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Chile First To Approve Net Neutrality Law

Posted by kdawson on from the pathbreaker dept.

Sir Mal Fet writes "Chile has become the first country in the world to approve, by 100 votes in favor and one abstention, a law guaranteeing net neutrality (Google translation; Spanish original). The law states [submitter's translation]: 'No [ISP] can block, interfere with, discriminate, hinder, nor restrict the right of any Internet user of using, send, receive or offer any content, application, or legitimate service through the Internet, as well as any activity or legitimate use conducted through the Internet.' The law also has articles that force ISPs to provide parental control tools, clarify contracts, guarantee users' privacy and safety when surfing, and forbids them to restrict any liberty whatsoever. This is a major advance in the legislation of the country regarding the Web, when until last year almost anything that was performed online was considered illegal."

18 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. I love the wording in the above translation. by pecosdave · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The "send" part eludes most U.S. discussions. Most major ISPs in the US block many outgoing ports to prevent you from running a server. What I do with my bandwidth is my business thank you very much, including serving up HTML.

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    1. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by pecosdave · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do you work for Verizon?

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    2. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by rmaureira · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's a catch in the project tho', in one of the paragraphs says: "May not limit the right of a user to enter or use any class of instruments, devices or appliances on the network, provided they are legal and that they do not damage or harm the network or service quality." The last line can be used by ISPs saying that you're "damaging the network" with your computer. Now we need to wait for the government to pass the law, and then enforce it.

    3. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by pecosdave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You work for Comcast don't you?

      I ran my own server off of SouthWestern Bell then later Time Warner for years with not a single spam message bounced off my server, nor issue from it. Seriously, hosting the occasional Fark photoshop pic and having a photo album hosted on my own equipment with passwords for my family along with a small vanity site, where's the problem with that? I did it for years and find it nearly impossible to do now because of people with your mindset.

      I know a lot of people abuse it and run porn sites and push malware, but I shouldn't have to pay the price for them.

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    4. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by Baseclass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why must I be a business to need a web server? I'm a hobbyist.
      I'm paying for bandwidth, it's really none of their business how I utilize said bandwidth.

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    5. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Residential customers don't need a web server, though.

      You are not competent to decide that for me, and neither is my ISP.

    6. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >>>legitimate service through the Internet

      I worry about this part of the law. The word legitimate will eventually be used by follow-up laws (or overzealous police) to exclude:

      - Peer-2-Peer
      - Nudist websites
      - Photos of your kids
      - Hate websites like KKK.org
      - So-called hate site like Teaparty.org
      -
      - Downloading software to emulate ancient Atari or Sega or NES games
      - Sites that don't adhere to the new Internet Fairness Doctrine (don't present both sides of a story)
      - Downloading nude women that APPEAR to be younger than 18 (see Australia where 20-something women can't post photos, because they have A-sized breasts)
      - Downloading women who actually are younger than 18, but not committing any crime (such as topless photos from Brazilian or European beaches)
      - And so on.

      Government regulation brings *chains* not freedom

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    7. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by turbidostato · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "if, say, port 80 traffic were completely unfettered in a bi-directional manner and incomming connections were allowed without a previously established outgoing connection, chances are quite high that would be abused by malware authors for command-and-control and botnet node intercommunication."

      Still *my* problem, neither yours nor the ISP's.

      "I don't think that's much of a stretch at all, and its not as if the typical end user is going to know or care to secure their node."

      Why he should? What are the consecuences of his malpractices? If you fuck it up you pay for the mop seems a sensible policy. But even then, still my f* problem, neither yours nor the ISP's.

    8. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by turbidostato · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "The last line can be used by ISPs saying that you're "damaging the network""

      And they previous one can be used by any lobbying party to get off with whatever they want.

      ""May not limit the right of a user to enter or use any class of instruments, devices or appliances on the network, provided they are legal"

      So they just need to, say, declare illegal connecting more than one computer to a "single computer" connection and there you go.

      "and that they do not damage or harm the network or service quality"

      Oh, and by they way, trying to use 100% of bandwith as shown in the contract terms harms the service quality since we oversell it 100 to 1.

    9. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by pecosdave · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Listen in many countries we have laws protecting our freedom to do as we please. Yes, it's debatable rather we really have those freedoms or not, but that's beside the point.

      One thing that we generally have laws about is our personal freedoms end at the point that we utilize them to restrict someone else's freedom.

      If you're botnet infested you are out there doing denial of service attacks and trying to hack other systems into joining your bot net. At this point your freedom is being used in an attempt to restrict someone else's freedom.

      That's what jails are for, or in this case being cut off until you fix it.

      I see no "one rule for you, one for the rest of us" as you say. I see "don't attack someone else". Don't attack someone else is a pretty good rule I think.

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    10. Re:I love the wording in the above translation. by icebraining · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's the problem with open proxies? Tor is an open proxy, do you want to ban it too?

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  2. OK by koan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What Chile does: (what looks like) Decent Net Neutrality
    What America does: Massachusetts Bids To Restrict Internet Indecency

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    1. Re:OK by bsDaemon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From the Nixon administration through the first half of Bush 41's term, Chile had Augusto Pinochet, a military dictator. They might tend to look at freedom with slightly less jaded eyes than Americans who have had it "too good for too long." Small things like that can tend to have major effects on perspective. Just saying.

  3. Key Fickle Phrase by Aldanga · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "No [ISP] can block... legitimate use conducted through the Internet."

    Anybody else see the problem here?

  4. Re:Why net neutrality is bad... by Barrinmw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So you are saying that the people in areas with 1-2 ISPs will be able to switch to a different ISP that doesn't restrict traffic? Have you ever noticed how when one gas station raises their prices, the one directly across the street raises theirs to the same? Its not collusion but its price fixing. ISPs will do the same exact thing. Comcast goes, hey Wave Broadband is filtering out Torrents, we are gonna do it too to save money, people can complain but where they gonna go?

  5. Re:Why net neutrality is bad... by tofubeer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Net neutrality doesn't prevent charging based on usage (which is what they should be doing). Note that that is different than charging based on sites accessed or protocols used. ISPs should not be degrading P2P traffic, or restricting access to sites, what they should be doing is charging users based on their consumption.

  6. Re:Why net neutrality is bad... by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If net neutrality was implemented it WILL WITH CERTAINTY increase internet costs for all users

    Did it ever occur to you that some of us would be willing to pay more for untampered internet?

    And it's not just about peer2peer tampering. It's about all traffic shaping - streaming videos, playing video games, etc. Some of us would like to have unrestricted access. We already put up with the bandwidth issues during high traffic times - but you'll still be shaped in low traffic times. (Which, we might add, there is more low and mid-low traffic times then there are high and mid-high traffic times).

    You mention how Net Neutrality will offer more choices (those with tampering and those without). Currently, for most people, there are two options, Suck and suck harder.

    How could more options be worse?

  7. Redefines "Third World Country" by aaandre · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The term used to be associated with "impoverished." Now it is more like "laws not yet fully rewritten by and for corporations."