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Threat To Net Neutrality In Europe
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Apr 20, 2009 03:11 PM
from the wishing-for-transparency-in-government dept.
from the wishing-for-transparency-in-government dept.
Narcissus writes to tell us that the European Parliament is planning a vote in the Industry, Transport, Energy (ITRE) committee that could reintroduce amendment 138 (currently amendment 46) which deals with safeguards to user rights on the internet and graduated response schemes. There are several online campaigns trying to drive awareness and action already but there is limited time to act. "The Council may propose a compromise version of amendment 138/46 that is completely neutralized, or that may even become the opposite of the original by allowing the 'three strikes' scheme instead of preventing it. According to the latest negotiations, am.138/46 wouldn't anymore be an article (that must be transposed by Member States in their law) but a mere recital that has just indicative value. It is urgent to contact the members of the ITRE committee to advise them to reject compromise with the Council that failed to respect the intent of the original amendment. The best would be once again to approve the amendment."
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Submission: Threat To Net Neutrality In Europe by Anonymous Coward
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Give it Up! (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as carriers can set their own policies for traffic carried across networks that they own, Net Neutrality is a dead topic.
Free Enterprise dictates that the carriers have the right to price services according to market demand. If your carrier starts adopting tiered pricing or starts prioritizing your traffic in ways that it sees fit, then let your feet do the walking to another carrier.
Free Markets do eventually work their way around to providing the services people want for the price they're willing to pay.
Re:Give it Up! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Give it Up! (Score:4, Insightful)
I have at least 3 hard-wired choices to my home, both high speed. There's at least 4 3G wireless carriers I can deal with so I think I do have some choice at least where I'm at, so YMMV. I do agree that there needs to be a healthy market though but why then do we in the US give monopolies to companies that just run cables to your house or buy a set of frequencies? To give them incentives to build out the infrastructure. I believe that that system needs to change a bit and only allow them full monopoly power over that investment for a certain period of time.
If you look at Time Warner's recent "Tiered" evaluation flop you can see that people can and do influence these decisions as well.
Parent
Re:Give it Up! (Score:4, Informative)
Everyone in Belgium has three choices too. They're Belgacom, Belgacom in disguise and Belgacom in a different disguise.
This is completely illegal under EU law, which is made less than ten minutes walk from Belgacom's HQ.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
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Yes and no. Do those networks cross land that they own?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I have Cable, Fiber and Twisted Pair all going across my "Easement" on my land. The Easement was granted in my Deed to the City so yes there's a civic responsibility to allow for valid utility concerns to use that Easement to provide services for the community. That doesn't however prohibit multiple companies from putting in their own cabling infrastructure just becase somebody else did it already. The providers have paid the city, paid the contractors and bought the cable and fiber. They own that infra
Re:Give it Up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because free markets did such a good job with the banking industry.
The rational equilibrium model of the free market fundamentalists has gone tits up. Move on, and wise up. Collusion, misinformation, and group think are quite capable of doing for the IT sector what they have done for the financial sector.
There needs to be citizen participation in both politics and economics. Economies are not worthwhile aims in themselves, they are merely tools we use to coordinate society - whenever they don't work for people, we should seek to change them.
Parent
Re:Give it Up! (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>Yeah, because free markets did such a good job with the banking industry.
Not a free market. It's controlled by the *monopoly* called the Reserve Bank, which is itself controlled by the Congress, which mandated in the mid-1990s that banks must hand-out "no money down" loans. That eventually led to the housing crisis. That is not a free market. That's an oligarchy of 535 men.
A true free market would not have a Reserve Bank setting interest rates, but instead have interest rates that are set by each independent bank, and these rates would move up-and-down with supply-and-demand. Furthermore Congress would allow banks to decide for themselves who qualifies and who does not qualify for loans, based on income.
Yes that means some would hear the word "no". Oh well.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
> which mandated in the mid-1990s that banks must hand-out "no money down" loans.
Care to back this up?
Also, that is a theory, which is totally new to me. And frankly, even assuming that might be the case, I fail to see how "no money down" loans can lead to the sub-prime crisis.
The canonical explanation which blames bad risk assessment (banks, rating agencies) seems much more plausible to me.
> A true free market would not have a Reserve Bank setting interest rates,[...]
The Fed is only setting the inter
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
your idea is completely broken because under your idea a bank could make known bad loans and barrow on margin (thats what fractional reserve banking is all about) from other banks in a circle until then all go down at once and the CEOs take the cash. This is basically what happened.
The problem with zero regulation is that it creates a boom and bust cycle where the banks repeatedly give you a lolli-pop and then slam a pineapple up your ass. And zero regulation is impossible with a modern system, it will alwa
Re: (Score:3)
What you say is true, but there is an overall flaw in this slashdot topic.
There is a big difference between a 'threat to net neutrality' and an approach to dealing with 'graduated response' to ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES.
Net Neutrality doesn't mean its ok to pirate software and music - it means that you will have open access to information. This is akin to freedom, wherein you can own knives, guns, ropes, and poisons, but you are still responsible for legal acts you might do with them. It isn't a loss of freedom
Re: (Score:2)
What if NAMBLA had an opinion about making love to young boys but started molesting them before they made the act legal? They would be convicted and restricted.
I think copyrights are at the discretion of the owner. If an owner wants to capitalize on a product instead of share it freely in culture, it is theirs and they, as I believe, have that right to restrict. I am sure in you're capable of understanding where an artist may want to control the use of their work.
Your point is well placed, though. I pr
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But at what point are you becoming a criminal? Is it going to be illegal in the future to even criticize your government? That happens in Australia... you'll just be getting banned. No, not you, but your website(!). You'll still be able to check it out, but no-one else will be able to so you're not even beinbg informed! That's scary...
By the way, I am so glad people still make normal hip-hop instead of "Fsck those b*tches yo, n shit" gangster-(c)rap. God I hate that! And what most artists still don't unders
European Parliament Elections very soon... (Score:5, Insightful)
Send a clear message that this nonsense will not be tolerated... to help make an intelligent decision when voting in European elections, see:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en [laquadrature.net] [laquadrature.net]
Check out the Political memory resource:
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory [laquadrature.net] [laquadrature.net]
especially the "List of recorded votes" section to see who voted for what - before you reward them with your vote for them.
Also of interest, the Telecoms Package section: http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package [laquadrature.net] [laquadrature.net]
URGENT: Two days to help Catherine Trautmann prote (Score:5, Informative)
Bad form to reply to own post, but I just saw this related news item at http://www.laquadrature.net/en [laquadrature.net]
URGENT: Two days to help Catherine Trautmann protect EU citizens.
Paris, April 20th 2009 - The Council of the EU is strongly pushing Catherine Trautmann - rapporteur of the main directives of the "Telecoms Package" - to accept a useless, neutralized version[1] of amendment 138. This amendment, opposing to "graduated response - or "three strikes" â" schemes, has been overwhelmingly adopted by the European Parliament in its first reading on September 2008, and is crucial for safeguarding EU citizens' rights and freedoms. La Quadrature du Net calls European citizens to urge their MEPs seating in ITRE committee to support the rapporteur by refusing any compromise neutralizing amendment 138 (now renumbered 46) on April 21st vote.
[1] The Council wants to make it a merely indicative recital instead of an article that Member States must transpose into their law
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Meh... only bad form on bulletin boards which have an "edit post" feature. Slashdot decided not to allow editing of posts (most likely because it would be too powerful of a tool for trolls) so it's all good here.
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>>>Check out the Political memory resource:
Cool. We need a website like this for the United States' Congress and the 50 State Legislatures.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about free speech, which even for you should weigh heavier than your job, the inflation and the safety of your family.
What if you get abused by your employer but are unable to say anything about it, or even warn others from accepting positions there? What if the government imprisons your family but you are unable to voice your protest?
Nothing weighs heavier than free speech and freedom of expression. Internet should be a free, uncensored, unmonitored channel of communication that adheres to no rules.
Th
alright idiot. then be a slave. (Score:2)
they will guarantee your job, they will guarantee your children's job, they will make sure you eat food.
but you and your children will do what they want, forever.
go get yourself fucked in your own little serfdom. this is not the europe i want.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> Personally I'm more interested in voting for people who can keep me in a job, keep inflation low, keep me and my family safe and prospering in the future.
We are getting close to Godwin's law.
> Being able to download copyrighted stuff without paying is WAY down the list of things of importance, if it even makes the list at all.
Re:European Parliament Elections very soon... (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>voting for people who can keep me in a job, keep inflation low, keep me and my family safe and prospering in the future.
What you're looking for is not "politicians" but "parents", and since I presume you are not a child, my advice is that you need to "put away your childish things" and stand on your own two feet as an adult. The purpose of the government is not to babysit you and/or raid your neighbors wallets like Daddy Soprano & give you their money (which I call theft of labor). The purpose of government, to quote the founder of the Democratic Party, is to "prevent one man from harming another. And that is all the government should interfere." - Thomas Jefferson.
Another person, not sure who, said "A government powerful enough to give everything you need is also powerful enough to take everything you have. Including your property, your liberty, or your life." Just ask the American citizens who President FDR forced into concentration camps. FDR had become so powerful, he was able to imprison millions of Americans with just a word from his lips, like a living reincarnation of the Roman Emperor and completely contrary to the Supreme Law of the Land.
The bigger the government becomes, the smaller your liberty becomes, until you might as well be living like a child, who must constantly ask permission. I don't want to live in such a society.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a link for non-Americans who may not know about this [wikipedia.org].
Stop it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Don't do crime, don't get your freedoms limited. Life isn't as hard as you're pretending it is. Follow the law or change the law, but in the end it is important to know that a repercussion for a convicted criminal is not the same as limiting freedoms.
What do you suppose we do with criminals? Nothing?
Re: (Score:3)
I just posted about this. Great job at getting your post in early so it gets seen.
There is no relationship between eventually banning a criminal from the internet, and limiting access to information.
This whole damn slashdot posting needs to be modded OFFTOPIC since the subject matter and the headline have nothing in common.
I'll be damn pleased if criminals on the internet eventually get their access cut off. We do these same things in the rest of the civilized world. It doesn't mean your freedoms are bei
Re: (Score:2)
Your argument has some weight, but has nothing to do with the fact that this article is a completely wrong and misrepresents what net neutrality actually is.
Do crime on the net, get banned. Its the same way in the real world. If you want the laws changed so you're not a criminal anymore, do it the right way by revolution or amendment --- talking shit on slashdot and conveniently pretending that laws don't exist won't get you anything but convicted and banned in the end.
Re: (Score:2)
The end of the Golden Age of the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
It's quite clear to me that the end of the Golden Age of the Internet is drawing near.
The internet has finally drawn the attention of the huge money and power brokers of the world. These people are going to make sure that the Internet serves their ends as much as possible.
Oh, there will be the few geeks who know how to set up a proxy to secure a tiny bit of anonymity until one of the Big Fish get wind of you and get interested in tracking you down, but for the most part, all connections are going to be monitored. They are going to know who's on each end of every communication channel, and they are going to know what is being communicated, and to a large extent, they will control it. Whether it's priority transmission speeds, bandwidth capping, or outright censoring, there's too much money at stake on the Internet now to leave the playing field "neutral".
Re:The end of the Golden Age of the Internet (Score:5, Interesting)
It's less clear to me that this is the case.
You think Google is going to put up long with some idiot provider charging customers an extra $20/month to allow access to *.google.com/*
You think Google is going to share it's ad revenue with consumer ISPs? I'm just using Google as an example, but multiply this by all the big businesses out there.
Time Warner, Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, etc are all competing with each other using different technologies. Within the next 5 years or so you'll have fiber-class wireless connections available to your homes.
You really think every single player is going to be able to pull their head out of their butts long enough to coordinate something as complex as tiered internet?
Competition is going to keep net neutrality a reality until the basics fundamentally change. You may have the odd player who tries to nickel and dime their customers by over regulating their networks, but it'll be the minority, and there will be options.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Correct. Like "per gigabyte" pricing. It seems entirely logical that grandma should only pay $7 a month for her minimal usage, while I pay $100 a month for my heavy downloading. I'm using more electricity therefore I'm costing the ISP more money. It's only natural that I should pay more overall.
Of course, if I did have to pay $100 that means I'd download less, probably moving to smaller files like 150 megabytes instead of the 1.5 gig HD videos. So it's a reinforcing paradigm where higher prices encoura
Re: (Score:2)
They'd have more to lose in a system like this. Their costs for operation remain pretty much the same from month to month (just maintaining a network that already exists), but they could lose a whole lot of money just because people didn't feel like downloading the latest youtube sensation. Not only that but peak times would pretty much remain peak times and any "bottlenecks" would still get bumped into. They'll continue to set policies that affect the top 10% (many of whom are taking advantage of the sy
Why would they want to... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer is obvious. They don't want us getting stuff for free. They want us to borrow even more money, go even deeper into debt, and buy more DVDs, CDs, and books. It's all about the $$$.
Bandwidth Exceeded (Score:2, Informative)
Hosted in the US ... sigh (Score:2)
I don't know wtf they were thinking, hosting in Europe is cheap, typically with unlimited traffic.
ITRE MEP contact info (Score:2)
Contact information for the MEPs on the ITRE committee [laquadrature.net] (along with their original votes on the first reading of the amendment).
Cheesed Wife (Score:2, Funny)
I told my wife about this while lying on the couch this evening...she got so pissed off that she emailed all 100 Euro MP's in for Germany in 3 hours...nice, now if she was only this keen in bed ;(
Re: (Score:2)
She most really love her ipod.
The public will not like this (Score:4, Interesting)
If this even get close to being passed, mainstream media will have a field day, especially given that most UK tabloids despise Europe in its entirety already.
Perhaps this is a ploy to stimulate high street sales amirite?
The real web pages (Score:2)
Here is the law text from europarl.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P6-TA-2008-0452 [europa.eu]
Press release.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1677&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en [europa.eu]
More information.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/058-52901-089-03-14-909-20090330IPR52900-30-03-2009-2009-false/default_en.htm [europa.eu]
Re: (Score:2)
Here is the law text from europarl.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P6-TA-2008-0452 [europa.eu]
Could somebody point me to the relevant bits? I read through the text, but I can't seem to find where it says anything about three strikes or mandatory web filtering (as claimed by the Blackout Europe campaign), other than the basic idea that the end user must be advised of any traffic control policies.
Re:maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Insightful)
Call back later? Wrong answer. Once the amendment's passed, it's too late to call your representative. We Americans have discovered this from personal experience wherein today's proposal suddenly passes the Congress tomorrow, and now we're stuck with the law. Too late to whine after it's a done deal.
NOW is the time to call your reps.
Parent
Re:maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. The vote hasn't happened yet.
Generally speaking its best to raise awareness of an important vote before it happens, so that you can contact your representatives and make it clear what you expect them to do. You know, so that your representatives actually represent you. Believe it or not democracy doesn't have to happen with elected officials doing what they want while you mutter under your breath, you are allowed as a citizen to actually participate in the process by making your opinions clear to those people who make the vote.
Parent
Re:maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Informative)
For all the Dutch people here (part of the EU), mail this to the NOS News at nosbinnenland@nos.nl to send your press tips and raise awareness.
The NOS news has been reporting on censorship last week with that local newspaper... I am sure some of you will remember, so they will express interest in this too.
Hint at the Australian censorship as to why 'child-porn' blocking went instantly into censorship of Wikileaks and Wikipedia among other legitimate websites. You can alos find that block-list on Wikileaks.
If more people than just me tip them about it via email then I am sure they will air it tommorow!
Don't think that some one else will already do that beauce usualy no-one does because they think "ah a lot of people will read this so I don't have to"!
Parent
Re:maybe, maybe not (Score:5, Insightful)
And if they don't get what they initially wanted, they'll try another law, and if that doesn't go through, they'll try another law... Until they finally manage to come up with the perfect timing when nobody is paying attention and it goes through.
That or they'll just declare that it's in effect, they can get away with that more and more these days. It's not like voting them out would change anything.
Parent
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Re: (Score:2, Informative)