(Telecompaper) A majority of citizens and civil society groups responding to the European Commission's public consultation on the review of the ePrivacy directive believe the law should be maintained and indeed expanded to OTT service providers. In a summary of the responses, the EC said 83 percent of the responding citizens and civil society believe that there is a "clear added value" in having special rules for the electronic communications sector, in order to ensure the confidentiality of communications and underpin trust in technology. That is in contrast to the feelings of the telecom industry, which has called for the ePrivacy directive to be withdrawn. A majority (76%) of the citizens and civil society also supported extending the rules to cover over-the-top providers of communications services such as VoIP or instant messaging.