Internet neutrality in the European Union: The European Parliament will vote tomorrow whether or not to introduce new laws aimed at protecting net neutrality in the EU by prohibiting Internet service providers from charging websites in exchange for faster connections.
Sounds good, right? Well, unfortunately, the new legislation has some open gaps, which in fact invalidate its main intentions.
Internet activists are calling on MPs to revise the new regulations before tomorrow's vote.
The new regulations are the result of meetings between the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the EU, in which they sought to reach a common agreement covering all of their views.
The four main points that have been identified as potential issues for the Internet neutrality from the activists are:
- The fast lines to be given by priority to businesses that pay internet providers.
- The selectivity that allows zero coefficients in some (ie, not calculating the use of data in a user's data program for certain services).
- Allowing Internet providers to define content categories that they can accelerate or slow down at will, regardless of traffic congestion.
- The willingness of the advanced Internet services to manage some "impending" congestion without specifying which ones. So it is up to the providers to slow down any traffic at any time.
What does all this mean? It means that if these regulations pass without amendment, Europe will have much less open (free) Internet compared to the US.
Barbara van Schewick, head of Stanford Law School and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, wrote an in-depth analysis of the proposed legislation and how it might be fixed. In her study entitled “Europe Is About to Adopt Bad Net Neutrality Rules. Here's How to Fix Them,” Schewick explains:
Contrary to some allegations, the proposal is weaker than US Internet Nexus regulations. European citizens deserve the same free and open Internet that the Americans can enjoy.
The good news is that Members of the European Parliament will introduce amendments to fix these problems. For these amendments there must be a positive vote by the majority of the members (376 from 751 members).
Schewick encourages everyone to communicate with their representatives in the European Parliament.
TechCrunch published Sunday about an open letter written by Schewick and signed by “top companies technology.” The letter has been sent to the European Parliament ahead of tomorrow's vote and states:
We write on behalf of tech companies and investors in the United States and Europe to reiterate our support for a strong protection of internet neutrality around the world and to share our concerns with the proposed legislation that the European Parliament will look into Tuesday 27 October, 2015.
We believe that United States law (the United States Federal Communications Commission's June 2015 Open Internet Order) provides a strong framework that can keep the Internet free and open ... Unfortunately, the proposal before Parliament includes four major problems that undermine net neutrality and threaten to undermine the technology of EU industry.
The letter is co-signed by 35 companies, including TechCrunch, Netflix, Rentify, Reddit, Tumblr, Auttomatic, Foursquare, Etsy and SoundCloud.
An NGO team in Europe meanwhile has created SavetheInternet.eu. The website is designed to highlight the four key points that need to be reconsidered, and encourages people to communicate with their MEPs by email, tweet or by phone.
Less than 24 hours are left to learn the future of the internet in Europe.
Information from TNW.
