Europe Proposes International Internet Treaty

Stoobalou writes "Europe has proposed an Internet Treaty to protect the Internet from the political interference which threatens to break it up. The draft international law has been compared to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which sought to prevent space exploration being pursued for anything less than the benefit of all human kind. The Internet Treaty would similarly seek to preserve the Internet as a global system of free communication that transcends national borders."

Protect from whom?

[DeKO]

Let me guess: by giving total control to corporations (especially in the old-school entertainment industry).

Re:Who is Europe?

[vlm]

What does the article mean when they say Europe proposes something?

"Council of Europe" a very fuzzy imitation of the EU that does not have binding laws.

I cannot figure out what they do or what their place is. Plenty of fuzzy HR stuff about "whirrled peas" and so forth but nothing concrete about whom does what when to whom.

Re:What about ACTA?

[TyFoN]

Not after EU rejected [techdirt.com] it :)

Re:If it is "keep the governments out" I am a yea.

[Lumpy]

It's all posturing and waving in the air. It's as useless as the Space treaty.

Ignore it as some politician trying to get his name in the history books.

Re:Who is Europe?

[TheRaven64]

The Council of Europe predates the EU by quite a large margin. It was set up at the end of the Second World War. The organisation proposes treaties, which their members then sign. It covers a much larger area than the EU. You might be familiar with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which has been implemented in law in most of the member nations.

Re:Europe has a history of censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship does not apply just to opinions it applies to facts also. Hate is an emotion based on prejudgement and malice and as you said is not an opinion more like an irrational reaction to a situation or thought.

Re:If it is "keep the governments out" I am a yea.

[Wonko the Sane]

Do we get a vote?

In Europe you will if and only if the politicians think that you will vote the "right" way.

If for some reason the popular vote doesn't go their way they'll just pass the same thing without giving the public the option of voting on it next time.

Re:If it is "keep the governments out" I am a yea.

[pugugly]

Among the few specifics it gets into is formalizing net neutrality and the end-to-end nature of the Internet - if it only accomplished that it would be worthwhile methinks.

Obviously I hope for more, but that it does formalize that as an international standard tends to indicate that's something they agree on.

Pug