Slashdot Mirror
EU Passes Resolution Against ITU Asserting Control Over Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Today, the European Parliament passed a resolution that condemns the upcoming attempt from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to assert control over the Internet, and instructed its 27 Member States to act accordingly. This follows an attempt from the ITU to assert itself as the governing body and control the Internet. From the article: 'The resolution, which was passed with a large majority, included Members of European Parliament (MEPs) from all major party groups, and the Pirate Party’s Amelia Andersdotter had been playing a central role in its drafting, together with MEPs Marietje Schaake and Judith Sargentini from the Netherlands, Sabine Verheyen and Petra Kammerevert from Germany, Ivailo Kalfin from Bulgaria, and Catherine Trautmann from France.'"
Despite all the failing and shortcomings, mother Europe still delivers.
I'm pretty sure that having the EU tell you "STFU and leave it to the yanks" is one of the harsher put-downs that a multinational treaty organization can suffer...
The anti-innovation, anti-competition strategy of the telcos must be stopped. The only thing as dysfunctional was the old USSR planned-economy model.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
its not really legislation as it has no binding power whatsoever. Its pretty much "Hey, we dont like this idea" shout from them.
It's both a giant stab at the ITU and the US. They don't want a single entity in control, and they want to make sure all stakeholders are considered collaboratively (which is what the ITU is anyway, but at a different level). In other words, we don't like the current setup, but we thing the ITU being in charge could be worse.
It plants itself firmly in the camp of open internet, something the US has consistently stood against in one way or another (blocking foreign sports betting, arresting Kim Dotcom, Going after wikileaks payments etc.).
Now what will plan B look like...
Anonymous Douche fails to understand GP's points. An open internet would prohibit and prevent the abominations of "justice" that have been perpetrated on Kim Dotcom and on Wikileaks. The United States has gone out of it's way repeatedly to prevent an open internet. ACTA and NPP are two fine examples of that. In effect, both are government blessings on corporate attempts to strangle the internet.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Seriously, between the shittiness that is our national government and the shittiness that is the European Commission (fairly well demonstrated by having put my countryman Barroso in "charge"), the European Parliament seems like the only sane institution around here.
Dilbert RSS feed
Despite the US still being conservative compared to the progessive world, it is definetly far more liberal than nations such as Saudi Arabia where everyone citizen has to belong to the state sanctioned religion and women barely get by with showing their faces in public. Sure the current situation isn't ideal, but the ITU's solution is far worse.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
These aren't things that would change if the US didn't hold the keys to the internet.
The control of the internet lands on one organization: IANA. Right now, IANA delegates its powers to ICANN. IANA is merely responsible for deciding who gets what IP addresses and domain names. The ITU wants to usurp that power for themselves, for who knows what ends, or why they think the status quo is wrong.
In any case, even if say the ITU, the EU, China, or even nobody at all had the keys to IANA, the US would still be able to go after Dotcom and Wikileaks due to pre-existing treaties and strong arming tactics that don't require the internet to even exist in the first place.
Regardless though, there is no such thing as an "open internet" in your definition of the term. SOMEBODY has to decide who gets what names and numbers. There are theoretical ways of decentralizing DNS, (which in my opinion will be riddled with problems, although it will at least perform the intended function) but you CAN NOT decentralize IP address assignments without introducing a whole mess of other problems. It would be akin to not having a regulatory authority on who gets licenses to any given RF spectrum.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
we had Andersdotters here in India. Young politicians here are 40+, most are 60+ who can't understand tech if their lives depended on it. hence the facebook-post-arrests seen recently.
I don't see anything wrong with arresting someone for using facebook. A few more cases pour encourager les autres and with any luck we could get the whole fucking thing shut down.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
To be frank, after having travelled with railways in many places. I must say that the Dutch railways are probably the best working ones on the entire continent (except for when it is snowing).
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
it was this whore
Starting with a stupid sexist accusation like that makes me and many other people ignore the rest of your comment. Perhaps you have a valid point about her behaviour in office, but if you're unable to make it without a completely unjustified sexual slur, then you don't deserve to be heard.
Grow the fuck up.
The Dutch railroads are among the best in the world, with huge double-decker passenger trains between major cities with the frequency that some large cities don't even get on their metro lines. The cost of a ticket on Dutch trains is significantly lower than on the French or UK trains, and they are easier to get (from the machines), without the need of a stupid reservation. Even if a train is delayed, this delay is mostly measured in mere minutes. Only real accidents or failures will result on longer delays. And snow. Snow f***s everything up, because the Dutch don't invest enough to avoid that. But this is a sensible choice, not a failure. It just happens that it snowed in the last 2 years.
I never understand why the Dutch complain so much about their train system. I guess this is just because they never take the trains abroad.
The VVD may be wrong on many things, but they haven't messed up the trains.