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Dutch Provider KPN Under Fire Over DPI
An anonymous reader writes "After Dutch internet/mobile provider KPN announced they were going to blatantly do away with the idea of net-neutrality by charging their customers for using text message replacements (such as WhatsApp) to make up for diminishing use of traditional text-messaging, it has now been revealed that they have apparently employed deep packet inspection (DPI) to monitor customers' use of WhatsApp (and also VoIP services) — which happens to be illegal in the Netherlands. Many national news outlets are now finally reporting on the issue. Some doubts exists on whether it was actually DPI that was used to measure WhatsApp use (and not just IP/TCP header inspection), while some KPN insiders suggested it is actually an outsourced operation run by Alcatel-Lucent." Update: 05/13 20:26 GMT by S : The Dutch equivalent of the EFF has recommended that users report this to the police, and explained how to go about doing so (Google translation of Dutch original).
...but in this case KPN is actually fully authorized to do that (unless DPI is illegal in the Netherlands). After all, the customers who are hit with the extra costs are actually doing something illegal, and they could just as well be brought to court or otherwise penalized in some much worse way. Granted, it's a bad law for us consumers, but it's still a law - just as there are laws against piracy and RIAA/MPAA act upon those laws. KPN acts in a much more sensible way, and while I wish we could just get away with our smart solutions I think their way of doing it is a huge step up from what the others do.