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I'm sorry, but this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what EC competition law is designed to do.

There's 3 aspects to EC competiton law (one of which is to do with mergers and we'll skip it). They're contained in articles 81-83 of the EC treaty. The first article, 81, (full text) deals with concerted practices and agreements between companies that hinder, or POTENTIALLY hinder, trade between member states. As you can see by my emphasis, it's not the point that an agreement affects trade, or that it affects trade in a minor way, or even that it affects trade in only a small area (since one case held that only affecting trade in one town was enough, since it had a large enough trade volume). Thus the fact it's a "relic from the 90s" is completely irrelevant. EC competition law is about potential infringements as much as it is about actual effects of those infringements.

Article 82 (full text) which Microsoft has also been in breach of is simply to do with abuse of a dominant position. Microsoft is dominant. "*EVERY* OS" may well come bundled with a browser, but it's Microsoft with the large market share. Under Article 81 you are permitted to have an infringing agreement if you can show your combined market share (between the conspiring parties) is below a certain level. Under Article 82, you can't have an action brought against you unless you are dominant. You talk about putting Microsoft at a "serious disadvantage" with Apple and Linux - but they are already far and away dominant. Penalising Microsoft would create a more open market with more operating systems having a larger market share, at the expense of Microsoft's own (in theory).

Lastly, if you'd read the article, you'd see that they're punishing Microsoft for 10 years of "bad behaviour." Rather than talking about the EC being "spiteful" and "not helping the consumer" (because an open market is sooooooooo bad for consumers), you should consider that when a company intends to trade within an economic zone it has to comply with certain rules. These rules have been applied to European companies time and time again - why should Microsoft get a free ride by virtue of being American?

And for the record, I'm fine with Microsoft (I don't particularly see why you'd distinguish them from other proprietary/closed source vendors), but I'm more in favour of the EC's positive steps to maintaining a free market than I am in favour of any one company.

I am reminded of the Pan Am Flight 214 crash of a Boeing 707 in Elkton, MD, in December, 1963.

The CAB found the probable cause as "Lightning-induced ignition of the fuel/air mixture in the no. 1 reserve fuel tank with resultant explosive disintegration of the left outer wing and loss of control."

There was a similar lightning-induced fuel tank explosion of a Iranian 747 near Madrid in

Here is a report on airplane fuel tank explosions.

Well here are some:

http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/publications/2006/ke7606200_en.pdf
http://www.bmfsfj.de/bmfsfj/generator/RedaktionBMFSFJ/Abteilung4/Pdf-Anlagen/entgeltungleichheit-sinusstudie,property=pdf,bereich=,sprache=de,rwb=true.pdf

The second one is in german, but serves to prove the "same work different pay" aspect. You have to imagine the following: In Germany, YOU NEVER GET TO KNOW WHAT YOUR COLLEAGUES MAKE. That's right. You can work alongside a person for thirty years, doing the same work, and be completely in the dark wether or not there is a pay difference between you. Germany has a very rigid culture of secrecy regarding matters of pay. There are no legal obligations or even guidelines for transparency.
Now look at the numbers of the second study. You can see that even in jobs in which stereotypewise we wouldn't expect a pay gap (example: cook) women earn something like two thirds of what men make. THAT'S the gender bias people are talking about.

Both studies were created by government agencies, btw. (EU Commission, German Ministry of Family Affairs)

There's active work going on with underwater radio. It's really tough to do in salt water. But it's not quite impossible. There's considerable interest in making something that can push data through 100 meters of water depth. Oil industry operations would like to talk to their stuff on the ocean floor.

At longer ranges, there's at least one research project which claims that there's a transmission window in seawater between 1MHz and 10MHz. They hope to get data across 1KM. That will be useful if it works.

ELF works; the US and the USSR both have used it in the 70-85 Hz band. The trouble with ELF is that the wavelengths are so long at 80Hz that you need an antenna the size of a county.

The website is europa.eu

Let me illustrate the point better:

Article 5
1. The articles, sections, chapters, titles and parts of the Treaty on European Union and of the
Treaty establishing the European Community, as amended by this Treaty, shall be renumbered in
accordance with the tables of equivalences set out in the Annex to this Treaty, and which form an
integral part of this Treaty.
2. The cross-references to the articles, sections, chapters, titles and parts of the Treaty on European
Union and of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, as well as between them, shall be
adapted pursuant to paragraph 1 and the references to paragraphs of the said articles as renumbered or
re-ordered by the provisions of this Treaty shall be adapted in accordance with those provisions.
References to the articles, sections, chapters, titles and parts of the Treaty on European Union and of
the Treaty establishing the European Community contained in the other treaties and acts of primary
legislation on which the Union is founded shall be adapted pursuant to paragraph 1 of this Article.
References to recitals of the Treaty on European Union or to paragraphs or articles of the Treaty on
European Union or of the Treaty establishing the European Community as renumbered or re-arranged
by the provisions of this Treaty shall be adapted pursuant to this latter.
Such adaptations shall, where necessary, also apply in the event that the provision in question has been
repealed.
3. The references to the recitals, articles, sections, chapters, titles and parts of the Treaty on
European Union and of the Treaty establishing the European Community, as amended by this Treaty,
contained in other instruments or acts shall be understood as referring to the recitals, articles, sections,
chapters, titles and parts of those Treaties as renumbered pursuant to paragraph 1 and, respectively, to
the paragraphs of the said articles, as renumbered or re-arranged by certain provisions of this Treaty.

Would you be so proud of your founding fathers if they signed this?

Most commercial software houses of any size are extremely loathe to release source for their products,

If that is the case, why then are they then so eagerly giving out a license to legally decompile their program?

Indeed, in the European Union, according to articles 5.3 and 6 of the European "copyright" directive of May 14th 1991, it is allowable to reverse engineer a program in circumstances where this is necessary to achieve interoperability.

Right now, decompilation is a pretty rare occurrence due to lack of appropriate tools, but this is changing...

These fines are peanuts compared to the E.U. and E.U. member states budgets, and you know it because the U.S. of A. is a comparable '1st world' economy with comparable government spending (although it might lay emphasis on different topics) ... We're talking about multiple hundreds of billions of euros here, per larger country of the E.U. (U.K., France, Germany) and 120 billion euro (in 2007) of budget for the E.U. itself. Combined it could be a few trillions, allthough I'm guessing here... So to see the 1 billion euro fine for iNtel and what's to come for Microsoft as a significant 'monopoly tax' or '"Let the Americans pay our bills" tax' is a bit of an exaggeration.

Now for companies fined by E.U. anti-trust laws; We are talking about the multinationals out here. Local companies breaking these laws are punished nationally (like, in recent history, half the building sector in the Netherlands, the 'Bouwfraude' scandal which triggered a parliamentary inquiry)
This is a list of some of the more significant cases:

iNtel: 1.06 billion euros. (Illegal sales practices)
Otis, Kone, Schindler, ThyssenKrupp: 992 million euros. (Cartel of installation and maintaining elevators)
Hoffman-La Roche (and others): 790 million euros. (Price fixing of vitamin products)
Siemens, Toshiba (and others): 750 million euros. (Cartel of gas insulator switches)
(nine oil companies): 676 million euros. (Price fixing of parafine wax)
Bayer, Shell, Dow (and others): 519 million euros. (Price fixing of synthetic rubber)
Microsoft: 497 million euros. (Monopoly abuse)
Saint Gobain (and others): 486 million euros. (price fixing of flat glass)
Akzo Nobel, Solvay (and others): 388 million euros. (price fixing of hydrogen peroxide)
(five producers): 344 million euros. (price fixing of acryllic glass)
Heineken, Grolsch, Bavaria: 273 million euros. (Dutch beer market cartel)

Sources are all over the web, but I used this one because it had a nice list with fined amounts and company names and checked the data here.

This is a log of recent (this year) cases As you can see, the list is quite diverse but indeed does include both iNtel and Microsoft. Quite a few cases involve whole industrial sectors, not individual companies. Understandable if you know that anti-trust includes discussing set prices with your competitors. A link at the bottom of that page points to earlier cases.

In the end, this is the risk of doing business in the E.U.. You should play by the E.U. anti-trust rules. If you don't, you can be caught, and just like me when I'd be speeding or ignore a red traffic light you can be fined an amount appropriate to the offense.

These fines are peanuts compared to the E.U. and E.U. member states budgets, and you know it because the U.S. of A. is a comparable '1st world' economy with comparable government spending (although it might lay emphasis on different topics) ... We're talking about multiple hundreds of billions of euros here, per larger country of the E.U. (U.K., France, Germany) and 120 billion euro (in 2007) of budget for the E.U. itself. Combined it could be a few trillions, allthough I'm guessing here... So to see the 1 billion euro fine for iNtel and what's to come for Microsoft as a significant 'monopoly tax' or '"Let the Americans pay our bills" tax' is a bit of an exaggeration.

Now for companies fined by E.U. anti-trust laws; We are talking about the multinationals out here. Local companies breaking these laws are punished nationally (like, in recent history, half the building sector in the Netherlands, the 'Bouwfraude' scandal which triggered a parliamentary inquiry)
This is a list of some of the more significant cases:

iNtel: 1.06 billion euros. (Illegal sales practices)
Otis, Kone, Schindler, ThyssenKrupp: 992 million euros. (Cartel of installation and maintaining elevators)
Hoffman-La Roche (and others): 790 million euros. (Price fixing of vitamin products)
Siemens, Toshiba (and others): 750 million euros. (Cartel of gas insulator switches)
(nine oil companies): 676 million euros. (Price fixing of parafine wax)
Bayer, Shell, Dow (and others): 519 million euros. (Price fixing of synthetic rubber)
Microsoft: 497 million euros. (Monopoly abuse)
Saint Gobain (and others): 486 million euros. (price fixing of flat glass)
Akzo Nobel, Solvay (and others): 388 million euros. (price fixing of hydrogen peroxide)
(five producers): 344 million euros. (price fixing of acryllic glass)
Heineken, Grolsch, Bavaria: 273 million euros. (Dutch beer market cartel)

Sources are all over the web, but I used this one because it had a nice list with fined amounts and company names and checked the data here.

This is a log of recent (this year) cases As you can see, the list is quite diverse but indeed does include both iNtel and Microsoft. Quite a few cases involve whole industrial sectors, not individual companies. Understandable if you know that anti-trust includes discussing set prices with your competitors. A link at the bottom of that page points to earlier cases.

In the end, this is the risk of doing business in the E.U.. You should play by the E.U. anti-trust rules. If you don't, you can be caught, and just like me when I'd be speeding or ignore a red traffic light you can be fined an amount appropriate to the offense.

Question: How many major EU corps have been hit with these "super fines"? Because I'm starting to smell a "let the stinky Americans pay for our bills!" tax here.

Lots, but unsurprisingly it doesn't make the news in the USA.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/

Frankly the BS is getting thick.

It would stop if Microsoft complied with the law.

And unless someone can produce a list where they have also hit EU corps with big fines

See the link. For instance, here is a €1.3bn fine against three EU firms and a Japanese one (it's just the first one I clicked).

Question: How many major EU corps have been hit with these "super fines"? Because I'm starting to smell a "let the stinky Americans pay for our bills!" tax here.

Lots, but unsurprisingly it doesn't make the news in the USA.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/

Frankly the BS is getting thick.

It would stop if Microsoft complied with the law.

And unless someone can produce a list where they have also hit EU corps with big fines

See the link. For instance, here is a €1.3bn fine against three EU firms and a Japanese one (it's just the first one I clicked).

The Commission would welcome any step that Microsoft took towards genuine interoperability, more consumer choice and less vendor lock-in. In its ongoing antitrust investigation concerning interoperability with Microsoft Office (see MEMO/08/19), the Commission will investigate whether the announced support of ODF (OpenDocument format) in Office leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice.

The goal is clearly interoperability. Microsoft could have made an interoperable, conformant implementation, but they chose not to. Customers don't want excuses. They want interoperability.

Extramdura. Quoting the paper's abstract:

Extremadura is the poorest region of Spain, lagging behind the rest of the country in both the economic and technological arena. Though short on financial resources, the region has set very high goals for itself in its Regional Strategy on
Information Society. This paper briefly describes the region's strategy and continues to discuss how the use of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) aids the regional government in achieving its goals.

The fun part is the link that I provide comes from the EU's site! lol

Gartner also made the case that EU governments should not abandon open standards, but rather redefine open standards by removing royalty free use. Thats basically tossing the success story of the Internet out the window and still using it as branding name for the new EIFv2 "European Interoperability Framework" See EU-commission pages at: http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7728 and a post about it here: http://bosson.blogspot.com/2009/05/stealing-free-from-open-standards.html

Her final words on the official EU statement:
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to Intel's latest global advertising campaign which proposes Intel as the "Sponsors of Tomorrow." Their website invites visitors to add their 'vision of tomorrow'. Well, I can give my vision of tomorrow for Intel here and now: "obey the law".

From: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/09/241&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
Go Neelie!

(European companies will get a free pass, of course).

Like EDF, Groupement des Cartes Bancaires, or Telekomunikacja Polska and Slovak Telekom are then?

(European companies will get a free pass, of course).

Like EDF, Groupement des Cartes Bancaires, or Telekomunikacja Polska and Slovak Telekom are then?

(European companies will get a free pass, of course).

Like EDF, Groupement des Cartes Bancaires, or Telekomunikacja Polska and Slovak Telekom are then?

From the accompanying memo:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/235&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Where does the money go?

Once final judgment has been delivered in any appeals before the Court of First Instance (CFI) and the Court of Justice, the money goes into the EUs central budget, thus reducing the contributions that Member States pay to the EU.

First, your arithmetic is atrocious. Work on that. Second, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "the Microsoft fine", seeing how Microsoft has been fined several times, since unlike those European companies, it just doesn't want to learn. Third, none of the companies I listed were stupid enough to try to string the commission along. But then, with profit margins reaching 81%(par. 464), perhaps it's not really a matter of "stupidity", ey.

You mean EU firms such as Lufthansa, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Viag Interkom GmbH, Telefonica S.A., KONE GmbH, those kinds of firms?

You mean EU firms such as Lufthansa, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Viag Interkom GmbH, Telefonica S.A., KONE GmbH, those kinds of firms?

You mean EU firms such as Lufthansa, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Viag Interkom GmbH, Telefonica S.A., KONE GmbH, those kinds of firms?

You mean EU firms such as Lufthansa, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Viag Interkom GmbH, Telefonica S.A., KONE GmbH, those kinds of firms?

You mean EU firms such as Lufthansa, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Viag Interkom GmbH, Telefonica S.A., KONE GmbH, those kinds of firms?

You mean EU firms such as Lufthansa, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Viag Interkom GmbH, Telefonica S.A., KONE GmbH, those kinds of firms?

if the press release is anything to go by.

The only point that seems to come near TFA is:

4. Extending the principles of consumer protection rules to cover licensing agreements of products like software downloaded for virus protection, games or other licensed content. Licensing should guarantee consumers the same basic rights as when they purchase a good: the right to get a product that works with fair commercial conditions.

Bit more detailed if you go to the original resolution (mostly s.36 onwards). Free software doesn't even come into either the new or existing law because there is no consideration.

All we're really looking at here is blocking the damned "now that you've opened the box to read this notice, you can't get your money back". Liability is not going to go any further than a refund, unless the software maker expressly states they guarantee something. Unlike a toaster, normal use of consumer software cannot electrocute you or start fires. The aim of the whole thing is for the benefit of trade (particularily inter-EU) - to get consumers to buy more software and for them to shop around within the EU countries, they need to have standardised rights that give them confidence.

if the press release is anything to go by.

The only point that seems to come near TFA is:

4. Extending the principles of consumer protection rules to cover licensing agreements of products like software downloaded for virus protection, games or other licensed content. Licensing should guarantee consumers the same basic rights as when they purchase a good: the right to get a product that works with fair commercial conditions.

Bit more detailed if you go to the original resolution (mostly s.36 onwards). Free software doesn't even come into either the new or existing law because there is no consideration.

All we're really looking at here is blocking the damned "now that you've opened the box to read this notice, you can't get your money back". Liability is not going to go any further than a refund, unless the software maker expressly states they guarantee something. Unlike a toaster, normal use of consumer software cannot electrocute you or start fires. The aim of the whole thing is for the benefit of trade (particularily inter-EU) - to get consumers to buy more software and for them to shop around within the EU countries, they need to have standardised rights that give them confidence.

The EU human rights act has a number of fundamental rights built into it. Of course being the EU it isn't anywhere near as succinct as the earlier documents such as the US constitution.

Life, Liberty and the pursit of Happiness would be written as,

"Article 2, Article 6, and the pursuit of Article 9" (there's no reference to happiness in the HRA, but "Right to marry and right to found a family" is close enough).

source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf

I think Ms. Reding would be surprised how a great many things she doesn't believe in have reasonable and sometimes convincing defenses.

I think you're starry-eyed, and living in a fantasy world. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but usually people don't get to where she is by believing their own bullshit.

No. Of course not. People get where she is by convincing other people to believe their bullshit.

I think Ms. Reding would be surprised how a great many things she doesn't believe in have reasonable and sometimes convincing defenses.

I think you're starry-eyed, and living in a fantasy world. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but usually people don't get to where she is by believing their own bullshit.

No. Of course not. People get where she is by convincing other people to believe their bullshit.

Great links. For those who have censorship concerns, as can be seen on her Policies and Activities page, she supports the Safer Internet Programme. Their mission "aims at empowering and protecting children and young people online by awareness raising initiatives and by fighting illegal and harmful online content and conduct."

Great links. For those who have censorship concerns, as can be seen on her Policies and Activities page, she supports the Safer Internet Programme. Their mission "aims at empowering and protecting children and young people online by awareness raising initiatives and by fighting illegal and harmful online content and conduct."

I think Ms. Reding would be surprised how a great many things she doesn't believe in have reasonable and sometimes convincing defenses.

I think you're starry-eyed, and living in a fantasy world. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but usually people don't get to where she is by believing their own bullshit.

I think Ms. Reding would be surprised how a great many things she doesn't believe in have reasonable and sometimes convincing defenses.

I think you're starry-eyed, and living in a fantasy world. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but usually people don't get to where she is by believing their own bullshit.

There are few people on this discussion arguing that the law itself is bad. *You* might be, I don't know, but hypothetically shouldn't a good law be followed up? Surely there must be some absolutes in enforcement?

The EU aren't exactly new in this area...

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/

Also, it is true that fines are a significant portion of the EU's small budget.

The EU budget for 2010 is €139 billion. A fine of €980 million ($1.3 billion) would add 0.71% to this budget.

Don't worry, he's just trolling.

"The budget also receives other revenue, such as taxes paid by EU staff on their salaries, contributions from non-EU countries to certain EU programmes and fines on companies that breach competition or other laws. These miscellaneous resources add up to around EUR 1.3 billion, i.e. about 1 % of the budget."

Source:
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/budget_glance/where_from_en.htm

It's a rather fucked up moderation system lately. I'm always ashamed of my excellent Karma, because if these kind of posts get modded up, I don't want to be part of it.

The only way to get mod points lately is to be *VERY* quick with replies. Which means that people either know it already (which is fine) or, as in this case, make it up on the spot (which is fucked up). Sometimes I just cannot get mod points because the article is more than a few hours old and I had to wait for day light, and then do some research.

Especially when its about Java or security/cryptography it's annoying. I know a lot about those topics and most of the time I cannot even hope for my replies to be read. It's doubly annoying when there are +5 articles like the GP that are just PLAIN WRONG.

The money goes into the general budget of the EU (Budget) into the programs of the EU (Budget in figures)

The money goes into the general budget of the EU (Budget) into the programs of the EU (Budget in figures)

Or did everyone already forget ECHELON? Or does it only count if you actively break into other systems, rather than only intercept everyone's personal, business and political Internet communications?

And it would really surprise me if they didn't break into other systems yet. It's not like they first asked for public approval for ECHELON before starting to set up and use it.

Not to downplay this event but I really wonder why we don't hear much about espionage from western countries ? Are they better at it (rather than using malware or commonly avaliable tools) ? I am sure the Chinese etc have equally vulnerable systems.

Western countries spy (also on each other) using stuff like ECHELON, mainly for industrial spionage purposes, and this fact is well-documented and public knowledge. See e.g. the European Parliament's ECHELON report (search for "Published cases").

Here is the law text from europarl.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P6-TA-2008-0452

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.

Here is the law text from europarl.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P6-TA-2008-0452

Press release.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1677&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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

Here is the law text from europarl.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P6-TA-2008-0452

Press release.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1677&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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

Here is the law text from europarl.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&language=EN&reference=P6-TA-2008-0452

Press release.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1677&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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

What a freaking luddite. Do you know how much energy is required to move the mass of a train, compared to the efficiency of a modern light aircraft? I'm not talking 727, I'm talking small regional planes.

I think you are mistaken. Let's take a small, modern and efficient regional plane: the ATR 72 is a twin-turboprop, which efficiency-wise will give regional turbojets a run for their money. For a trip of 550 km (300 nm), it will burn about 750 l of fuel. If we take a typical density of energy of 9.7 kWh/l for gasoline, we are talking about 13.2 kWh/km for a maximum passenger capacity of 74 people. That's 0.18 kWh/km/passenger.

Let's take a TGV from the previous generation, in the Duplex series. Its power consumption is estimated at 17.65 kWh/km for a 427 km trip, with an average passenger load of 436 passengers. We are talking about 0.04 kWh/km/passenger. Roughly five times less.

Seemed like a great idea, until I read this:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=49&pageRank=4&language=EN
It cannot, however, override decisions taken by competent authorities within Member States. As the European Parliament is not a judicial authority, it can neither pass judgement on, nor revoke decisions taken by, the Courts of law in Member States. Petitions seeking such courses of action are inadmissible.

I'm definately wanting to get involved though if someone can find a good approach.

Anybody wanting to start a petition to the european parliement to revert the decision/(make linking legal) ?

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=49

"One of the fundamental rights of European citizens: Any citizen, acting individually or jointly with others, may at any time exercise his right of petition to the European Parliament under Article 194 of the EC Treaty."

The EU directive is not that strict, but the law in EU countries might be. An EU directive is not a law by itself, it is a directive to enact a law. The EU members can exceed the requirements of the directive, and if the UK has enacted a law which requires ISPs to store web URLs, then the UK has clearly "overaccomplished" (surprise surprise...)

The data retention directive specifically says they must retain elements that identify the origin and the destination.

Please read it. The level of fachism scares me.

From what they demand to storing URLs, is merely a matter of semantics, and the danger of that being done was predicted long before the directive was approved.

The Data Retention Directive is the equivalente to having a spy per citizen, noting down who he talks with, where and for how long.

Would you accept this in real life? No. Why do you accept it online?

Repeal the Data Retention directive now!