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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."

10 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: 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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    2. 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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    3. 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.

    4. 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.

    5. 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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  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 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.