The Council of Europe settled on voluntary guidelines Wednesday to strengthen cooperation amoung the police and World Wide Web service companies, starting a lengthy process to build support for a common global system to combat cybercrime.

The ambition of the group is to build on its binding universal treaty on cybercrime that has already been signed by 43 nations, including the United States, Japan and most Western European countries. Their aim is to help investigators obtain info quickly when tracking cybercrime that spreads across many national borders.

The guidelines — adopted at a special conference in Strasbourg of more than 200 folks representing law enforcement agencies, trade groups for Web service providers and companies ranging from Microsoft to eBay — are plus a practical attempt to smooth uneasy confrontations that service providers complain are common when investigators seek info.

“Anybody can take them, use them whether they like,” said Alexander Seger, who heads the council’s technical cooperation

unit, which developed the guidelines by the past six months. “If service providers and law enforcement believe their cooperation is perfect, they may not need them,” Seger said. “But whether they want to improve their cooperation, that may be useful for them.”

Seger noted that countries that signed the universal treaty — which dates back to 2001 and defines forms of cybercrime like child pornography and cheat — wanted guidance for practical issues.

But trade industry groups sought to limit the pool of knowledge that investigators could fish from, and expressed concern about the cost and liability of providing info to investigations that fail or go awry. Pavan Duggal, a lawyer and consultant on cybercrime legislation in India, recalled an incident where a service provider in India gave data in error to investigators, which resulted in the jailing of the wrong man.

The Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, represents…

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