The UK government was awarded the title of Internet Villain of the year on Thursday night, for the toughest data retention laws in Europe. It was presented at the annual awards evening of the Internet Service Providers Association .

During its presidency of the European Commission last year, the UK government drove forward the data retention directive. It forces ISPs and fixed-line and mobile operators to keep details of their customers' communications for up to two years.

ISPA said that the UK government had won the award for "seeking EU wide data retention laws which will force ISPs and telcos to retain more data for longer without proper impact assessment".

The other nominees for the award included...

Sony "for compromising the security of its customers’ PCs with its copyright-protecting rootkit technology"and the European Commission "for its inability to get through one year without producing yet another piece of intellectual-property Legislation."

No mention of evil Googles china deal as far as I can tell.