UK Prime Minister Apparently Last To Realize New EU Net Neutrality Rules Mean No Porn Filtering

from the Cameron-noted-he-'doesn't-really-keep-up-with-the-news...' dept

The EU's new net neutrality "protections" are largely deserving of the scare quotes, what with their myriad loopholes and built-in provisions that allow ISPs to throttle/manipulate traffic to prevent "congestion" -- something that has yet to be the actual source of any ISP's "traffic $haping" efforts.

But what the rules did do is throw off David Cameron's ongoing plans for a porn-free UK. And, of course -- considering Cameron has no idea how ISP-level filters work, much less aware of numerous logical fallacies "supporting" his claims this will actually prevent porn consumption by minors -- the Prime Minister was the last to know.

During Prime Minister's Questions, Cameron said he realised the knock-on effect from the EU bill over breakfast.

"When I read my Daily Mail this morning, I sputtered over my cornflakes because we worked so hard to put in place these filters," he told fellow MPs.

The new neutrality rules forbid traffic discrimination (except when they don't; see above). Porn filtering at the ISP level is exactly that: blocking certain traffic simply because of its originating source. So much for Cameron's "voluntary*" porn-filtering scheme.

*under the threat of legislation

And now the man who reckons porn filtering will work because he says it will work has secured a temporary exception from the EU's new rules. How long it will last is unknown. In the meantime, Cameron will be working hard to legislate a UK-only neutrality loophole that will hopefully survive inspection by the EU. This unexpected dismantling of his slapped-together, officially unofficial porn ban has resulted in Cameron stepping up his push to upgrade "voluntary" filtering to "mandatory."

Cameron continued: "I can tell the House that we will legislate to put our agreement with internet companies into the law of the land so that our children will be protected."

LOL at agreement. "Do this or else" isn't an "agreement." Now, despite being previously voluntold by Cameron to make with the porn filtering, ISPs will now be legislated at by the shocked and worried Prime Minister. Presumably this effort will ultimately be successful, as voting against this would suggest the reluctant legislator(s) believe underage children should have access to porn, rather than said legislator(s) feeling the government shouldn't be in the business of deciding what forms of legal entertainment ISP subscribers can access.

Filed Under: david cameron, free speech, net neutrality, porn filters, uk

The European Union's New Net Neutrality 'Protections' Are A Joke

from the blind-and-beholden dept

After months of negotiations (read: ISP lawyer and lobbyist rewrites), the European Union has voted to approve new net neutrality rules (pdf) that for many nation states may be worse than having no net neutrality protections at all. As we've noted, the rules ignore zero rating, carve out massive loopholes for "specialized services," "class-based discrimination," and even include provisions allowing ISP throttling and discrimination provided it's addressing phantom congestion that hasn't even happened yet. In short, these rules effectively protect ISPs looking to creatively violate net neutrality, not European consumers.

European Parliament members completely ignored last-minute suggested amendments that would have closed these loopholes. They also completely ignored opposition to the rules by the likes of BitTorrent, EyeEm, Foursquare, Kickstarter, WordPress, Netflix, Reddit, Transferwise, Vimeo, the EFF and Tim Berners-Lee (who penned a lengthy blog post outlining his opposition to the rules). Similarly, only 50 MEPs out of the European Parliament's total of 751 could be bothered to even attend a superficial "debate" preceding the approval vote.

These pathetic protections were accepted in part because they were sold as part of a Telecoms Single Market package that was to include significant abolition of steep European roaming fees on wireless networks. Many MEPs didn't fight harder on net neutrality because they thought they were at least getting some decent wireless market reform. But as German Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda notes, even the roaming provisions appear to have been notably gutted from the final offering:

"Despite all this, the regulation was passed unchanged by a majority in plenary today, a decision that may have been influenced by the public’s attention for the provision on the elimination of roaming surcharges that was included in the legislative package. Unfortunately, the Telecoms Single Market package doesn’t deliver in that respect either. The plan to place an end to roaming surcharges in Europe has been adopted pending a review of pricing and consumption patterns. Even if the review is completed by the 15 June 2017 deadline, roaming surcharges will only be suspended up to a ‘fair use’ limit beyond which they still apply and continue to hinder the breaking down of barriers within Europe."

In other words, even the carrot on a stick used to lure European Parliament members into voting for bad net neutrality rules wound up being rotten. Of course, European ISPs shouldn't pat themselves on the back just yet. The EU's flimsy rules strongly resemble the original, pathetic net neutrality rules passed here in the States in 2010. Those rules, all but written by AT&T, Verizon and Google, were so obviously useless that consumer outrage forced the government to revisit an issue they honestly believed they'd put to bed. The U.S. now has notably tougher net neutrality rules than ever, assuming they aren't dismantled by the courts.

As EU member residents realize their new net neutrality rules actually protect ISPs, you'll likely see a strong push for the entire issue to be revisited down the road, much to the chagrin of ISP lawyers who believe they've just put the issue to bed.

Filed Under: broadband, eu, eu parliament, europe, loopholes, net neutrality, roaming, telcos, zero rating

The EU Prepares To Vote For Awful, Loophole-Filled Net Neutrality Rules

from the semantic-overdrive dept

On Tuesday, the European Union is expected to vote on new net neutrality rules, the end result of months of debate between the European Commission, European Parliament, and the EU Council. Of course just like here in the States, heavy lobbying pressure by ISPs has the lion's share of politicians supporting loopholes that will let giant ISPs do pretty much everything they want. The rules at first glance look very similar to the flimsy, 2010 rules proposed in the U.S. back in 2010 -- allowing ISPs to engage in anti-competitive shenanigans -- provided the carrier vaguely insists it's for the safety and security of the network.

Like in the States, the rules prohibit the outright blocking of websites and content (something no ISP in its right mind would do anyway). And while that's a marginal improvement for some EU members, it's a step backward for places like the Netherlands, Slovenia and Norway where tougher rules currently exist.

As Stanford Professor Barbara van Schewick notes, the rules fail terribly on four major fronts. One, they fail to prevent or even police the zero rating of apps, something we've repeatedly noted lets companies with deeper pockets pay to have their traffic exempted from usage caps -- immediately putting smaller companies and non-profits at a disadvantage. This has been something American consumers have had a hard time understanding, since such systems are usually framed as "1-800 numbers for data" or the data equivalent of free shipping. But van Schewick does a good job explaining the bad precedent set:

"Research shows that zero-rated applications are far more attractive to users than those that are not. In a study commissioned by the CTIA, 74% of users said that they would be more likely to watch videos offered by a new provider if the content did not count against their monthly bandwidth caps. When the online magazine Slate experimented with zero-rating, it told some users that the podcast did not count against their cap. People who were offered the zero-rated podcast were 61% more likely to click on the link. Thus, zero-rating has the same impact as technical discrimination: it gives ISPs power to make certain applications more attractive than others and pick winners and losers on the Internet."

Another problem, which we've noted previously, is that the EU rules carve out huge semantic exemptions for "specialized services," which then aren't really properly defined. The end result are bigger companies paying to have their traffic given priority, those companies passing on these charges to consumers, while, and like zero rating, smaller companies and non-profits are being forced to putter along on the second-class fringes of the Internet:

"If established companies can pay so that their content loads faster or does not count against users’ monthly bandwidth caps, then those who can’t pay don’t have a chance to compete. Many of today’s most popular applications — Google, Facebook, Yahoo, eBay — were developed by innovators with little or no outside funding. In a world where such innovations are stuck in the slow lane, they would never have seen the light of day."

Van Schewick also notes the rules allow for "class-based discrimination," or the throttling of entire classes of traffic like BitTorrent -- regardless of whether congestion actually makes it necessary. As we've seen historically (with say Rogers in Canada), when encryption prevents ISPs from using deep packet inspection to snoop on user packets, they'll sometimes just throttle all encryption for good measure. But van Schewick also notes that class-based discrimination can also be abused to hinder competition:

"When ISPs are free to define classes, they have a lot of discretion to discriminate against certain applications. ISPs could use this power to deliberately distort competition. For example, an ISP could offer low delay to online gaming to make it more attractive, but it could decide not to offer low delay to online telephony because that would allow Internet telephony to better compete with the ISP’s own telephony offerings. Although both services are sensitive to delay, ISPs could argue that there are other, technical differences that justify distinguishing between them."

Most of these are semantic loopholes we've seen time and time again in countries trying to get some basic rules of the neutral road on the books. But give the EU telcos credit; they've managed to convince European regulators into a special exemption I'd not seen yet -- one that allows them to engage in anti-competitive behavior -- just as long as they argue it was necessary to thwart congestion that hasn't even happened yet:

"The proposal allows ISPs to use the same tools to prevent 'impending' congestion. Since the meaning of 'impending' is not clearly defined, this provision opens the floodgates for managing traffic at all times. It makes it easier for ISPs to discriminate among classes of applications even if there is no congestion, using the justification that congestion was just about to materialize."

Again, you'll notice a theme with all the loopholes: they allow ISPs to engage in all manner of bad behavior just as long as they provide some semantically-rich, faux-technical excuse justifying the action. This is exactly what the U.S. FCC did back in 2010, and it resulted in an unprecedented public backlash and a demand for better (but still not perfect) U.S. rules. Granted this is all easily fixed, and EU consumer advocates have offered a list of loophole-closing amendments (pdf) that the majority of European Parliament members (376 of the 751) need to adopt ahead of Tuesday's vote if they want the rules to actually mean anything.

Filed Under: broadband, eu, europe, loopholes, net neutrality, zero ratings

Canada's Biggest Net Neutrality Offender Rogers Has Change Of Heart After Having Its Traffic Discriminated Against

from the complete-180 dept

In Canada, historically there hasn't been a worse offender of net neutrality than Rogers Communications. The ISP has been at the forefront of throttling, blocking, or otherwise impeding Canadian broadband traffic for years, its ham-fisted network management practices very often having a very real and very negative impact on perfectly legitimate Internet services ranging from encrypted traffic to World of Warcraft. For a while there, Rogers was responsible for half of all neutrality complaints to Canadian regulators.

So it's a bit ironic that Rogers is now giving other ISPs lectures on how best to adhere to net neutrality.

As we noted last month, Canadian ISP Videotron is testing Canada's net neutrality rules with a new "Unlimited Music" service that exempts the most popular music services from the company's usage caps. We've talked about the horrible precedent set by such "zero rating" services in the past, given such a model puts small businesses and nonprofits at an immediate disadvantage. Regulators (and many customers) in both the US and Canada seem utterly oblivious to the potential pitfalls of this model, so most of us will be getting an up-close crash course over the next few years on the real dangers of zero rating.

But in Canada, Rogers is suddenly rushing to help consumer advocates make their case in a filing with Canadian regulators (the CRTC) arguing that Videotron should be stopped from injecting itself as gatekeeper to the healthy Internet:

"The Unlimited Music service offered by Videotron is fundamentally at odds with the objective of ensuring that there is an open and non-discriminatory marketplace for mobile audio services. Videotron is, in effect, picking winners and losers by adopting a business model that would require an online audio service provider (including Canadian radio stations that stream content online) to accept Videotron’s contractual requirements in order to receive the benefit of having its content zero-rated."

So why does Rogers suddenly care so much about net neutrality? The company owns a number of radio stations around Canada that have found themselves unable to get Videotron's special cap-exempt status. Obviously this is a far cry from a few years ago, when Rogers lobbyists used to pen whiny editorials in the Canadian media complaining (like most large, incumbent ISPs do) that net neutrality is a fabricated phantom:

"Again, net neutrality violations haven’t happened. ISPs will charge you for just about anything (e.g. paper bills) but they have never charged content providers for network access. Since it has never happened, even where there are no rules against it, you can conclude that it isn’t really a problem."

Right, net neutrality isn't a problem until you're the one who suddenly finds yourself on the unfair end of the stick.

Filed Under: canada, competition, net neutrality, unlimited music, zero rating
Companies: rogers, videotron

FCC Quickly Shoots Down The First (Incredibly Stupid) Net Neutrality Complaint

from the chicken-little-was-wrong dept

Back in June we noted how the very first net neutrality complaint had been filed and that it was notably stupid, but important. Basically, a small San Diego company by the name of Commercial Network Services (CNS) tried to complain that Time Warner Cable was abusing its monopoly power by refusing to give the company free peering. CNS operates a series of webcams in the San Diego area which, when visited, inform users that the reason they can't access the "ultra-HD" version of the cameras is because their ISP isn't a peering partner with CNS: In its informal FCC complaint, CNS tried to claim that Time Warner Cable's refusal to offer free peering violates the "no paid prioritization" and "no throttling" sections of the new net neutrality rules. Basically, CNS has been trying to claim that net neutrality somehow means it deserves free peering from bigger ISPs, even though that's never been how things work for smaller companies, and the new net neutrality rules don't change that. So it was the first net neutrality complaint, but it was also the first example of a company trying to use the rules to weasel out a business advantage, something mega-ISPs tried to claim would be a huge, unmanageable problem.

But the FCC has apparently seen this complaint for what it is and acted accordingly, basically informing the company politely in a letter that it needs to shut up and go away:

"In this instance we regret that you were not satisfied with attempts by FCC staff to facilitate a more satisfactory resolution of the underlying issue. At this point, you might want to contact the company directly to see if you and the company can arrive at a resolution that is more acceptable to you. You will receive no further status on your complaint from FCC staff."

While the net neutrality rules don't specifically cover interconnection, they do give the authority for the FCC to resolve complaints on a case-by-case basis. In this case, the FCC clearly found nothing wrong. And that's a good thing; one narrative of incumbent mega ISPs before the rules were passed was that the FCC would run amok, competitors would abuse the rules, and we'd be wandering a minefield of unintended consequences and protracted legal battles, decimating the telecom landscape as we know it. Yet here, the FCC quickly saw a stupid complaint and shot it down with minimal fuss.

Obviously that's only one complaint, and we'll need to watch the FCC closely to see just what trips the agency's definition of anti-competitive behavior. But so far so good, and none of it has required "heavy handed regulation." Simply having rules in place has already helped on the interconnection front, with companies like Netflix, Cogent, Level 3 and the mega ISPs (Comcast, AT&T, Verizon) getting along famously simply due to the threat that a regulator might just do its job.

CNS, meanwhile, insists it's going to proceed and file a formal net neutrality complaint, for whatever that winds up being worth (and it won't be much).

Filed Under: fcc, free peering, interconnection, net neutrality, peering, webcams
Companies: commercial network services, time warner cable

Hey, Remember How Net Neutrality Was Supposed To Destroy The Internet?

from the chicken-little dept

Before and after the FCC imposed new net neutrality rules, you'll recall there was no limit of hand-wringing from major ISPs and net neutrality opponents about how these "draconian regulations from a bygone era" would utterly decimate the Internet. We were told investment would freeze, innovation would dry up like dehydrated jerky, and in no time at all net neutrality would have us all collectively crying over our busted, congested, tubes.

And, of course, shockingly, absolutely none of that is happening. Because what the ISPs feared about net neutrality rules wasn't that it would senselessly hurt their ability to invest, but that it would harm their ability to take aggressive and punitive advantage of the lack of competition in last mile broadband networks. Obviously ISPs can't just come out and admit that, so what we get instead is oodles of nonsense, including bogus claims that net neutrality violates ISPs' First Amendment rights.

About a year ago, you'll recall that companies like Netflix, Cogent, and Level 3 accused most of the major ISPs of intentionally letting their peering points get congested. The goal, these companies claimed, was to kill the long-standing idea of settlement-free peering, and drive services like Netflix toward striking new interconnection deals that would, presumably, be jacked up over time. One year on and Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer notes that most of the congestion that plagued these interconnection points last year has somehow magically disappeared:

"Speaking to investors during the Deutsche Bank 23rd Annual Leveraged Finance Conference, Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent, said that the FCC's adoption of net neutrality rules that include Title II regulation, and passage of similar rules in the European Union, have led to ports on other networks becoming unclogged. "The adoption of the Open Internet order and Title II jurisdictional authority were mirrored in the EU and on June 30 the European Commission adopted a set of regulations that were passed by the parliament and the council," Schaeffer said. "As a result of that we have seen significant port augmentations."

Schaeffer proceeded to note that AT&T and Verizon "are nearly congestion free" and would be completely congestion free sometime in the fourth quarter. Negotiations with other ISPs appear to also be going well. Funny how that works, huh? And note the FCC didn't even have to do all that much; we simply needed the mere threat of a regulator actually doing its job to make the mega-ISPs play nice. In other words, net neutrality rules that were supposed to destroy the Internet have instead resulted in companies that were at each other's throats a year ago suddenly getting along famously, and the Internet itself working better than before.

Sure, some ISP think tankers are being paid to pretend the last few weeks that network investment has dried up, but there's absolutely no indication that's the case. In fact, the biggest ISPs historically opposed to net neutrality have announced major deployment projects since, including Comcast's plan to deploy two gigabit fiber to 18 million homes, Verizon's plan to invest heavily in the fifth-generation of wireless technology, and AT&T's $68 billion acquisition and subsequent plans for fixed-wireless broadband and (when they can bothered to get around to it) gigabit fiber.

Granted, ISPs will argue that it's still early and that the sky will likely fall due to net neutrality any day now. A more likely explanation is that incumbent ISPs and their army of paid mouthpieces were utterly and unmistakably full of shit.

Filed Under: congestion, fcc, interconnection, net neutrality, title ii
Companies: cogent

ISP Announces It's Blocking All Facebook And Google Ads Until Companies Pay A Troll Toll

from the entitlement-mindset dept

By now you're probably familiar with the narrative pushed by some ISPs that they are somehow owed a cut of advertising and content revenue simply because content company traffic touches their network. The idea that ISPs should be allowed to double dip in this fashion was an idea first floated by former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre, who truly set off the net neutrality fight in the States back in 2005 by proudly and stupidly declaring that Google shouldn't be able to "ride his pipes for free." The narrative is still often used here in the States by net neutrality opponents, usually with Netflix portrayed as the hungry, selfish bogeyman.

The idiotic belief that content companies should be charged an additional "telco tax" to fund network upgrades has since wormed its way into pampered, duopoly telco board rooms worldwide. The latest case in point: Caribbean and South Pacific ISP Digicel has started blocking Google and Facebook ads from appearing on the company's mobile network in the apparent belief that the service provider is owed a slice of these companies' ad revenues. In a notice posted to the Digicel website, this move is framed as something that was motivated purely for altruistic, pro-consumer reasons:

"(Digicel is) deploying ad control technology at the network level on its networks across the globe to ensure a better experience for customers and to encourage the likes of Google, Facebook and Yahoo to help connect the 4.2 billion unconnected people across the globe. Ad control technology benefits both consumers and network operators alike. With ads using up as much as 10% of a customers’ data plan allowance, this move will allow customers to browse the mobile web and apps without interruption from unwanted advertising messages."

What sweethearts. Of course, the notice then proceeds to make it clear what this is really about. And that's Digicel and billionaire owner Denis O'Brien's belief that they are owed a cut of content company ad revenue simply because content company traffic touches their network:

"Companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook talk a great game and take a lot of credit when it comes to pushing the idea of broadband for all – but they put no money in. Instead they unashamedly trade off the efforts and investments of network operators like Digicel to make money for themselves. That’s unacceptable, and we as a network operator, are taking a stand against them to force them to put their hands in their pockets and play a real role in improving the opportunities for economic empowerment for the global population.”"

O'Brien's been mentioned by Techdirt previously for attempts to sue satirists for so much as joking about him, so hopefully he doesn't take offense when I note that both he and Digicel are utterly full of crap here. The cornerstone of the ISPs' flimsy entitlement argument almost always involves claiming that companies like Google, Netflix, and others get a "free ride" on ISP networks. We've debunked this idea time and time again, even going so far as to urge these folks to pay Netflix's bandwidth bill for a month if they truly believe content companies don't pay for bandwidth and transit. Strangely, we've yet to be taken up on the offer.

Of course, the idea that Google, which is spending billions on wireless service and fiber to the home, "puts no money in" is laughable. Not only do these companies pay plenty for bandwidth, they own half-a-planet's worth of transit and content delivery networks at this point; and that's before you even get into their last-mile broadband efforts, where they're busy exploring everything from 3.5GHz wireless experiments to broadband by hot air balloon and drone in a quest to expand their global ad empires.

Of course, many of these efforts challenge the stranglehold legacy telecom companies have enjoyed for a generation or more, and the predominant response to this new economy evolution has been not to compete -- but to pout. Indeed, O'Brien's tirades are little more than the crying of a pampered child who is -- obviously for the first time in a long while -- being told he's not able to eat the entire carton of ice cream in one sitting.

Filed Under: advertising, caribbean, deep packet inspection, denis o'brien, isp, net neutrality, tolls
Companies: digicel, facebook, google