Hacknight conference in Malmö that the ISP will provide a surveillance-free service, and will not keep logs of user activity despite this being a requirement under Swedish law.

"Maybe they will try to stop us, but then they will also have to stop a political party and that will be a political issue in Sweden," he said.

"It's much harder to stop or revoke a political party than an ordinary business. We will not accept their surveillance systems."

The Pirate ISP is starting with a trial service in the city of Lund and plans to roll it out across the whole of Sweden and beyond if the service is successful.

"If everything in the testing works out right we will roll out in a big way, " Nipe said. "Hopefully by the end of the summer we will go big with it."

The Pirate Party gained support after a series of legal cases in the country against the Pirate Bay torrent directory. It is currently the third largest political party in Sweden by membership, and holds two seats in the European Parliament. Its British counterpart has been less successful.

The Pirate Party has already said that it plans to run the Pirate Bay web site from servers within the Swedish parliament if it wins seats there this year, and will use executive immunity to avoid attacks by media organisations.