Dutch To Introduce Net Neutrality By Law 228
An anonymous reader writes "Big news out of the Netherlands this week, where a government minister announced plans to guarantee network neutrality by law. If Parliament approves the amendment to Dutch telecommunications law, and it expected to do so, it would become one of the first countries in the world to legislate against Internet providers who want to charge more for using particular applications or services."
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wonderful. (Score:0, Insightful)
It was never the "land of the free to use other people's property the way I want."
It will be very interesting to see how this small scale in a first world country through government fiat experiment will work or not.
Uh Oh (Score:5, Insightful)
You won't like it you yank. Our beer got taste, our cheese is not just a barely edible plastic, our food isn't genetically manipulated, the soda contains real sugar, the women are the easiest in the world, the pot is so cheap just anyone can smoke it... eh... oh wait, I got it. We are SOCIALIST. You got to pay taxes here. Sales tax? 21%. (might 20% they keep on raising it recently).
That should scare of the Americans... well apart from the beer having taste etc etc. America is an interesting place to visit, just don't eat or drink anything that wasn't prepared by a first generation immigrant.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wonderful. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Insightful)
Depending on how you look at it, the Revolutionary War WAS a civil war, as at that time we were part of Britain and were fighting with the main British forces. It's just that the "civil war" tag is usually only applied when the side wanting to break away loses the fight. :)
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Insightful)
you are under the wrong impression.
DARPA took ideas from existing POTS, which already was using packet switching, then it took existing computer networks, which didn't use packet switching, and applied the packet switching and created TCP/IP.
That was the contribution - the protocol.
Now, AT&T was certainly declared a "national resource", it was given all sorts of monopoly powers by the federal government, so that was totally wrong.
However you are arguing about your ISP, not the protocol and not even the AT&T specific lines, so when you look at the fact that most of the Internet (99% of it probably) is private networks, then you can try and ask your question again.
Re:Wonderful. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll continue to think that even if we're stealing ideas - at least we steal some of the good ones.
Good ideas should be stolen with pride!
That was one of the things we learned during a week-long "team-building group brainstorm" (I jest not).
Re:Wonderful. (Score:5, Insightful)
It was never the "land of the free to use other people's property the way I want."
Really? The history of 19th century America is the history of one group wanting to use another group's property, and doing so over, and over, and over. You must be a real American to be so ignorant of your own country's history. Off the top of my head:
Repeated relocation of Native Americans to steal their land.
Chattel Slavery (using some else's body the way I want without their consent).
Grazing rights conflicts in the west.
Water rights conflicts in the west.
Mineral/oil rights conflicts.
Railroad right-of-way conflicts.
I'm sure a few dozen more specific cases could be added.
In short, America was ALWAYS the "land of the free to use other people's property the way I want."