Leaked Documents Show EU Council Presidency Wants To Impair Net Neutrality 76
NotInHere writes: The advocacy group "European Digital Rights" (EDRi) reports on leaked documents proposed by the Presidency of the council of the EU (currently held by Italy), which plans to remove vital parts from the telecommunications package that introduced net neutrality. The changes include removing the definition of "net neutrality" and replacing it with a "reference to the objective of net neutrality," which EDRi says will impair any ability to enforce it.
Also, the proposed changes would allow ISPs to "block, slow down, alter, degrade or discriminate" traffic in order to meet "obligations under a contract with an end-user to deliver a service requiring a specific level of quality to that end-user." EDRi writes that "[w]ith all of the talk of the need for a single digital market in Europe, we would have new barriers and new monopolies."
The council of the EU is one of its two legislative chambers. The EU parliament can now object or propose further changes to prevent the modified telecommunications package from passing.
Also, the proposed changes would allow ISPs to "block, slow down, alter, degrade or discriminate" traffic in order to meet "obligations under a contract with an end-user to deliver a service requiring a specific level of quality to that end-user." EDRi writes that "[w]ith all of the talk of the need for a single digital market in Europe, we would have new barriers and new monopolies."
The council of the EU is one of its two legislative chambers. The EU parliament can now object or propose further changes to prevent the modified telecommunications package from passing.
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Not to miss your obvious sarcasm, but it's a bit like saying "get your own road".
Infrastructure is complicated, because you aren't going to be able to make your own road going from A to B without crossing property owned by the existing A to B magnate, unless you're willing to put up with some really inefficient routes. And you've almost doubled the real cost of roadways(i.e. how much initial and annual cost the roads require).
Contrary to the neo-liberal perspective, some problems just can't be hammered out
Subterranean BS. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another asshole politician hellbent on fucking over people (in general) and probably enriching himself in the process.
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> the Presidency of the council of the EU ..
Didn't I vote for that guy?! Oh wait .. It's not allowed to vote for people so high up the ladder in the EU. You can only vote for the EU parliament which has no power. This is the main reason why the majority of the EU citizens REJECT the EU. Everytime they put a treaty or 'eu declaration of rights' up for vote, people reject it en masse. Do the politicians listen to the people? No, because these treaties get implemented anyway. The only way to get rid of the
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The money simply gets sucked up and will never be returned. That's what we're working for these days. It sickens me.
That's bad enough, but to rub our noses in it, the accounts of the EU are not audited, and will never be - the EU commissariat have said as much. I think its because if it ever were audited, we'd see just where the money does disappear to.
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This is simply untrue.
The EU accounts are audited every year, to a much higher standard that the accounts of any member state.
Every year the EU court of auditors publishes the accounts, which includes a section detailing the errors in the use of the money by the EU member states.
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I actually know one of the auditors who signs off on the Ãconsolidated errorsÃ(TM) totals. He tells me itÃ(TM)s one of the most rigorous accounting protocols heÃ(TM)s ever seen and worked under.
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Didn't I vote for that guy?! Oh wait .. It's not allowed to vote for people so high up the ladder in the EU.
What a bizzare thing to say just after the first election ever where EU citizens got to influence the choice of President of the EU comission.
For you Americans out there here is what happened: All the (sane) parties proposing candidates for the EU parliament announced who their respective candidates for EU comission president would be and pledged to vote for the candidate of the party that got the biggest number of seats. The EPP got the most seats, so their candidate, Jean-Claude Junker was elected presd
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Duh, I misread the summary, it's the presidency of the council.
You may have had a chance to vote for him if you were italian.
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1) Amusingly enough Matteo Renzi is actually unelected, insofar as he is the third prime minister to be nominated by the Italian President (and then confirmed by a vote of confidence in Parliament) since the last election.
2) Judging by polls, he would (probably) be confirmed in the role by a popular election if elections were held right now with the current electoral law.
He is also the first to readily recognise the absurdity of this situation, and is actually making a very controversial effort to reform th
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and the rag-tag of swivel-eyed loons they joined didn't bother to present a candidate
When I hear you guys across the pond say stuff like this, I wonder whether your politicians are crazier or if you're just more eloquent in saying "I hate those other guys."
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You should check out A Short History of Swivel-Eyed Loons [virtualstoa.net].
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Rotating the eyes wildly, especially in a way regarded as indicative of frenzy:
Huh. My guess was it was some sort of ethnic slur directed at Asians. Never heard that term before.
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But of course, they can't write laws, the commission do that, and who is actually writing the laws - revolving door corporate lawyers or with the TTIP it's pretty much the corporations writing the laws strictly to benefit their profit margins.
The EU Commission have a history of putting forwards laws and treaties that benefit only corporations whilst crapping all over the rights of the citizens of the EU (bad copyright laws are one example).
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Like, for example, ACTA. Oh, but the 'powerless' EU parliament rejected that.
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I didn't say the EU parliament are powerless, I said they don't write the laws.
The Commission who are unelected, keep producing crap like ACTA, TTIP has ACTA rolled in to it - so whilst MEPs might be able to vote down the crap when millions of EU citizens lobby them, it doesn't stop the Commission from being complete dickheads and trying to sneak bad laws through in subsequent treaties.
The Commissioners or a replacement institution needs to be democratically accountable.
(Slashdot took 3 days to notify me of
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The Commission who are unelected,
The president of the comission is elected, now.
The Commissioners or a replacement institution needs to be democratically accountable.
The commision is accountable to the elected parliament.
Yes, it could be better, but the problem is in the member states, who resist all attempts to increase democracy in the EU tooth and nail.
(Slashdot took 3 days to notify me of replies).
Yup, I jost gtot a whole burst of notifications at around midnight. Looks like their e-mail system was all fucked up.
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I didn't vote for the PM either, and odds are 1 in 650 that he even represents you directly.
* I'm assuming that like me, you live in the UK.
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Byzantine Union of Europe.
You expect the EU to last for over 1000 years?
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I was under the impression that if Byzantium couldn't stand up to an invader, probably nobody else who was around at the time would have been able to do much better...
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Yeah, we're capitalists here--where we take your money away and then eloquently explain how you didn't deserve it in the first place because you're poor.
So much better than just taking your money just because (fascism) or taking your money while telling you it's for the greater good (communism). At least with the last, there's a philosophical argument involved rather than just "I want yours."
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Yeah, well, stop voting for them, or, as they say, quitcherbellyachin... In the meantime, everybody needs to look at this as an incentive to circumvent the corporate wire, and maybe be a bit more careful who they vote for. Nobody is forcing them to vote for corruption. As far as I can tell, they're doing just like American voters looking to vote themselves a bigger piece of the pie. This is the result. The government governed by majority rule is only a reflection of the majority. It rewards corruption. Don'
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Yes, Italy's internet legislation is entirely crappy (as is most Italian legislation).
No, I doubt that anybody has designs on screwing up european legislation just so the shittiest law prevails.
Modern politics (Score:3)
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"Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold. For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." -- Shakespeare. Seriously, are there any politicians left who are NOT corrupt?
Your question is meaningless. Like "is there any ocean left which doesn't contain water?" or "what happened to all those unicorns that once tölted on the Atlantidan prairies?"
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(When I read this back to proofread, I sounded like George Takei in my head)
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Without giving in to complete cynicism...I believe yes there are, though they are few.
I also believe that a great many politicians even start out that way, bright eyed and hopeful and naive, much like the epynimous Mr Smith.
But what's the old saying? Opportunity knocks but once, temptation leans on the door bell.
Well....the lobbyists don't just lean on the door bell.
They buy your mortgage out from under you to threaten you with eviction, while letting themselves into the house whenever they please, constant
Irrelevant (Score:2)
In some ways, I believe that the state of communications, globally, has already become monitored/recorded by governmental intervention, after what I witnessed through the federal system (See My Bio [tminr.com]). The idea of bringing this down to the ISP level seems to be irrelevant with respect to what already exists. However, the purpose of purchasing access to the internet is to have a dedicated stream that is not capped. Those countries that allow this will fall behind the others.
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Its worse than that. Traders have been shown to be potentially even worse than a random investment strategy.
http://www.plosone.org/article... [plosone.org]
From the conclusion:
"The average percentages of wins for the five strategies are always comparable and oscillate around , with small random differences which depend on the financial index considered."
"The second important result is that the fluctuations of the random strategy are always smaller than those of the other strategies (as it is also visible in Fig. 9 for th
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And owners of networks impair competition across those networks.
If you're anti-net-neutrality, then you're pro-monopoly-abuse of the existing free market of services accessible over the internet.
Re:Manipulative language (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should we care about the owners of the network?
The internet is fundamentally a natural monopoly.
As such it should absolutely be treated as such which means utilty type regulations.
The owners aren't the ones you should be concerned, rather it's the users and consumers.
It's really simple: If you are against Net Neutrality, you are against the internet that you currently enjoy in its present state.
Net Neutrality is about preserving and protecting the current ideal status quo that companies at least pay lip service to.
Blocking Net Neutrality is about fundamentally changing the internet as you know it, to turn it into nothing more than walled garden ala AOL and Compuserve of old, where your "internet" is little more than a slightly fancier cable channel with predetermined content. Such a thing fundamentally kills and and restricts the marketplace and exchange of ideas, of thoughts, of communication, of trade and economic possiblity that current exists, and ensures that all potential profits will go to the established ISPs, and no unapproved upstarts shall be allowed to exist.
The internet is possibly one of the greatest achievements in human history in terms of communication. It fosters communication and free speech on a scale never before known by humanity. Across borders, across cultures, across the globe, and (hopeuflly, potentially) across the stars. That openness, that freedom, must be protected.
And protecting means Net Neutrality.
If you oppose NN you advocating for the destruction of one of humanity's greatest triumphs, and one of the biggest liberators of the little guy.
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Is that what we're currently getting? Then hell yes.
Are you saying 1000 spam and 100 worthwhile things is worse than 100* spam and 10 worthwhile things?
*because no filtering will ever be perfect
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In Order To Meet Contract Obligations (Score:4, Interesting)
Coming soon from ISPs: Legalese buried deep in your contract with them that essentially states "We [the ISP] have the contractual obligation to muck with any website as we see fit whenever we want to do so."
They're contractually obligated to slow down your Netflix speeds because they really wanted to and the contract means they are now obligated to slow down Netflix.
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So there's a business-case to be made, for starting a company whose sole purpose is to sign contracts requiring ISPs to fiddle with internet services?
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Coming soon from ISPs: Legalese buried deep in your contract with them that essentially states "We [the ISP] have the contractual obligation to muck with any website as we see fit whenever we want to do so."
They're contractually obligated to slow down your Netflix speeds because they really wanted to and the contract means they are now obligated to slow down Netflix.
Yeah. The idea is not bad, but that is how it would end unless they demand it to be very explicit. Basically this is how everybody already sells fixed phone lines. The phone lines have a reserved bandwidth that can't be used by the internet though it uses the same line of copper or fiber, but that bandwidth is not advertised as part of the internet connection. I think if it is fine that they can do all kinds of crazy things, they just can't call it internet or broadband and can't advertise bandwidth not tre
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There's two flavors of net neutrality. There's the dumb network flavor in which networking devices receive and forward packets in a FIFO manner. Then there's the smart network flavor in which networking devices receive and forward packets based on what grouping and type they fall under so that QoS can be preserved for latency sensitive applications. The Internet, in the US, is mostly operating under a combination of both dumb and smart networks at this time and lot of the issues that people "claim" are viol
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No, VoIP 911 calls shouldn't get priority. You know that "all circuits are busy" message that you sometimes get on POTS systems? That shows that resources are not infinite on it. Your POTS 911 call gets no more priority than a tween girls' inane conversation. And yet society hasn't burned down.
It can and hopefully will be the same for VoIP 911 calls over a neutral Internet. In fact it will be better - the call metadata is small enough that it should get through regardless, so emergency services will know yo
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Let's say that emergency VOIP is a big enough concern to warrant an exception. Why not first establish a general rule that only allows for emergency VOIP calls to be prioritized, and that any other prioritization results in the CEO of the ISP being punched in the throat?
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There should be no VOIP 911 calls, for just about the same reason as nuclear missile launch commands should not be transmitted over the Internet.
Car analogy: You shouldn't use Microsoft Windows to control the electronic braking system of your car.
P2P crowdfunded/sourced internet (Score:1)
The highway analogy (Score:2)
EU Council presidency (Score:2)