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UK May Kill the EU's Net Neutrality Law

Posted by samzenpus on from the hanging-on-by-a-thread dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The U.K. government is planning on vetoing the E.U. legislation that enforces net neutrality under the guise of 'won't anyone think of the child pornography blocking?' again. From the article: ' It’s a surprising turn of events. Just last month, the European Parliament voted to place the principles of net neutrality into law. However, before it becomes law throughout Europe, each member country must also pass the legislation. On Thursday, the British government indicated it may veto it instead. At issue is a new provision that critics argue would restrict the British government’s “ability to block illegal material.” The amendment made it so that only a court order would allow for the banning of content, and not a legislative provision, as originally proposed, according to RT. “We do not support any proposals that mean we cannot enforce our laws, including blocking child abuse images,” a government spokesperson told BuzzFeed.'"

61 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We don't need net neutrality laws in the UK. We have real competition, everyone has the choice of hundreds of different ISPs.

    1. Re:Good by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We don't need net neutrality laws in the UK. We have real competition, everyone has the choice of hundreds of different ISPs.

      Many of those ISPs are just reselling BT bandwidth. If BT throttles certain sites all these will be effected.

    2. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, they'll be affected.

    3. Re:Good by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 5, Interesting
      The price may be regulated, but the qualitiy of service appears not to be. Service quality is diabiolical - I mean service in the meaning of "what happens whyen you call to report a fault". They threaten to bill you a massive call out charge if the fault is "your responisibility" and frequently clear the fault and then claim "no fault found" - often when said fault is that they reconfigured the exchange without informing you.

      They refuse to give technical answers to technical questions even in the (unlikely) event that they can understand expressions like "static IP" and "DNS lookup" they persist in attempting to use dumbed down expressions to avoid using technical terms - thus ensuring that their words do not ahve any useful meaning.

      In short, if they were not a monopoly, they would not last a week.

      Disclaimer: I had a broadband problem last week - reported it - NFF, but problem gone. Repeatedly threatened with GBP220 call out charge. Process took three hours.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    4. Re:Good by Alain+Williams · · Score: 5, Informative

      Many of those ISPs are just reselling BT bandwidth. If BT throttles certain sites all these will be effected.

      BT do not resell bandwidth to the Internet, it operates a packet switching network over ATM that connects you to your ISP. You ISP connects you to the Internet and might filter or throttle some sites. BT does not look inside the ATM packets that travel over its network and so does not throttle some traffic - in theory anyway.

      BT also operates as an ISP which is probably where the confusion lies.

    5. Re:Good by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      My problem is that BT owns the copper line going to my house, and it is broken. It only works for voice, ADSL2 can barely scape 5Mb/sec with constant drop-outs. BT don't care, they only guarantee that the line works for voice.

      In other words I have only one ISP available to me: Virgin. I am tempted to try BT Infinity since apparently they replace most of the wiring, but only if I can cancel it within a month if it proves unusable.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re:Good by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My problem is that BT owns the copper line going to my house, and it is broken. It only works for voice, ADSL2 can barely scape 5Mb/sec with constant drop-outs. BT don't care, they only guarantee that the line works for voice.

      In other words I have only one ISP available to me: Virgin. I am tempted to try BT Infinity since apparently they replace most of the wiring, but only if I can cancel it within a month if it proves unusable.

      So, I work in the industry... but in the US. So I'm not positive how your field techs do things but I can give you the advice I'd give here.

      A lot of times, it's hard for the tech to know what's up. You complain about drop-outs and slow speeds. The Tech shows up, and it tests good. Techs like to fix stuff, that's why they're in the industry. So saying they don't care likely isn't accurate. But DSL issues can be incredibly difficult to diagnose and a lot of consumers use services that are garbage and then blame it on their DSL. So they have to deal with a lot of bogus issues and likely think you're another one.

      If I were you, I'd get a notebook and keep a log of when the line stops working, and what is going on when that happens. The classic example is what we here call a "Wet line" You have older twisted pair that works well when dry, but the insulation has cracked and when it rains water literally gets into the insulation and causes the inductance of the wire to change. It's not a strait short, if it were the card would fail or error. But the change in inductance will make the signal flutter all over the place. Generally this problem comes and goes with the rain. It takes a while for the water to seep in so it usually starts a few hours after the rain starts and then it takes a while for the line to dry out, so it will last a while after the rain stops. This makes it very hard for the customer to make the connection in their head. If you figure out that your outages are in fact related to the rain, then your next step is to convince the techs. Now you could just flat out say that... but your best bet is to get the tech out WHILE its raining. Even if he's a complete tool, if he plugs in his test set and it fails, he's going to have to do something about it. So figure out when it's going to rain for a few days strait and then call your trouble ticket in. Therefor increasing the likelyhood of a failure when they test.

      There are plenty of other issues that are similar. So if its not the rain, just keep track. Does it happen every friday at 8pm? Maybe your DSA is congested. Is it only in the mornings? Only when its bellow freezing? etc... all this will help them diagnose the problem. Try to predict when the problem will happen based on the data you collected, then try to get the tech there when you suspect it will. If you can, schedule an appointment and show the tech your data. If you can't schedule an appointment, write the tech a letter and leave it hanging on your NID (where your telephone line enters your house)

      Make it nice and friendly. Over here, I've literally seen AT&T techs install 10k foot spools of wire between a customers card and their house out of spite. So ticking off the tech is not a good idea.

    7. Re:Good by Xest · · Score: 2

      The call out charge is disturbing at first but I'm not sure BT ever charge it unless the BT guy finds it really is something completely braindead (like you haven't plugged in your ADSL router via a microfilter).

      I had an issue with ever decreasing sync speeds and it took my ISP 9 months to not fix it (in the end I got them to bodge it by just making them fix the target SnR lower than it used to be, because the error rate wasn't high enough for me to care - it didn't fix the real actual problem, but at least it got me back to square one).

      Despite having about 10 technicians visits, all unable to fix the fault, some claiming no fault found they didn't even try and charge me.

      Of course they had no right to because it was a problem on my network, but certainly it seems to take more than just their technicians say so to trigger the billing cost. I think they have to actually be able to fix the issue and prove that the fix was something the user could have or should have done to be able to bill, so unless they can outright show it was something that was obviously the users fault then they really don't charge. They basically say it to scare people into make damn fucking sure that they really aren't doing anything utterly stupid.

      But in general I agree, they're inept. There's no communication within BT, as I say 9 months and the problem still wasn't resolved - the ISP (PlusNet) send out BT, BT say the line is fine and PlusNet say it's not at their end and so send out BT again and the whole cycle repeats. The people they send out are generally just bottom of the pile numpties whose skillset barely extends beyond plugging in line test equipment and running a test and maybe crimping phone cable and punching cable into RJ11 sockets. Okay to be fair much of the reason it took 9 months to get nowhere was because of the incompetents at PlusNet just doing steps 1 - 3 on their idiot sheet or whatever without reading back the massive long history log that explained that steps 1 - 3 had already been done at least a thousand times, but the fact that when the BT engineers came out they were completely and utterly useless really didn't help either.

      I'm certain to this day the issue I face is an issue at the exchange, but the exchanges seem to be unmanned beasts whom no one is ever allowed to enter under any circumstances ever. At least that's how the ISPs and technicians that come to your door make it sound - you say something like "Can you please just finally now after 9 months get someone to check the exchange?" and the reply is "Oh well that's nothing to do with us, we've no idea how we'd get someone to have a look there".

      My line is currently undergoing the exact same problem again after 2 years of stability, so I'm about to go through the whole process again, which will not be fun.

      Worst part is for the amount of staff time my line problems are taking up it wouldn't be far off cost effective for BT to just fucking upgrade my local cabinet to fibre and deal with the problem once and for all - the next cabinet a mere 100 yards down the road from it has it, so the upgrade wouldn't cost any more than around £10,000.

      The only saving grace this time is that I enabled internet on my second line, so even though my first one is going shitty again I still have my backup. Phew.

    8. Re:Good by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Informative

      10k foot

      Really? That's almost two miles of wire. No-one notices that stuff going missing? Can't the tech be fired for this indefensible waste of resources, not to mention deliberately worsening a customer's service out of petty personal spite?

      Maybe I think too much of 'the system'...

      Plus, if the tech didn't like that customer, surely they'd want to avoid going back on account of connection issues...

      You've got to understand how these things work. There are DSA's every 30k feet (or less) in a telecom network. That's the limit of DSL so they need a DSA every 30k feet. DSL requires equipment in each DSA. Recently they've come up with DSA's that are just small unmanned boxes but anything built prior to a few years ago was a building... usually about the size of a construction trailer. They are plain, steel buildings with no address or signs. These make a natural place for the phone company to store things... like wire. You're mad at a customer? You've got Cat5 hanging on the wall... you just run it over to the spool hanging on the wall and then back to their card. Without close inspection or trying to use the wire you'd not even notice it. I saw it a few times, so it was clearly something that techs did there when they were mad.

      In other cases they don't even try to hide it. After I worked for ATT I worked for a CLEC that operated inside ATT's territory. So we had colo's in AT&T's DSAs. The wires that crossed from their side to ours literally connected to big spools hanging on the cage before coming into our cage. We could clearly see what they were doing, and there was nothing we could do about it. But that wasn't hatred for the customer, that's because we weren't union and they considered us "scabs" Or at least that's what I surmised from the sign hanging next to the spool that said "scabs" on it. When we complained, they took the sign down. But not the wire. ;-) Eventually ATT got the FCC to let them raise the rates they charged CLECs to the point that we just dumped that side of the business and I moved on. There's not really a CLEC industry anymore because of the rate increases and the ILECs making it as difficult as possible.

    9. Re:Good by Charliemopps · · Score: 2

      Right, so BT is almost always going to be at fault. That's funny that they separate it out like that... as if the ISP could ever do anything.

      I suspect what was going on is what we have here with the ILEC/CLECs. The hardware connected to your home is owned and maintained by the ILEC. But you're paying the CLEC. So if you try to open a ticket with the ILEC they say "you're not our customer, go away" which is accurate. The CLEC has to open the ticket with the ILEC. If you're in the US and you're having a chronic service issue with a CLEC you might as well just give up. Trying to get something difficult like that fixed while working through 2 totally different bureaucracies is an exercise in futility.

  2. what makes illegal things illegal by marcello_dl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is a blockage going to help the ultimate objective, that is to stop crime? Does it not drive criminals underground in many cases?
    Oh wait, stopping crime is not the ultimate objective, control of communication is. Go ahead.

    --
    ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
    1. Re:what makes illegal things illegal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is the problem every time "protect the children" comes up. It's never about protecting it them, it's about censorship. Yes child porn exists and yet blocking the images just drives it harder underground making it harder to find those committing the crimes to prosecute. Many countries need to do a 180 on censorship laws or anything considered "regulation" of internet content because "no blocking of legal content" is the same as "block all torrents, porn and questionable photoshops" It just is not enforceable as a grey area, either the political idiots pushing for such laws get a full blown "block all torrents and porn" law which means they can block anything and everything (See how Canada considers Japanese ero manga/anime equivalent to child abuse images) even if there was no person harmed in producing it.

      As much as some people don't like the "freedom of speech" aspect of American law because it allows one to promote obscenity and criminal activity, that law also saves a lot of controversial topics from being squashed in the name of Ayn Rand style deregulation

    2. Re:what makes illegal things illegal by geniice · · Score: 5, Informative

      You are ignoring the history. The internet watch foundation (IWF)started off as an attempt to target child abuse hosted in the UK. Not even a government action. It was the police that made it clear to a group of ISPs that they would do something if child abuse image weren't removed from certain UK servers. Thus ISPs set of the IWF was set up to handle reports and forward them for take-down.

      The UK's filtering system has an even odder history. Neither the government nor the police asked for it. BT decided to develop the system (cleanfeed) pretty much of their own imitative then pressure the other ISPs into setting up something similar.

      None of this was sold as protecting children since it was never sold. Until the IWF blocked an image on wikipedia public awareness of their activities was pretty much nill.

    3. Re:what makes illegal things illegal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Many countries need to do a 180 on censorship laws or anything considered "regulation" of internet content because "no blocking of legal content" is the same as "block all torrents, porn and questionable photoshops"

      I think that is the wrong way to think about it.
      If you really want to stop censorship you have to teach people that censorship isn't about preventing some people from speaking their opinion, it is about preventing you from hearing it.
      Everyone is free to say what they want, as long as no-one is there to hear it.

      When people realize that censorship exists, not to stop the nutjobs from having their ideas, but because you can't be trusted to select what thoughts to accept and what to reject we might see people thinking of censorship as something bad.

      Censorship is as close as we get to thought control with current technology.

    4. Re:what makes illegal things illegal by c0d3g33k · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would a for-profit company like BT willingly spend money to develop a filter system? They derive zero revenue from it as far as I know. There was no pressure or requests from the police or government to introduce a filtering system of any sort. (only to remove specific content that was hosted in the UK and therefore under UK jurisdiction)

      Did they develop it because there was pressure from their customers? Did they develop it because the government threatened to do something about the problem if the ISPs didn't act voluntarily? Did they develop it to avoid someone else developing one first and pinching BT customers?

      Shockingly, maybe decent people inside BT that are of the opinion that child pr0n is vile and shouldn't exist thought that filtering might be a way to keep vile people from accessing this material easily. Even for-profit companies engage in activities not directly related to profit, whether contributing to charities (eg. sponsoring events, matching employee contributions etc), supporting the local communitiy and so forth. Companies are made up of people, and many of those people want to do good in the world. I'm not sure filtering is the most effective way to combat child abuse, but I can understand why people might want to give it a try. At the very least they make it harder for people to use their facilities (the network, in this case) to contribute to something they find wrong.

    5. Re:what makes illegal things illegal by currently_awake · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The way to stop child porn isn't censorship, it's to follow the smut back to its source and arrest the perverts. Anything else is just hiding the problem.

    6. Re:what makes illegal things illegal by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 2

      ...maybe decent people inside BT that are of the opinion that child pr0n is vile and shouldn't exist thought that filtering might be a way to keep vile people from accessing this material easily. Even for-profit companies engage in activities not directly related to profit,...

      Yes and when BT saw that it would cost them a smaller percentage of their profits to set up and maintain a filter like this than it would cost their competitors, of course they pushed for it, This decreased their competitors' margins when compared to theirs. With respect to corporations, there is a corollary to the saying "Never attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by stupidity,": Never attribute to altruism that which can be explained by greed.

      --
      That is all.
    7. Re:what makes illegal things illegal by easyTree · · Score: 2

      Even for-profit companies engage in activities not directly related to profit, whether contributing to charities (eg. sponsoring events, matching employee contributions etc), supporting the local communitiy and so forth.

      These are one step removed from profit; they are means by which awareness of the company may be increased ("local company xzy gratiously donated £5000 of its own money to charity abc yesterday; we could help and felt we should, a spokesperson from xyz said, followed by a link to their corporate website") and associated with a warm fuzzy feeling... leading to increased profits.

      --
      Requiem for the American Dream
  3. Why are they in the EU again? by prefec2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The British government does not want anything which has to do with the EU, especially when it comes to human rights. Lately, they opposed the European human rights declaration. Now that! They do not want to tax their financial sector, so they can pay back all the money the states had to spend to stabilize the economy. If they really do not want to be in the EU. Then fuck off and leave. If the only interest is a trade union. We can negotiate one. But please do not hold back the other nations. Thanks.

    1. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by Keyboard+Rage · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The UK, just like currently the Netherlands, wants all of the advantages of the EU without any of the negatives. So they like receiving money and being able to invest their own money in anything in Europe that will bring their own country more money, but think all of that should come free of charge.

      Even better, all other EU countries should pay the UK and the Netherlands for being so nice to the rest of the EU. Think of the children!

      I wish that the politicians with these stances (usually right-wing and/or populists) took the advice they so like to give to unwanted foreigners (anything Muslim/Arab, Greeks, Eastern Europeans (unless they can use them as slave-labor)) to go away and followed it themselves. The world would be a better place.

    2. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The UK contributes more to the EU then it gets back in rebates and grants combined, so you're "they like receiving money" claim is nonsense.

    3. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by jonwil · · Score: 5, Informative

      Its not just human rights, the UK have strongly resisted joining Schengen migration laws and allowing free movement of people and goods between the UK and other EU countries.

      I think the other EU countries need to start getting together and saying to the UK that they need to either adopt ALL of the EU rules (including the Euro, Schengen, Net Neutrality, human rights etc etc) or get out of the EU completly and fend for themselves.

      But the UK will never adopt things like Schengen because it would remove customs and import checks at UK borders (including airports, seaports and the Channel Tunnel crossings) and make it almost impossible to stop the flow of cheap booze, cheap fags, illegal immigrants and all the other stuff you see on those "UK border agency" TV shows from comming into the country.

    4. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by debma · · Score: 2

      I agree. And if it's just a minority that we're hearing, I'd kindly ask the British pro-EU majority to stand up.

    5. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The UK contributes more to the EU then it gets back in rebates and grants combined, so you're "they like receiving money" claim is nonsense.

      The amount of trade the UK does with the EU outweighs any deficit in rebates and grants they get. If you want to leave the EU over rebates and grants you'd be sacrificing a pound to save a penny. The UK may whine on endlessly about leaving the EU but the extent of their trade with the common market makes that an impractical idea to say the least.

    6. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you would do some research, you would discover that the Netherlands and the UK are some of the top contributors to the EU per capita in relation to EU spending on these countries. In other words, these countries contribute much more to the EU than they receive in subsidies and other monetary benefits from the EU. To suggest we are looking for a free lunch is either ignorant or dishonest, when other countries in the south and east benefit much more from it than we do.

      Personally, I do not feel so bad about this redistribution of wealth. The value of the EU lies in more than only economic prosperity. We haven't warred among ourselves in almost 70 years, which is quite an achievement for such a melting pot of different nations and cultures. The EU was probably a large factor in that.

      I guess that means I am pro EU. That does not mean I approve of everything the EU does. The fact that we spend so much is just another reason we should be critical and hold them accountable for bad policy. Leaving the EU solves nothing and would only replace the current problems with other, larger ones.

      Sincerely, A Dutchman.

      Sources:
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8036097.stm#start
      http://public.tableausoftware.com/shared/B8D43MBKQ?:display_count=yes

    7. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The British banks are terrified that we will join the Euro and miss no chance at anti-EU propaganda because we import three quarters of our food from the EU - and to pay for it, have to put up with the banks creaming us 4% on spread for currency exchange. Then we have to export stuff to pay for the food, and they cream us another 4% on the spread for changing the money back.

      By this foul strategy, the banks steal 6% of our GDP. No wonder they pay people to spread anti-EU dirt throughout the media!

      Of couse, the banks are not short of other ways of stealing our money too. Bankers are rich because they are stealing our money not because they are incredibly clever. Are the Mafia incredibly clever?

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    8. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 5, Informative
      The main disadvantage of joining the Euro is that it is much harder for the politicians to cook the books. The Germans have a particular detestation of cooked books, since they nearly starved to death as a consequence of a particularly bad episode. The Greeks (amongst others) are currently discovering that cooking the books results in a diet of cooked books, and its not very tasty. However, they have not yet realised that "it was the cook wot done it".

      You appear to have had a bit too much Kool-ade.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    9. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Are you seriously implying that only EU member states may trade with other EU member states?

      Are you seriously implying that border controls don't make imports more difficult ?

      Are you seriously implying that custom duty will not make imports more expensive ?

      Are you seriously thinking that if the UK leaves the EU, both of the above will not make UK exports to the EU much more expensive, and hence the UK will export LESS to the EU?

      Are you seriously that blind?

      Both companies and people in the EU will look to do bussiness with partners stil in the EU, instead of with the UK.
      Any treaty negotiated between the EU and a third party will not apply to the UK any longer, and will need to be renegotiated with the UK, which will be in a less advantageous position, as it represents far less GBP/EUR/USD than the full EU block.

      If the UK leaves, both the EU and the UK lose (politically and economically), but I would guess the UK stands to lose more.

    10. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by iserlohn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem is that the Euro is a monetary union without a proper fiscal (and by-proxy political) union. The US has a strong central government and can fix these imbalances by, amongst other things, spending federal dollars in the states with weaker economies. The Euro does not have a proper mechanism to do this and you can see the stronger export economies reaping the rewards of Euro membership (looking at you Germany). A lot of big-ticket items (such as German cars and second homes) were bought on cheap credit due when the southern economies joining the Euro.

      --
      :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
    11. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nice try. For one, both the Netherlands and the UK are net contributors. NL managed to get its payments reduced after being the largest (per capita) sponsor of the EU for years, but they still contribute. Also, there is no reason why we shouldn't have the advantages without the drawbacks. That's what the so called eurosceptics are after, not necessarily a complete departure from the EC, but a saner Europe that concerns itself with important transborder stuff, and leaves the rest to national governments. We want a Europe with economic, legislative and military collaboration, but without the legislation on the curvature of bananas, the lavish subsidies to farms in France and Poland, the projects that are essentially just burning money for the hell of it, and yes, without net neutrality too. I am glad the EC is pushing for it, but isn't that something that we could leave to national governments?

      In short, we were happy with the old EEC. Anything further should start with rebuilding the EC into something that actually resembles a functioning democracy, with strict limits on the mandate of this superstate.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    12. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by iserlohn · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, your examples gave you up. The regulations governing the size and specification of produce (e.g. bananas) and other products/services is one of the core EC competencies. Do you really want to have 27 different standards and regulation on products in your economic area? The whole reason for the existence of the EU is so that we can get rid of legislating lots of redundant secondary legislation and get on with implementing policies that matter.

      In fact, most of the people that are against EU legislation don't really know what the majority of EU legislation is about. Most of it is to facilitate trade of goods (e.g. on product standards) and services (e.g. on worker rights), so that we have a equal playing field across the free-trade area.

      The EU != the European Court of Human Rights, which seem to be the main target of the Daily Mail in the past decade or so.

      --
      :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
    13. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by SomeKDEUser · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course, But the insane-foaming-at-the-mouth anti-EU types are not stopped by facts. They just really hate the fact that society is turning liberal and that despising people because of their colour of sexual preferences is frown upon. So they hope to turn back the clock by shutting the frontiers. At the end of the day, these insane arguments are just the death throes of old people whose world is slipping away. The new one is much better, but it does not reflect their prejudices, and the dissonance is just too painful.

      How unsurprising that the the charge is lead by a newspaper whose editor in the 30s was a literal Hitler-admirer. They haven't changed their politics.

    14. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by jabuzz · · Score: 2

      Did nobody read the Treaty of Rome? The very first sentence is

      DETERMINED to lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of
      Europe,

      The point is that you cannot have a common market without common rules, which by definition necessitates that we devolve some of our laws to being made in common with other members of the club.

      From a U.K. perspective the only real issue was the failure of the last government to introduce transitional rules on movement of people for the 2004 entrants.

    15. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Also, there is no reason why we shouldn't have the advantages without the drawbacks. That's what the so called eurosceptics are after, not necessarily a complete departure from the EC, but a saner Europe that concerns itself with important transborder stuff, and leaves the rest to national governments.

      In that case they really don't seem to have even the most fundamental understanding of how trade agreements work. For example, they oppose employment regulation, but the only way other countries will agree to have free and unrestricted trade is if our companies don't have an economic advantage due to being able to treat their workers poorly. So either we accept regulation and benefit or we come out of the EU and suffer.

      If we want to sell goods to Europe we will need to meet EU safety standards. Otherwise a British company wanting to sell to France has to pay for French safety approval separately. And then Germany approval, and Spanish approval and so on. So we agree on an EU standard, and the sceptics start moaning that we had it imposed on us and it costs our companies money to make "safe" products etc.

      We want a Europe with economic, legislative and military collaboration, but without the legislation on the curvature of bananas

      Ah, the old curved banana nonsense story. This video explains a few of them, but I'll save you the bother of watching. The rules on bananas were already UK law, because we didn't want to eat over-ripe bananas and that was the international de-facto standard that all the banana producing countries worked to. The EU just decided to formalize it as a regulation that all states should adopt, to make it easier and cheaper for banana sellers to sell to EU countries. I am not aware of any country where meeting this regulation actually involved a change in the law.

      Interestingly our laws on banana ripeness, which we wrote and which pre-date the EU regulation but a long, long time and which the EU actually adopted from us effectively, is now counted towards the percentage of EU laws on our books by sceptics.

      Frankly, if you believe the "straight bananas" story you really need to stop reading newspapers and come to an informed opinion based on the facts, not the nonsense you have read.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    16. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by iserlohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We live with regulations now because once a point in time, somebody recognized the existing system back then needed rules to optimize trade, improve safety, minimize waste, etc. Sometimes we make mistakes, and that we over regulate, or not regulate in the right way. Sometimes these are innocent mistakes, and sometimes it is due to lobbying efforts by vested interest. But in most case, they can be corrected.

      The right way to deal with this is for engagement. Not using it as an excuse to throw the baby out of with the bathwater. In fact, if the UK did leave the EU, we would need to adhere to the same regulations in order to sell our stuff to Europe, while having no influence over the drafting of these rules. Do we really want to be such a situation?

      Not that I don't agree with the mandate for EU reform. As it stands the way the EU, and especially the EC works it a mystery to most people. Although not an Eurosceptic myself, I do admit that it is useful to have a sceptical counterbalance in the European political landscape, in order to drive us to make the EU institutions that we already have, better.

      Unfortunately, almost all of the Eurosceptic parties are increasingly moving towards xenophobic and populist arguments. You can see that from the type of political advertising that the UKIP has been doing here in Britain, and it is worse for the respective parties in the Netherlands and in France.

      --
      :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
    17. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by beelsebob · · Score: 2

      No one's... But that's the entire point of being a member of the EU... Leaving the EU by definition destroys these agreements. Which is why all the people yelling "leave the EU" are such idiots.

    18. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by jratcliffe · · Score: 4, Informative

      The British banks are terrified that we will join the Euro and miss no chance at anti-EU propaganda because we import three quarters of our food from the EU - and to pay for it, have to put up with the banks creaming us 4% on spread for currency exchange. Then we have to export stuff to pay for the food, and they cream us another 4% on the spread for changing the money back.

      By this foul strategy, the banks steal 6% of our GDP. No wonder they pay people to spread anti-EU dirt throughout the media!

      Of couse, the banks are not short of other ways of stealing our money too. Bankers are rich because they are stealing our money not because they are incredibly clever. Are the Mafia incredibly clever?

      Chuckle. If British banks were actually making a 4% spread each way on GBP/EUR currency transactions (I'm talking scale transactions, not "I want to convert these €40 into pounds please"), they'd all be so insanely profitable that they'd never engage in any other activity. Daily GBP/EUR forex volume is about US$100B (link below). If the banks were making a 4% spread on that, it would be $4 BILLION in profit PER DAY, or about $900B in profit per year.

      Actual forex spreads GBP/EUR are typically around 1-2 basis points (one basis point equals 1/100 of a percent). Right now, for example, if you're trying to buy Euros using GBP, you'd be paying about GBP0.81518 per Euro. If you're trying to sell EUR for GBP, you'll be getting about GBP0.81505 for every Euro you sell.

      You're saying that, if I start with 1 million GBP, convert them into EUR, and then back into GBP, I'll end up with about GBP920k (4% loss each way, so a total of GBP80k of losses). Actually, I'll end up with GBP999.8k, or about GBP160 in losses. Your losses are off by a factor of about 500x.

      http://www.reuters.com/article...

    19. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by Xest · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not the trade tarrifs that are the bulk of the problem (though they are a major part of the problem). It's the fact that far more paperwork becomes involved to handle the import such that the cost of exporting to the EU would increase and make British companies less competitive. If you're in France, why buy from a British company when they have to charge an extra 5% and take an extra day to deal with all the paperwork when you can just buy from Germany and have it a day earlier and 5% cheaper?

      I know this because I worked for an engineering firm that did a lot of exporting. Having seen how much of a headache it can be to get some products to their country of destination compared to the EU simply cannot be underestimated. You're one rogue customs officer who has a beef with your country and decides to delay it for a couple of days to "inspect it" away from losing a multi-million pound per month customer for good. That can't happen in the EU because there are laws in place to prevent it, and there are courts in place to deal with such disputes.

      That's before you factor in things like business travel if you have to start having staff to organise visas ahead of time, and what happens if some incompetent didn't organise the visa and your staff member can't attend an important sales pitch? Everything becomes more bureaucratic without free trade agreements and the EU is an extremely well oiled machine in streamlining exports to Europe making us more competitive there.

    20. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by iserlohn · · Score: 2

      Yes, but not equivalent in scale. The actual EU budget is tiny compared to the US federal government.

      --
      :. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
    21. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by xelah · · Score: 2

      The EU has a common tariff system, and EU members impose these tariffs on goods entering the EU. For example, it's 8.8% for knitted gloves and 7.6% for other kinds of gloves. Think, just for a moment, what this implies for someone wanting to move goods in to the UK from Ireland or France - or to/from Scotland if Scotland ends up independent inside the EU. Think of what's involved in enforcing that, in declaring goods, understanding regulations and handling the payments.

    22. Re:Why are they in the EU again? by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Au contraire. Switzerland needs to keep their end of the bargain, and are therefore subject to many, if not most of the random dictats from Brussels as they refer to free trade. They just don't have the right to influence them, just obey.

  4. UK EU more problems than solutions? by Vlado · · Score: 4, Informative

    It looks like the whole UK as part of EU is causing lots of issues on both sides.

    In general I'm for the union, but if a single country can keep on causing problems for majority and if that single country is genuinely displeased with common rules by which others would like to abide, then re-evaluation might be in order.

    Are there any benefits that a random British person could point out, that are the result of UK being in the EU?

  5. Of course this was going to happen by sugar+and+acid · · Score: 2

    The UK conservative government has an election next year. They are under a lot of pressure from the UKIP, a party that is for the UK being independent from the EU, so very anti EU. And it is about an issue that they can twist into being about them protecting children from the internet, which plays well in the tabloids. Of course they were going to do this no matter how good or bad the EU legislation actually is.

  6. Re:UK EU more problems than solutions? by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Informative

    Are there any benefits that a random British person could point out, that are the result of UK being in the EU?

    Cheaper cars (EU rules ban charging extra for right hand drive), and I've been able to live and work in Germany, North Holland and Belgium. Also, electrical goods come with a plug already fitted, and I can head across the channel for cheap drinks.

  7. Re:UK EU more problems than solutions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    EU laws limit, to some extent, the damage the British government can do.
    Plus, I get to move around within Europe without worrying about work permits.

  8. Just kick them from EU by Exitar · · Score: 2

    They will be glad to join US.

  9. Fake news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    First, the best way to fight child pornography is not to filter it - that way child pornography is still reachable through a proxy. Rather, the server must be legally seized.
    Second, two years ago the european parliament did pass a resolution allowing for filtering child pornography through the net. I don't think this resolution has been altered in any way by net neutrality.
    So, I think it is unlikely for the British goverment to veto european net neutrality - I don't think the british goverment would be so much misinformed. This news is 100% fake coming from some anti-european british.-Ignacio Agulló

  10. Re:Poms are weak arseholes by coastwalker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am one and I agree. We have Chav politics for Chav people.

    The place is run by the tabloid press and whatever the latest Witch hunt happens to be. It suits the wealthy for the plebs to be at each others throats demanding jack boots on their own freedom. Bread and circuses.

    You couldn't make it up - Foaming mob demanding the death of Pediatricians force Government to disconnect the internet and replace it with Disney, Netflix and Sesame Street.

    Having said that, the enlightened Australian equivalent has already installed their own great firewall of China "The web filter will also block access to websites about politically sensitive issues which have changing criminality statuses e.g., euthanasia and abortion".

    Enjoy your totalitarian prison convict.

    --
    Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
  11. No blocking by X10 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There should be no blocking of whatever content. What is blocked, is accessible to the people who it's targeted at, but the general audience doesn't see it. It's swept under the carpet. Illegal content that exists on the internet should be visible, so people can complain with their representatives in parliament, or file charges with the police. I say this as one of the founders of Meldpunt (www.meldpunt.org) which is one of the founding parties of Inhope (www.inhope.org).

    --
    no, I don't have a sig
  12. Re:UK EU more problems than solutions? by Chrisq · · Score: 2

    Are there any benefits that a random British person could point out, that are the result of UK being in the EU?

    As a random British person, no.

    No be fair - You can go through the "quick queue" in European airports.

  13. They will be sued by patrickv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The rule is that a member state needs to transpose the whole EU directive into local law within a set timeframe. So, either the UK transposes the whole directive in UK law or they will be taken before the European Court of Justice by the European Commission for lack of, or imperfect, transposition. Their choice.

    This sounds more like a desperate effort by the tories to prevent UKIP from making a too high score in the next EU parliament elections happening over the next few days.

  14. Re:Poms are weak arseholes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    They are a nation of shopkeepers.

    Rather that, than a nation of shoplifters...

  15. Just leave already by Captain_Chaos · · Score: 2

    I'm getting sick and tired of shit like this. Just leave the EU already and become the 51st State, UK! Good riddance!

  16. Re:Good, time to kill net neutrality. by Jahta · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Net neutrality proposals needs to die and quickly.

    You may have intended this as sarcasm. If not, I'd suggest you haven't fully understood the problem.

    Look at the current UK government's record, for example. First they introduced mandatory "porn" filtering - which you must formally opt-out of - in the name of "saving the children"; of course, even in it's first incarnation, it was blocking things that were clearly not porn.

    Then they swiftly moved to "leverage" that to block "extremist" material. The problem, of course, is that extremist is a nebulous term; UK politicians have described groups as diverse as the Countryside Alliance and UK Uncut (a tax pressure group) as "extremist", and it's these same politicians - not the courts - who are deciding what should be blocked.

    Maybe you really do want to live in an internet bubble where the only things you see are whatever the government of the day has decided is "safe". But most of us would rather make our own minds up.

  17. Re:Poms are weak arseholes by Zembar · · Score: 2

    You couldn't make it up - Foaming mob demanding the death of Pediatricians

    I'm pretty sure you're making that bit up though, or the NHS is much worse than I thought.

  18. Re:UK EU more problems than solutions? by N1AK · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can move to any country in Europe with the same rights to work and government services as a native. I can travel across EU borders freely, bringing goods with me without restriction. I can shop anywhere in Europe and have it delivered without having to handle import charges or duty fees. Soon I will be able to use my mobile across Europe without paying extortionate import charges. My government is one of the most influential players in the creation of regulations for products and services for the largest trade block on the planet, ensuring we have a say in regulations that could adversely affect my employer. I can receive healthcare for free anywhere within the EU if I need to while travelling.

    I'm sure there are others but those are the ones that come to mind.

  19. Re:Poms are weak arseholes by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_...

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  20. Re:UK EU more problems than solutions? by FireFury03 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are there any benefits that a random British person could point out, that are the result of UK being in the EU?

    Economic advantages, of course, but also a whole swathe of good laws have come from the EU. The anti-EU crowd always like to point at the bad laws (and of course, there are some) as a reason to leave whilst completely ignoring all the good laws that are only here as a result of the EU.

    --
    http://blog.nexusuk.org
  21. One big unsaid reason why they want to block it... by jonwil · · Score: 3, Informative

    The UK government may talk about wanting to block child porn and terrorist sites and other "filth" (as they put it) and how the EU law wont let them continue to do so. What they dont talk about is that the laws that prohibit the blocking of child porn etc would ALSO prohibit the blocking of piracy-related websites like The Pirate Bay and remove a big tool that the copyright holders (in the UK at least) have been attempting to use to curb access to pirated content.

  22. Schengen migration laws are complete SHIT! by pablo_max · · Score: 2

    Its not just human rights, the UK have strongly resisted joining Schengen migration laws.

    Look, I am all for human rights and freedom of moment. But what Brussels is trying to force member states into accepting is simply insane.
    Here in Germany, we enjoy some of the best social services in the EU. We also enjoy a low unemployment rate coupled with a rather high taxation rate. This is the reason we can afford our current social system.
    What the asshats in Brussels are insisting that we do is allow Romanians to migrate to Germany (or the UK) with any job, any prospect of ever getting a job and immediately have access to our social system.
    This means that the money they would get just from moving here would far exceed what ever they could have possibly gotten in Romanian and also any remedial job here in Germany.
    Our system cannot afford this! We cannot afford to take care of every poor country out there! I wish we could, but we cannot. Our population is aging quickly and we do need immigration, but we need immigration that can contribute to the system rather than suck money out.
    I here pundits claiming this will not happen, but it is bullshit. It will happen and it is happening already.
    The ONLY way that free movement can work is when EVERY SINGLE EU member state is forced to have the same level of social services for all EU members.

  23. How Do You Know It Is Illegal? by Bob9113 · · Score: 2

    The amendment made it so that only a court order would allow for the banning of content, and not a legislative provision, as originally proposed, according to RT. "We do not support any proposals that mean we cannot enforce our laws,"

    I find it fascinating when politicians assert that they can tell when something is illegal without consulting the courts. Just what exactly do they think the courts are for? Here's a hint; think about the word, "judge," and what it means as a verb.

    --
    Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance