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EU Plans To Extend Some Telecom Rules To Web-Based Providers (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the privacy-woes dept.

The European Union is planning to extend telecom rules covering security and confidentiality of communications to web services such as Microsoft's Skype and Facebook's WhatsApp which could restrict how they use encryption, reports Reuters. From the report: The rules currently only apply to telecoms providers such as Vodafone and Orange. According to an internal European Commission document seen by Reuters, the EU executive wants to extend some of the rules to web companies offering calls and messages over the Internet. Telecoms companies have long complained that web groups such as Alphabet Inc's Google, Microsoft and Facebook are more lightly regulated despite offering similar services and have called for the EU's telecoms-specific rules to be repealed. They have also said that companies such as Google and Facebook can make money from the use of customer data. Under the existing "ePrivacy Directive", telecoms operators have to protect users' communications and ensure the security of their networks and may not keep customers' location and traffic data.Reuters adds that the exact confidentiality obligations for web firms would still have to be defined.

25 comments

  1. If it looks like a phone company. by currently_awake · · Score: 2

    If your business is providing phone service, you should be regulated as a phone company. The law should not change because "over the internet".

    1. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a phone company.

    2. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hi there,

      Are you currently awake? Or are you sleeping?

      Just checking. Thanks!

    3. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really, voip vs telegraph, no differences. What an uneducated statement.

      How about, if you do not like the service and terms, do not use said service. Keep your regulations out of my voluntary exchange and contracts.

    4. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by mishehu · · Score: 1

      Except what layers of the OSI model do Vodafone and Orange provide, and what levels of the OSI model do Google and Microsoft provide? Perhaps the confusion you are experiencing is due to the fact that you are referring to Orange and Vodafone as "telephone companies". That is a legacy term which is, for all intents and purposes, anachronistic nowadays. Even TFS refers to them as "telecoms". But they are not the same as Google and Microsoft.

    5. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      why not less regulation for everyone then? The main reason most of the regulation was adopted was that there were virtual monopolies, originally by those who owned the wires. With a more open market most of the regulation is no longer necessary.

    6. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by mmiscool · · Score: 1

      The problem with doing this is the cost. Google and Skype offer there services for free in many cases and use on the data extracted from those services to make money. To regulate in a different manner where profit from offering those free services goes away could impact consumers in the end negatively.

    7. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which is why the regulations would only apply to their phone business, not the other areas.

      They can collect and profit off any other stuff they provide that isn't phone-related all they want.
      But given phones are a vital substrate of modern society, more so than even the internet is, it requires some safeguards from abuse.

      It likely will happen with the internet at some point, but in all honesty it will likely result in a complete fork of the internet.
      There will be the walled-garden internet where everything is locked down, and the wild wild web of the internet where anything goes. (I know there is a difference between WWW and internet, it was a metaphor damn it!)
      It has already happened several times throughout the life of the internet, people trying to slice it up to control it.
      There has even been web-service providers only, not full internet access. (likewise VOIP-only, and so on)
      AS the internet grows, it is more likely to come to fruition.
      I welcome it, quite honestly, because fuck this over-regulation of the internet by groups like the copyright industry abusing domain registrars, and blocking whole port groups, and so on. (why people still use them is beyond me, use alt nameservers, problem solved)

    8. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fuck you, big telco shill

    9. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      What is a "phone service"? The wire? The signaling across it? The logic behind the signaling? The protocol stacked on top of the logic? The application that uses that protocol? Do I have to provide only one of them? Some of them? All of them? When does it start being a "phone service"? When you can make phone calls? Great, then I just provide the cables, signals, logic and protocol and am not subject to regulations yet because you have to put an application on top to be able to make that call.

      So when should I be subject to regulation? When do I provide "phone service"?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    10. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Reaper9889 · · Score: 1

      Well, you are not allowed to sign your self into slavery, so there are business deals you cannot make. Is privacy a good enough reason to make a transaction illigal? Note that Europe cares more about privacy than the US, so the culture might matter for the answer.

      Also, you can call peoples phones through skype, so it is not really clear that all involved people will know that their conversation is used for ads. Is that fair?

    11. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      Virtual Network Operators (companies which sell an end user service but dont operate any equipment themselves, rather lease service off of actual telecoms companies) are still covered under these rules, so if you are providing the service over the internet then I dont see why you shouldnt also fall under the rules...

    12. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      Keep your regulations out of my voluntary exchange and contracts.

      The trouble happens when your deal is no longer voluntary in practice, because the service is becoming essential to normal life but the service provider(s) available to you are all imposing undesirable terms so you have no option to choose an alternative.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    13. Re:If it looks like a phone company. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Privacy, baloney. My data, my servers, my rules. Feel free to use someone else's or setup your own servers, with your own data, and your own rules. I won't point a gun at your head preventing you (but the nation state will). Damn Europeans, always expecting someone else to foot the bill, like NATO, and military.

  2. PLANS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Best laid is not planning, it's banging! Do it!

  3. aka Required backdoor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't forget that phone companies are required by law to have such systems installed that will allow eavesdropping to calls once they are told by authorities(assuming a court warrant). If WhatApp etc have that law applied to them, then "such systems" means no encryption or encryption with backdoors. Basically they are forbidden to use end-to-end encryption and will be forced to weaken the security of their products.

    1. Re:aka Required backdoor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " Basically they are forbidden to use end-to-end encryption and will be forced to weaken the security of their products."

      Total bullshit, the lawful interception is best effort. Yes, i'd have to supply the private keys if they are under my control, but any crypto relying on the public key is broken anyway. So if the e2e is any good, even with LI communication would still be safe.

    2. Re:aka Required backdoor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. This is open to law interpretation. It basically says that you should design your system in such a way to allow lawful eavesdropping of voice not just data. So if you implement e2e your system isn't legal. It doesn't allow access to voice data.

  4. definitions and tradition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, the governments are hindered by their formal definitions and traditions.
    Telephone - a device allowing a person to verbally communicate with another person.
    Telegraph - a service to send messages from one person to another.
    the Internet allows both of these, and more.
    So is the solution a separate set of regulations for the internet?
    And how will these regulations affect the utility use of the internet?
    Then there is all the claptrap about 'free the internet'.
    It is beginning to look like an Internet ID will be the end result in the EU.
    All communications tagged, and regulated.

  5. The Google is not happy! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's hard to do evil when the government regulates you!

  6. Does this include the tapping rules? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just wondering if things like ES 201 671 are included in the rules they want to apply.

  7. PRESUME IT'S A LIE (FBI) (FBI) (FBI) [singing] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FBI why are you so gay though?

    Pulling stories directly from REUTERS to Slashdot front page?! Never ever. You should have known you would look stupid rolling up in your black Escalades with some shades on and flood pants... trying to push mainstream news on a tech site.

    What next? Microsoft has an update? Google making Chrome available to run on your PC firmware now?

  8. Including Wiretaps? by jjoelc · · Score: 1

    How about the requirement that telcos allow for and assist in lawful wiretaps? The trouble with accepting part of the regulations is that you have to accept all of them, not just the parts you like.

    1. Re:Including Wiretaps? by jjoelc · · Score: 1

      Damnit, should have read the entire thread, others have already asked this much better than I did...

  9. War on terror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... protect users' communications and ensure the security of their networks and may not keep customers' location and traffic data ...

    Expect the US state department to complain loudly about this. They've got to keep their corporate overlords happy and their unwashed masses oppressed. Oh, plus "Look! terrorist!".

    ... exact confidentiality obligations for web firms ...

    While this is necessary, look at the problems caused by the blanket-banning of web-page cookies. We have a nuclear war rating system and a terrorist attack rating system but what we need is a data monetized rating system. It can range from "So secret we can't send you a replacement password" to "kidnap your first-born and rape your dog" levels of privacy invasion.