Netherlands Cements Net Neutrality In Law

Fluffeh writes "A while back, Dutch Telcos started to sing the 'We are losing money due to internet services!' song and floated new plans that would make consumers pay extra for data used by apps that conflicted with their own services — apps like Skype, for example. The politicians stepped in, however, and wrote laws forbidding this. Now, the legislation has finally passed through the Senate and the Netherlands is an officially Net Neutral country, the second in the world — Chile did this a while back."

Comments

Too bad

[meerling]

Too bad our politicians probably won't take the hint.

Re:Too bad

[Eraesr]

Too bad our (as in: the Dutch) judges don't take a hint. Yesterday a judge ruled that a bunch of additional Dutch telcos needed to block access to The Pirate Bay. A few months back that very same judge already ruled that two telcos (XS4ALL and Ziggo) needed to block access to TPB. Not that it matters, research by an independent company has indicated that usage of TPB by XS4ALL and Ziggo customers hasn't decreased the slightest bit.

Re:Too bad

[dingen]

Of course Finland is small when compared to the US. So lets compare the EU to the US. Why is the internet faster in the entire Eurozone, with all their different countries, cultures and languages, than in the US?

Didn't stop net censorship.

[lxs]

Net neutrality is a great step, but on the same day a judge ordered all ISPs in the Netherlands to block the Pirate Bay. You win some you lose some.

This is challenged

[thrill12]

There are already voices in the Dutch parliament calling for an investigation into copyright law, and whether censoring sites for commercial purposes/civil law is allowed : this would then only allow the blocking of sites illegal under criminal law. This story has not ended by far, and a similar thing as what happened to KPN (calling netneutrality into question) could happen to Brein (our "MPAA", using censorship for commercial purposes).