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Leaked Documents Show EU Council Presidency Wants To Impair Net Neutrality
NotInHere writes: The advocacy group "European Digital Rights" (EDRi) reports on leaked documents proposed by the Presidency of the council of the EU (currently held by Italy), which plans to remove vital parts from the telecommunications package that introduced net neutrality. The changes include removing the definition of "net neutrality" and replacing it with a "reference to the objective of net neutrality," which EDRi says will impair any ability to enforce it.
Also, the proposed changes would allow ISPs to "block, slow down, alter, degrade or discriminate" traffic in order to meet "obligations under a contract with an end-user to deliver a service requiring a specific level of quality to that end-user." EDRi writes that "[w]ith all of the talk of the need for a single digital market in Europe, we would have new barriers and new monopolies."
The council of the EU is one of its two legislative chambers. The EU parliament can now object or propose further changes to prevent the modified telecommunications package from passing.
Also, the proposed changes would allow ISPs to "block, slow down, alter, degrade or discriminate" traffic in order to meet "obligations under a contract with an end-user to deliver a service requiring a specific level of quality to that end-user." EDRi writes that "[w]ith all of the talk of the need for a single digital market in Europe, we would have new barriers and new monopolies."
The council of the EU is one of its two legislative chambers. The EU parliament can now object or propose further changes to prevent the modified telecommunications package from passing.
Yet another asshole politician hellbent on fucking over people (in general) and probably enriching himself in the process.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Is sometimes it ends up with countries that are run by the ACTUAL mafia..
Fortunately I can protect myself from their agenda with APK's hosts file!
The EU is as shitty as the US!
Not to miss your obvious sarcasm, but it's a bit like saying "get your own road".
Infrastructure is complicated, because you aren't going to be able to make your own road going from A to B without crossing property owned by the existing A to B magnate, unless you're willing to put up with some really inefficient routes. And you've almost doubled the real cost of roadways(i.e. how much initial and annual cost the roads require).
Contrary to the neo-liberal perspective, some problems just can't be hammered out by competition.
"Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold. For Dickon thy master is bought and sold." -- Shakespeare. Seriously, are there any politicians left who are NOT corrupt?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
In some ways, I believe that the state of communications, globally, has already become monitored/recorded by governmental intervention, after what I witnessed through the federal system (See My Bio). The idea of bringing this down to the ISP level seems to be irrelevant with respect to what already exists. However, the purpose of purchasing access to the internet is to have a dedicated stream that is not capped. Those countries that allow this will fall behind the others.
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artlu.net
Net neutrality isn't impaired.
Net neutrality impairs the owners of networks.
O'Rly? But when politics (or grassroots citizen initiatives ... which are politics par excellence) do try to get their own tubes, corporations cry bloody murder "Unfair competition!"
Coming soon from ISPs: Legalese buried deep in your contract with them that essentially states "We [the ISP] have the contractual obligation to muck with any website as we see fit whenever we want to do so."
They're contractually obligated to slow down your Netflix speeds because they really wanted to and the contract means they are now obligated to slow down Netflix.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Especially afer this corrupt twit Juncker has been elected as its new boss. I mean -- building up a tax haven in its country to help bigcorps evade their duties at the cost of all other (half-) civilised societies.
If the EU is in such a bad state, it's because of criminals like him.
"block, slow down, alter, degrade or discriminate" traffic in order to meet "obligations under a contract with an end-user to deliver a service requiring a specific level of quality to that end-user."
Would someone more knowledgeable like to interpret that?
Were the term "end-user" replaced with "broadband customer" to make in less ambiguous, this clause would seem to allow ISPs to throttle e.g. bittorrent in favour of e.g. VOIP. I do not see how a "end-user" [of a broadband service sold by an ISP] could include businesses such as e.g. Netflix, even if e.g. Netflix had a contract with a retail ISP.
Please could someone enlighten me?
If all traffic has to be treated equally, a VOIP 911 call must get the same priority as a porn torrent.
"All traffic gets treated equally, with no incentives to improve anything."
Why do I get the feeling that'll work just about as well as, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
Then these shenanigans would not be necessary.
If you want net neutrality the only way to do it is to crowd source the Internet, the connectivity between the oceans cannot be done by one individual or a small community, but what if the community crowdsource and fund a public ISP owned and governed the same way it's currently done with the open source projects. The Open Internet Alliance Foundation which will exist solely from what each person is willing to give away and will not exist for profit and which will allow for many profesisonals to contribute with their skills and knowledge. Smaller communities and neighbourhoods or even cities can have their own infrastructure or even several for redundancy. The end of greedy ISPs and controlling governments. Didn't we have enough already they turned the entire planet into one gigantic prison.
Fine, then they can stop using our land for their tubes.
This is a complete LIE! The Council does not want to impare Net Neutrality, they are actually all for it. That is, they are for the plan where it puts government in control over it. and that plan is also called "Net Neutrality".
"We're sorry, we're not permitted to help you block the packet storm hitting your server from that bot net. The law requires us to handle all traffic neutrally as being of equal value."
Is that really what we want?
Just to point out, you can have networks inside of networks, if you like that. It isn't necessarily a physical thing.
I am paying the toll to get on this shinny 6 lane highway only to discover that the exit to New York city is back up for miles because the city refuses to pay them for a large exit. What do I care how many lanes the highway has or how fast it can get me to Jersey city, what I am paying for is to get to my destination the fastest possible.
EU Council presidency has probably no opinion on the matter. Like every other members of the council they probably do not know precisely what this is about. They are just following the advice of a random lobbyist that told them it would create jobs and improve economy.