The government has backed away from its proposals in the Digital Economy Bill to cut off people who have illegally shared files online.

In a response to a petition on the Number 10 website that petitioned Gordon Brown "to abandon Lord Mandelson's plans to ban individuals from the internet based on their use of 'peer to peer' file sharing", the government says: "We will not terminate the accounts of infringers – it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases."

It adds: "We added account suspension to the list of possible technical measures which might be considered if our measures to tackle unlawful file-sharing through notifications and legal action are not as successful as we hope. This is but one of a number of possible options on which we would seek advice from Ofcom – and others – if we decided to consider a third obligation on technical measures. However what is clear is that we would need a rapid and robust route of appeal available to all consumers if we decided technical measures were needed."

Although the original petition received just 550 signatures – far smaller than many others that have been rejected in the past, and only 50 more than are required for the proposal to be considered – it appears to have come as the government was concerned about the effect of the plans on its popularity.

The petition may also have struck a chord by pointing to the contradiction in the "three strikes" proposal and the government's aim to get everyone online. The petition noted: "The increasing role of the internet in access to society should not be underestimated. Cutting off households deprives families of education, government services and freedom of speech."

Thus the first line of the response reads: "The government wants as many people as possible to enjoy all the benefits that broadband internet can bring."

But the announcement marks a clear change from the proposals put forward in the original bill presented to the House of Lords. That offered a number of "technical measures" that should be taken to limit the internet access of people found to have broken copyright law repeatedly. Those included any measure which "prevents a subscriber from using the service to gain access to particular material, or limits such use; suspends the service provided to a subscriber; or limits the service provided to a subscriber in another way".

Now the government is retreating from the idea of termination – although it is still retaining the idea of "temporary" suspension "as a last resort".

Update: the Open Rights Group, which campaigns on digital rights, says that this is not a change in the government's position.

ORG says:

"When is 'disconnection' not disconnection? When it is 'account suspension', of course.

"The government therefore felt justified in a response to a petition on Friday in claiming that were not intending to 'disconnect' families from the net after accusations of copyright infringement. If you think they mean that their internet cabling will still be plugged in at the wall, then that's true.

"If you think they mean that these families will be able to connect to the internet, well, no they won't. Their connection will be switched off.

"Please do not be confused by the government's semantics. BIS [the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills] and DCMS [the Department of Culture, Media and Sport] decided in the summer that they would not refer to 'disconnecting' users, because that sounds harsh and over the top. 'Temporary account suspension' sounds much more reasonable.



"Language matters. What journalist is going to run a story on 'temporary account suspension' (yawn)? This is why the government has chosen these disingenuous terms: it's just more spin."

It concludes:

"'Temporary account suspensions' sound like the government would to suspend accounts for a few hours, or at most a day, to fit most people's idea of 'temporary' and 'suspension'. We doubt 'suspensions' would be so brief. We can assume what the government means to you and me is 'disconnection'."

We will speak to DBIS in the morning to see how long "temporary" is.