As Predicted, Attempt At Dutch ISP Filtering Results In Net Neutrality Law
from the backlash... dept
Back in May, Bas correctly predicted that an attempt by some mobile ISPs to filter their internet access, in order to offer different levels of services to consumers has, in fact, resulted in a pro-net neutrality law, one of the first of its kind, in the Netherlands. And, there are suggestions that there will be more like it too. Now as I've discussed in the past, I'm in favor of keeping the end-to-end principles of "network neutrality" in place, because they're incredibly important to innovation. But I am worried about actually legislating net neutrality into law, for two key reasons. First, there are potential unintended consequences. Just defining what counts as net neutrality is difficult enough, let alone having the law based on it. Second, at least in the US (not so sure about the situation in the Netherlands), the giant telcos, with their armies of lobbyists, would dilute such plans so much as to make it the opposite of what is intended. We're already seeing that, with AT&T effectively hijacking such discussions in the US. Still, this does show something: when ISPs start to get too intrusive, public backlash can be fierce, and lead to regulations (good or bad) The US ISPs agreeing to filter the internet to protect Hollywood may want to keep that in mind.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: net neutrality, netherlands
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Repost
"It's funny how everyone understands that our government works for our corporations, and yet they still argue that the only way to solve it is to give the government more power. That's like saying the only way to prevent yourself from being beaten up by a thug hired by the mafia is to replace the thug's club with a gun. Sure, the gun would be more deadly to a mafia boss than a club would, but you're forgetting who works for who in all of it."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Repost
In the U.S. the government already rule against net neutrality principles and give big players monopolies in disguise.
Other countries recognized already that without legislation stating those things others would put in place their own rules that negate any neutrality that could appear, they also would push the bar to entry to levels where no small competitors can survive.
France mandates infra-structure sharing, Japan also, Australia is building their own infra-structure and forcing everybody to share it, that is good government intervention not bad even though everyone of those countries have their share of bad government decisions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Repost
Who do you think is going to write the net "neutrality" laws? Is AT&T going to make sure to "level the playing field" for you?
Again, you're forgetting who works for who.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Repost
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Repost
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Repost
And now you expect that same bought-and-paid for government to craft rules to keep them in check? If they could do that, we wouldn't need net neutrality rules in the first place.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Repost
The laws are already there stifling innovation and progress, and to have a market with competition those laws will need to change or there will be no competition, so really what is there to loose?
People in the U.S. pay through their noses for less service and quality than in other places like France, Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, Finland and others. The U.S. is almost in the same level as third world countries that everyone bashes as being backwards.
What exactly will people loose?
If the laws are written by the big boys it will be the same crap as it was before as they don't really want to change things and if some changes happen that could be good no?
If you know how to jumpstart the market without changing any laws I am all ears, because I know that what is holding the U.S. back are laws designed to suffocate competition, heck not even multibillion dollar companies can enter the market without expending billions of dollars today, therefore there will be no little guys innovating and outsmarting the big guys, regulation and protective laws will take care of that.
Laws will need to change it will be a fight, but if people don't want to fight then I guess they are content in letting things stay the same way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Repost
You know that is not impossible either or other countries wouldn't have rules that make sense like line-sharing or their own infra-structure that others can use to offer services like in Australia.
The funny part of it, is that the countries that had public owned infra-structure are the ones doing well, because the government sells the use of it to everyone and everyone contributes to the maintenance and upgrades and also help to guarantee the government stays honest.
So maybe it is time for the federal government to start building the new internet highway and keep control of it like they did it in the beginning, maybe it was a mistake to let the ownership of the basic infra-structure in the hands of the private sector.
But there are also countries that did go the line-sharing way like France and succeed while Canada is a disaster(blame Canada).
Again, I fear no new legislation, if it succeeds it will be a good thing if it fails it could be a lesson for the future and probably will end up like all that other crappy laws that we now get.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Repost
God knows my wife doesn't care as long as she get her phone working and she can manage the prices, but once monopolistic rules are in place greed will always prevail and those people will increase the prices and at some point people will start complaining even if they don't understand how things got that way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Thought it was a 'graduated response' scheme, not a filter. Though that 'top' 200 sites provision may be considered as such.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
MPAA
RIAA
ASCAP
BMI
SONY
ABC
NBC
CNBC
Fox (if they are lucky)
CableVision
COX
Time Warner
...
The future looks bright.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
*for instance: downloading music and movies for personal and/or study use is legally allowed
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Graduated as in they gradually reduce your internet speed until you're surfing the internet at less than 56K dial-up speeds and paying cable internet prices.
Ouch!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]