His replacement, British MEP David Martin, recommended that the Parliament should reject ACTA, stating: "The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties".

[29] A 2009 Freedom of Information request showed that the following companies also received copies of the draft under a nondisclosure agreement: Google, eBay, Intel, Dell, News Corporation, Sony Pictures, Time Warner, and Verizon.

All these factors have made the problem more pervasive and harder to tackle.In March 2010, a leaked draft negotiation text showed that the European Commission had proposed language in ACTA to require criminal penalties for "inciting, aiding and abetting" certain offenses, including "at least in cases of willful trademark counterfeiting and copyright or related rights piracy on a commercial scale.

[41] The European Parliament resolution of 10 March 2010 on the transparency and state of play of the ACTA negotiations stated that "according to documents leaked, the ACTA negotiations touch on, among other things, pending EU legislation regarding the enforcement of IPRs (COD/2005/0127 – Criminal measures aimed at assuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED-II)) and the so-called "Telecoms Package" and on existing EU legislation regarding e-commerce and data protection."

In the resolution, the European Parliament "deplores the calculated choice of the parties not to negotiate through well-established international bodies, such as WIPO and WTO, which have established frameworks for public information and consultation".

The resolution also "stresses that, unless Parliament is immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations, it reserves its right to take suitable action, including bringing a case before the Court of Justice in order to safeguard its prerogatives".

[3] On 3 February 2012, Poland announced it halted the ratification process as it "had made insufficient consultations before signing the agreement in late January, and it was necessary to ensure it was entirely safe for Polish citizens.

General obligations are requirements to implement the provisions in law, to have fair procedure as well as "proportionality between the seriousness of the infringement, the interests of third parties, and the applicable measures, remedies and penalties" (Article 6).

[85][86] In a Business Line opinion piece, a professor from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade's Centre for WTO Studies also explained that it would lead to "excess valuation" in infringement suits.

[88] EDRi also outlines an absence of definitions for associated constructs, such as "aiding and abetting", "commercial scale", and "economic advantage", which it describes as "simply inappropriate in a key provision, on whose meaning the proportionality and the legality, of the Agreement rests".

Critics of this article, such as the European Digital Rights, have raised concerns that its emphasis on the role of corporations in enforcement "promotes the policing and even punishment of alleged infringements outside normal judicial frameworks", while failing to "ensure effective remedies against such interferences with fundamental rights" despite "vague references to 'fair process' in the text [that] are not backed up by mandatory processes requiring respect for the Rule of Law" in Article 21 of the European Union's Maastricht Treaty.

[89][90] Parties are expected to cultivate expertise within agencies tasked with enforcing intellectual property rights, promote internal coordination, and facilitate joint actions.

The article also indicates that parties shall "endeavour to promote, where appropriate, the establishment and maintenance of formal or informal mechanisms, such as advisory groups, whereby [their] competent authorities may receive the views of right holders and other relevant stakeholders."

The body is not involved in individual cases, but monitors implementation, can formally propose changes to the convention (on the suggestion of a Party) and decides on the admittance of WTO-members that were not present at the negotiations.

[92][93] In a report to the Australian Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, Kimberlee Weatherall, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, assessed the article in saying "it might be argued that the text of ACTA could be fleshed out through guidelines on an ongoing basis, with possible amendments in the longer term.

"[94] Citing the relationship with Article 33, she added that "it might further be argued that the exhortations to 'promote cooperation, where appropriate, among [the Parties'] competent authorities', particularly in conjunction with the existence of regular meetings and exchange of information about enforcement practices, creates the basic framework within which more detailed mechanisms can be developed over time".

[79][86][89] The Electronic Frontier Foundation among others, have derided the exclusion of civil society groups, developing countries and the general public from the agreement's negotiation process and have described it as policy laundering.

Coverage of the documents by the Toronto Star "sparked widespread opposition as Canadians worry about the prospect of a trade deal that could lead to invasive searches of personal computers and increased surveillance of online activities".

[108] Aaron Shaw, Research Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, argues that "ACTA would create unduly harsh legal standards that do not reflect contemporary principles of democratic government, free market exchange, or civil liberties.

Even though the precise terms of ACTA remain undecided, the negotiants' preliminary documents reveal many troubling aspects of the proposed agreement" such as removing "legal safeguards that protect Internet Service Providers from liability for the actions of their subscribers", in effect giving ISPs no option but to comply with privacy invasions.

Shaw further says that "[ACTA] would also facilitate privacy violations by trademark and copyright holders against private citizens suspected of infringement activities without any sort of legal due process".

A number of countries such as India and African nations have histories of seeking generic cheaper versions of expensive drugs for infections such as HIV, something that has often been resisted by pharmaceutical companies.

[114] Michael Gylling Nielsen, the executive of the Danish division of Médecins Sans Frontières, has in a statement to the media said that "In the end, this is a question of life and death", elaborating his point by mentioning the "possible consequences" of the treaty that "the hundreds of thousands of people who for example have HIV/AIDS will not get the treatment they need".

[35] Connor Adams Sheets of the International Business Times outlined five categories where digital rights advocates compared but expressed greater concern about ACTA than SOPA.

In an open letter, the groups argued that: "Because the text of the treaty and relevant discussion documents remain secret, the public has no way of assessing whether and to what extent these and related concerns are merited."

The coalition consisted of: The University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic filed an Access to Information Act request to see the government's position but received only a document stating the title of the agreement, with everything else blacked out.

"[133] US Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) penned a letter on 23 November 2009, asking the United States Trade Representative to make the text of the ACTA public.

[138] A poll conducted on 27 January by Millward Brown SMG/KRC indicated that 64% of Poles opposed the agreement's signing, 60% believed the treaty would fail to achieve its primary objective, and 50% thought that it would curtail essential freedoms.

Kader Arif, European parliament's rapporteur for ACTA, resigned from his position on 26 January 2012 denouncing the treaty "in the strongest possible manner" for having "no inclusion of civil society organizations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, [and] exclusion of the EU Parliament's demands that were expressed on several occasions in [the] assembly", concluding with his intent to "send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation" and refusal to "take part in this masquerade.

[79][150] Slovenian members of hacktivist group Anonymous announced opposition against the treaty's signing and posted video threats on various websites against government officials and Nova Ljubljanska banka, accusing the latter of corruption.