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EU May Not Unify Its Data Protection Rules After All

Posted by Soulskill on from the that-sounds-super-helpful dept.

jfruh writes: One of the EU's selling points is that it provides a single regulatory apparatus for the entire European market — but this isn't the case for everything. Data protection laws, for instance, provide a confusing thicket of different regulations across the continent, and now, much to the frustration of large American Internet companies, it seems that a plan to consolidate these rules under a single EU agency are coming apart. In other EU news, reader Presto Vivace points out that German Chancellor Angel Merkel has spoken out against net neutrality. She said, "An innovation-friendly internet means that there is a guaranteed reliability for special services. These can only develop when predictable quality standards are available."

55 comments

  1. Special service available!=net neutrality violated by drolli · · Score: 3, Interesting

    IP packets had a TOS field from in the beginning. IP v6 has this again. I am fine and appreciate prioritization/TOS if:

    * ISP explicitly list these classes of traffic in their Terms
    * Everybody (no matter if google or a 1 person specialized SW shop) can buy priority traffic on the backbone with a specific latency/reliability class
    * Traffic/Capacity is traded only trough a open market (tick exchange), with no "secret deals"
    * Costs for traffic appear separately on the bills of the customers - even if the overall product is free.
    * The "last Mile" is a deal between the Customer and *his* ISP. Cross financing the last mile from other businesses should be considered as abuse of a vertical monopoly.

  2. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yeah, give them an inch. See where that ends.

  3. Understandable given the nature of the EU by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The EU is very much a group of independent countries that have agreed to work together on many issues but have not been willing to give up sovereignty to the point where an EU law has supremacy over local laws. A a result, EU rules tend to be a lowest common denominator with individual countries adding on their own requirements. That's not unexpected since the EU is not a country like say the US where there is a federal system that has sway over the individual states, district and territories that make up the US; where there is agreement the EU works well and but individual countries still have the real power in the union and there still is a very distinct nationalism at play in the political and economic dynamics. That's not necessarily better or worse than other models but just a reflection of how the EU came into being.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    1. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's pretty much what the US started out as under the Articles of Confederation. It didn't work for long. The EU is learning that lesson too: having a monetary union (centralized control of monetary policy, removing that from the individual nations' economic toolsets) but no fiscal union was a recipe for sovereign debt problems from the beginning, and patchwork regulations across the EU do lead to real problems for cross-border import and export. Tighter EU integration from the start would have been easier and more productive, except that the EU dream, that started out so magnificently, has devolved into the bureaucratic swamp that Brussels/Strasbourg is today, in no small part as a result of being a lowest common denominator. Farage's insulting "low-grade bank clerk" could, in sad truth, easily apply to the general appearance of the EU as a bureaucratic entity rather than just its former leader: the institution as it stands is a far cry from the noble promises of a strong, unified Europe. The nationalists may well be too strong to allow that to happen, though, and the longer they drag out the current, disjointed state of the EU, the worse the bank clerk will get. Pretty much all that the EU has going for it now is that it's not the US or Russia, so people see still it as a less bellicose and freer option.

    2. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The EU could never be the US, too many different languages and cultures.

    3. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      Dear pro-EU campaigner, this propaganda that "since EU isn't working well, then we need more EU" is exactly the same that caused the well-known results of the recent EU elections, with the success of Farage, Grillo, Tsipras, Le Pen and others, as well as the eurosceptic shift of many formerly pro-EU parties (especially the EPP, but even some members of the PES).

      Citizens have spoken, and they clearly stated that they don't want the "united states of europe". Actually it's now more likely that there will be less "EU" in the future, especially if the UK and maybe even France, Italy and Greece are really going to hold EU-exit referendums, as many of the relevant politicians in those countries are proposing.

      Live with it. And bore off.

    4. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Nonsense. The shift to extremes is due to the economic crisis. Nothing more. The same occurred in the 1930s, and in the 1980s. The future of the EU is more EU unless Wall Street and the City screw things up even more than they already are.

    5. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The EU is good at xenophobia. When their opinion hits the skids, it always is a boost for their morale to drag Google, Microsoft, Apple, or some other US company on the carpet, perhaps even for a fine they already paid. Anti-Americanism always gets the people uniting. Same way that the politicos here in the US appeal to the dunderheads about knee jerk issues that keep the proles distracted while the coffers continue to be emptied.

      Another problem with the EU is that it focuses inward. There are a lot of problems member nations face, and NATO isn't the answer. Russia's hostility is one thing that the EU has to face sooner or later, be it politics now, or when Germans are in danger of freezing because the gas taps are turned off. ISIS is not going away, and the EU's candid approval of IS works in the short term, but history repeats itself, as they (and secondarily the US) has too many Chamberlains and too few Churchhills, and appeasement may work short term, but there will be Hell to pay long term.

      How about longer term threats? China is now the #1 GDP in the world and stops at nothing when it comes to industrial espionage. Is the EU worrying about that, or just dragging something Snowden crapped out? Remember, what the NSA is rumored to do, the PLA is doing, and since they control the vertical when it comes to manufacturing, there isn't any way to tell that the fab masks sent to them haven't been altered with additional functionality.

      I have one question about the EU. Is it helping the member nations to be worth keeping? One currency is a plus, but Germany can only shoulder it for so long, and if their economy tanks, every member nation is going to be affected. Open passports are another thing, but a simple treaty could do similar.

      This isn't to say the US is any better, but EU member nations are some of the few places that isn't going hell-bent into barbarism, either by Wahhabi-ism (not Islam in general), or just good ol' brutality by despotic states. The EU better adapt or find themselves paying in blood for not doing anything sooner.

    6. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by r1348 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fine, but give me a democratic EU. I want a say in what the European Commission decides, I want to finally understand whatever the Council of European Union is (seriously, nobody seems to know), I want a democratic European Parliament with the power of legislative initiative. Anything else is a nice-looking dictatorship.

    7. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The EU is very much a group of independent countries that have agreed to work together on many issues but have not been willing to give up sovereignty to the point where an EU law has supremacy over local laws.

      http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/...

      "The Conference recalls that, in accordance with well settled case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Treaties and the law adopted by the Union on the basis of the Treaties have primacy over the law of Member States, under the conditions laid down by the said case law."

    8. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      Wall Street's and the City's financial mobsters are exactly those who would like more EU, idiot. If you still haven't realized it yet, any regulation coming from Bruxelles has been designed by them. Just to make an example, a recent online public consultation on the TTIP has been discarded "because there were too many people against the treaty". Pure modern fascism:
      http://in.reuters.com/article/...

      That's why eurosceptic europeans are now the majority. There's not going to be any "united states of europe", ever. And those who supported this delirious idea, in future will be considered just like nazis are today. Live with it, or fu*k off.

    9. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by manu0601 · · Score: 1

      The EU is learning that lesson too: having a monetary union (centralized control of monetary policy, removing that from the individual nations' economic toolsets) but no fiscal union was a recipe for sovereign debt problems from the beginning

      This: monetary union and debt solidarity should have come together. The reasonable conclusion now is to toss the monetary union, since nobody in EU want to pay for other countries' debts.

    10. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by manu0601 · · Score: 1

      Please mod parent up!

    11. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Did you even read the article that you linked?

      But the ISDS issue has sparked so much public concern that the European Parliament, which must ratify the agreement, says it cannot accept an EU-U.S. trade agreement that contains such provisions, even if they are common to some 3,000 trade and investment treaties around the world.

      Germany's economy minister has also voiced resistance to ISDS in the accord, while new European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says he will not accept that "the jurisdiction of courts in the EU member states is limited by special regimes for investor disputes."

      So, the European Parliament and Commission are aware of the problem with TTIP and oppose implementing the arbitration process to which European citizens object. In other words, they listened to the voice of the people and are heeding it (and probably already had their own problems with it as well, since the EU does not like to cede jurisdiction to the US over international disputes). In short, your idea of "pure modern fascism" has more to do with your imagination than what you pretend to have read and then go on to cite in support of your imagined fascism.

      And really, do you think the City wants more EU? London fears the idea of a strong EU because the City could get regulated into oblivion, or worse for them, mediocrity. EU officials think about things like Tobin taxes and limits on rehypothecation and required reserve ratios, ideas that are anathema to the City. Wall Street is a different story: they'll figure out a way to make money no matter what, so they don't really care what the Europeans do, so long as they don't ever have to declare a credit event that triggers CDS agreements, to which end they'd at least prefer that Europe stays solvent rather than going through a series of sovereign bankruptcies.

    12. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's something that the US got right: the unity of the US is based, almost invisibly, on revenue redistribution from the few productive states through the federal government to the many who receive support. No one ever talks about it, but it's massive and continual. Places like Alabama couldn't survive without federal support; think of them like Greece. Other places like New York, an analogue for Germany, generate revenue that's taken as taxes and given to Alabama/Greece. In the EU, that's causing tension, because there's no fiscal union -- everyone sees his country's income as his own, not to be devoured by the lazy Ithacan suitors. In the US, it's just taxes that are regarded as going to the federal government, although much quietly gets redistributed to the poor states, and no one realizes that it's a major component of the glue that keeps the republic unified. Someone might object that the US spends its money on the military-industrial complex: but that's why so much of that complex is located in poor states that need the money. Little US federal spending leaves the US, and within those borders it ends up distributed to places where Senators and Congressmen have districts, namely everywhere, even though it originates from only a few profitable states. The EU hasn't really figured out how to do this yet (although the CAP was a shot at it): they see money flowing from Germany to Spain, Italy, and Greece and think of it as foreign aid, while the US just sees it as internal business as normal.

    13. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The fiscal union is in the road, but it will take several years to stablish. The EU is a crisol of very different cultures, remember we have been in war each other for several thousands years, that cannot be fixed in a few years. It took 50 years to have the monetary union but still there are countries that use their own currency.

    14. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The EU's trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, is notoriously in favor of ISDS (investor-state dispute settlement), as her remarks after the recent trade agreement with Canada prove:

      http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ceta-...

      And Germany's economy's minister recently suddenly changed his mind:

      http://www.euractiv.com/sectio...

      You're nothing but an uninformed cretin. Sorry for the well-deserved insults.

    15. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're completely misinformed. There's no "foreign aid" going to Italy, it's actually a net contributor to the EU budget. Spain didn't get any help either, only its banks, to preserve foreign investments...
      As for Greece, the "troika" (ECB, IMF, EU) simply murdered the country by imposing criminal, bilderberg-inspired , neoliberal "reforms". Greek people themselves would have preferred a traditional default rather than those "reforms".

      That's also why in the countries you mentioned the parties that propose to get out of the EU and/or the eurozone have been skyrocketing in polls recently (Syriza in Greece, the Five Star Movement and the Northern League in Italy, and Podemos in Spain).

      Finally, since mankind has existed, nations have been born starting from one main ethnicity, one main culture, and one main language. Trade and currency union are secondary elements, they come afterwards. The EU cannot be a nation simply because it doesn't comply with these fundamental requirements and its people simply don't want it to be.

    16. Re:Understandable given the nature of the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is not going to be any "fiscal union" anytime soon. Actually the monetary union is going to die as soon as France and Italy will likely hold referendums to get out of the eurozone, as three of the main parties in those two countries are asking for (in France Le Pen's Front National, the front runner for the next general french elections, in Italy the Five Star Movement and the Northern League). Just to make an example, the majority of Italians regret switching from the Lira to the euro according to a recent poll: http://euobserver.com/news/126...

      One day or another, the bilderberg criminals who have tried to create a corporate-friendly "nation" out of europe without the necessary historical requirements (one main ethnicity, one main culture and one main language) will be hold accountable for it. Nations are born from the will of the masses, not from the alcoholic dreams of corrupt freemasons.

  4. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because everyone is vile, hatefull and just trying to force a specific dogma? Instead of doing what they think is best, because that would just be crazy...

  5. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > Special service available!=net neutrality violated

    The availablity of "special services" literally means there is no net neutrality.

    Those who pay more get preferential treament. That is not neutral. The resources for their special treatment won't magically appear out of thin air. Everyone else's service will be degraded to accomodate said special treatment.

  6. In other news by prefec2 · · Score: 2

    The German government was in favor of net neutrality. If Merkel's reelection might be in jeopardy due to her position on net neutrality she will change her position. So this is not the end of it.

    Furthermore, if a fragmented EU market hinders US monopolies to extend their services to the EU then this is not necessarily a problem for the citizens here in the EU.

    1. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      . If Merkel's reelection might be in jeopardy due to her position on net neutrality she will tell the voters what they want to hear, do what she planned to do and blame any failure to meet her promises / voters expectations on compromise / coalition contract.

      Fixed that. At least I hope I translated it correctly. The ruling parties of the German government do a lot of compromises so they can get issues they see as important resolved by agreeing to vote against their agenda on issues they see as less important, sometimes they even write up a contract on who relents on what issue for the next few years. From a historic perspective this is a good thing, the pre WWII parliament suffered from an inability to pass any law, since the parties would not agree on anything and block each other - until Hitler unblocked it by having representatives of the other parties arrested, giving him an absolute majority in any vote. A downside of these compromises however is that politicians can promise everything and direct blame for not keeping these promises from themselves.

  7. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by gcnaddict · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Everyone who doesn't have a personal stake in the game is naturally inclined to act recklessly. See the decade-ly cycles of recession and depression economies slip into when markets (housing, finance, oil, whatever) forget that someone else's money is still of value and not to be treated with total abandon.

    The decisionmakers at ISPs don't have a piece of skin in this fight because they have special classes of access just as a benefit of being where they are within their companies, and they stand to make more personally from making profit-minded decisions. For these reasons, there's very little personal incentive to uphold the moral high ground because the decisions don't have an immediate negative impact on them. They might feel it once they retire and/or if they go to a different industry, but that's after they've made their profit, and it's long after their short-term decisionmaking window.

    It's just human nature. We haven't had this trait bred out, and it's doubtful we as a species ever will. The only way to counter short-sighted thinking is by shortening the mental leap between short-sighted decisions and long-term consequences, which is what everyone fighting for net neutrality is trying to demonstrate right now by citing live examples of where a lack of enforcement has already gone wrong (T-Mobile Unlimited Music, Netflix v. Comcast/VZ, etc.)

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  8. Thanks Momma Merkel! by Rhywden · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let's not forget this statement of Momma Merkel comes from the same woman who stated that the "Internet is virgin territory" merely a year ago.

    She simply does not understand internet issues and thus promptly falls back on an industry-friendly position.

    1. Re:Thanks Momma Merkel! by CanEHdian · · Score: 2

      She simply does not understand internet issues and thus promptly falls back on an industry-friendly position.

      Perhaps she fully understands the Internet issues, but it's just more lucrative to side with the industry (who also understand Internet issues) than with the users (who for the vast majority do not understand Internet issues). Same with patent term extension on pharmaceuticals; it's always hidden on the 3rd or 5th page of the business section and in the "may" pay more (vs. generics) language bracket. Same with copyright term extensions: items that would become public domain do not, which DOES rob society. As long as the majority of society doesn't understand the issue, greedy politicians will always side with the money or power or fame.

      --
      When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
    2. Re:Thanks Momma Merkel! by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      No she doesn't. SMS was a new and exciting technology for her during her first term (started late 2005). Internet is still new to her.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    3. Re:Thanks Momma Merkel! by Rhywden · · Score: 1

      I don't think that most of the industry understands the internet either. I mean, just look at the debacle with this moronic "Leistungsschutzrecht" where they tried to make Google pay them for advertising for them. And when Google refused to play ball (either by simply delisting them from search results or just returning results without snippets) they tried to get a law passed that would have forced Google to pay and list them.

    4. Re:Thanks Momma Merkel! by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Still - unlike the author - she can spell her name.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    5. Re:Thanks Momma Merkel! by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      Let's not forget this statement of Momma Merkel comes from the same woman who stated that the "Internet is virgin territory"

      In no-longer-Soviet Russia, Internet is Virgin territory!

    6. Re:Thanks Momma Merkel! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Merkel is a pupil of her mentor, Kohl: intellectually an idiot, but with a keen instinct for power (this includes a keen instinct on whose career to kill because it might challenge her own position). An idiot savant of sorts.

      When it comes to principles, everything is possible. Remember her U-turn in things nuclear when Fukushima happened? Most of her electors won't, because electors are sheeple (and are becoming more and more so).

      Merkel (and her master Kohl) is one of those phenomena which make me cynic: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." (Churchill) might be right, but is it so much less bad than the others to be worth the hassle?

  9. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When I shop for an ISP (INTERNET service provider), I shop based on data throughput (and monthly capacity, which in my case is quasi-unlimited, in the sense I can go full throttle 24/7).

    I want Internet access. Not AOLnet (remember their walled garden?), not comcastnet, not ATTnet. I already PAID them. They should not be demanding further tolls.

    If the telecoms don't like it, fine, stop advertising as ISPs and advertise as COMPANY_X_Net and leave it at that. Because fuck it, this isn't about net neutrality, it's about fraud in advertising, and double, triple dipping for service.

  10. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by drolli · · Score: 2

    It is fine if i have to pay for more bandwidth/allocated bandwidth.

    As long as everybody has to pay the same price for this. Because then I (as a customer or provider) can compete in a special area with google.

    If only companies who can affort their own ATM networks and are powerful enough to push anybody else to give preference to their traffic, then nobody can compete.

    Which is why i think a mandatory split of companies into branches and trading of bandwidth of all kinds (guaranteed, allocated, and opportunistic) on a stock marekt would be appropriate.

    And actually: yes, there is traffic, which I as a consumer need with higher priority than other traffic. I just would appreciate if I have the choice.

  11. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Look, people, we found the person who still believes in the fairness of a capitalist market place!

    Your suggestions have one fatal flaw, there is zero chance to actually policy that. Provided that any politician had any interest in doing so in the first place.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  12. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Everyone doing what is best for them works as long as you have every side matched fairly. If one side has an advantage over the other, they can screw them over at leisure.

    For reference, see job market.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  13. Dear Mrs. Merkel by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    Albeit, I still want a DNA test to confirm that Mrs.

    Please shut up about things you don't have the foggiest clue about. Yes, that means you have to remain silent a whole lot, but frankly, the world would be a better place that way.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:Dear Mrs. Merkel by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't make much difference. Das Merkel doesn't say a lot and it doesn't do anything besides sitting there and texting.

      That talking pantsuit could disappear and nobody would notice for weeks, if not months.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    2. Re:Dear Mrs. Merkel by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Merkel is a typical product of East German education. She doesn't decide jack. She just waits to see where the wind blows, then scampers to the front of the movement and shouts "follow me!"

      That's not a leader, that's a mockery of one.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Dear Mrs. Merkel by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      I know enough East Germans. They are nice people and they can decide very well if they have to. Merkel is a product of Kohl's making and thus prefers to sit out everything.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  14. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

    Your suggestions have one fatal flaw, there is zero chance to actually policy that.

    Did you actually verb "policy"?!

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  15. As so the world goes on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The German bitch is bought and paid for by Telecom companies.
    Who would have seriously thought she'd speak for net neutrality ?

  16. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sorry. When they stuff enough IT governance shit into your brain you start to talk funny.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  17. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That (TOS-field) just means there will be no overhead. But your traffic/packets will be *inspected* for grading into different classes, which are then marked and policed and passed on or dropped accordingly.

  18. Only one rule has been consolidated... by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    You got the gold, you make the rules.. It is universal and painfully obvious.

    Eh, probably just as well. Another bought and paid for bureaucracy rarely does any good outside its own office.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Only one rule has been consolidated... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Internet can't be effective if corporations can't buy special privileges. Time has shown this to be true. After all, Google, Microsoft, and Apple would never have been possible if they hadn't been able to buy special privileges on the Internet when they were in their infancy.

  19. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not only will all traffic be inspected, but saved and graphed and kept for quality and billing purposes.

  20. Re:Special service available!=net neutrality viola by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    Everybody (no matter if google or a 1 person specialized SW shop) can buy priority traffic on the backbone with a specific latency/reliability class

    The problem is that the price will be so high that only established companies will be able to afford it. Start-ups will need to raise massive amounts of extra capital just to buy in to the fast lane.

    It will also give ISPs an excuse for providing crap service. "Sorry, SuperDuperVideo didn't pay us, so you can't watch their streams." At the moment if YouTube starts to stutter people complain to their ISPs about the poor quality of their service, and the ISP in obliged to upgrade their network or lose customers.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  21. Chancellor Merkel is right. by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

    Chancellor Merkel is right: the Internet works best when predictable quality standards are available.

    Chancellor Merkel is very carefully wrong. Predictable quality standards are orthogonal to net neutrality, but most people don't know that, so she gets away with claiming net neutrality conflicts with quality.

    We'll take the quality standards. Codify uptime, packet loss, and latency requirements for residential Internet service. The providers are perfectly capable of achieving reasonable requirements in all of those categories. They will fight tooth and nail to avoid having any regulation of those categories though, because they want the option to let poor/low density/undesirable service areas go begging. An option they exercise daily right now.

    Of course, they will never voluntarily offer such guarantees, at any price, so the market will never be able to express a desire to have those guarantees by choosing them. And of course, they will never be forced by law to provide those guarantees either, because they have money. Lots of money. Which is speech. And so the world turns, and what eventually gets passed into law with the name of Net Neutrality stamped on it will be the polar opposite of net neutrality, as these things always are.

    I would say enjoy your free and open Internet while it lasts, but it's already too late for that for many of us.

  22. Re: Presto Vivace? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ma vaffanculo, coglione.