The few major European telecom companies generally do not defend individual rights on the Internet access, as we can notice by their opposition to network neutrality enforcement and their lack of care regarding dark zones and the "digital divide", as their investments follow their profit scheme rather than pursuing better Internet access for everyone.
The net neutrality decision [PDF] came from the US Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia, and was a 2–1 ruling in favor of the mobile
phone carrier Verizon. Verizon had challenged the Federal Communication
Commission (FCC) "Open Internet" rule, which specified that ISPs could
not discriminate between different bits of data that they deliver to
customers. In particular, the rules specified that ISPs cannot block,
slow down, or expedite some data traffic while treating other traffic by
different rules.
Recently, arguments against network neutrality as a “solution in search of a problem” have resurfaced (recently subscribed to by Mitt Romney’s campaign, recently argued by Verizon in its challenge to the Open Internet Order, and also argued here and here). People who make this argument essentially claim either (1) discrimination predicted by Public Knowledge (and the FCC) will never actually come to pass, or (2) discrimination can be benign or even beneficial. For the reasons set out below, these arguments are not persuasive, especially in light of recent examples of discrimination by service providers.
Each packet is created equal in right and duty.
The European Commission is holding a consultation -ending on the 5th 11th of September- about "A clean and open Internet". Citizen input is critically needed to ensure that freedom of expression is protected, against the attempts of many lobbies to impose draconian repressive procedures to censor online content.
Les pages ci dessous contiennent des graphes animés et interactifs représentant la twitosphere autour du hashtag #NetNeutrality par tranches temporelles.
Ces graphes sont issus d'une démarche exploratoire pour modeliser les interactions sociales sur twitter. Le projet est en periode de tests, nous explorons les possibles.
Ce ne sont que des outils d'analyse, pas une analyse en soi.
Digital media and network technologies are now part of everyday life. The Internet has become the backbone of communication, commerce, and media; the ubiquitous mobile phone connects us with others as it removes us from any stable sense of location. Along with this, the public is transforming. The mass media and mass audience analyzed by the Frankfurt School are long past. Today we inhabit multiple, overlapping and global networks such as user forums, Facebook, Flickr, blogs, and wikis. The media industry which just a decade ago seemed well-established, is in flux, facing its greatest challenge ever.
Our book, Networked Publics examines the ways that the social and cultural shifts created by these technologies have transformed our relationships to (and definitions of) place, culture, politics, and infrastructure.
Virgin Media told PC Pro the company had refused to sign because it was too pro-neutrality and the agreement wasn't tough enough. It said that it was not going to sign as it stands. Virgin had no intention of discriminating or treating data differently on the basis of who owns or publishes it.
Sur Internet, vous êtes maître de ce que vous faites, n'est-ce pas ? Plus maintenant !
Les opérateurs de télécommunication dominants veulent contrôler ce que vous faites sur Internet. Ils cherchent à bloquer et ralentir certaines de vos communications, et à vous faire payer plus pour utiliser certains services, contenus et applications.
Il est temps de réagir !
Aidez-nous à recenser toutes les façons dont les fournisseurs d'accès à Internet mettent à mal vos libertés en ligne. Dites-nous comment votre fournisseur d'accès mobile ou fixe restreint votre connexion. Cela vous prendra moins de deux minutes !
Nous ferons état de ces abus à la Commission Européenne et aux autorités nationales et demanderons des actions concrètes pour y remédier.
«Libertarians make the case: net neutrality is unconstitutional
Argue that forcing ISPs to carry all traffic infringes on freedom of speech.
by Cyrus Farivar - July 24 2012, 7:58pm CEST
GOVERNMENT LAWSUITS
30
The 2011 FCC Order established net neutrality as a matter of national policy. Since, companies like Verizon have been trying to fight it.
Taramisu
A group of well-known libertarian organizations has filed an amicus brief (PDF) to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in support of the plaintiff in the Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission case. Verizon filed its own brief earlier this month.
In the brief, TechFreedom, The Competitive Enterprise Institute, The Free State Foundation, and the Cato Institute argue that the last year’s FCC net neutrality order “Preserving the Open Internet” (PDF), which took effect in November 2011, violates the First and Fifth Amendments, and that the FCC lacks jurisdictional authority to implement such a rule.
Specifically, the groups say that compelling private companies to “speak,” by requiring them to carry all traffic across their networks, instead of allowing them to discriminate as they see fit, violates the principle of freedom of speech.
“When you allow the government to say that a private operator has to treat all speech equally and cannot refuse to carry some speech—our view is the First Amendment jurisprudence [stipulates] that the government can’t compel a speaker,” said Randolph May, in a call with Ars on Tuesday morning. May is president of the Free State Foundation; he is also an attorney, law professor, and former associate general counsel at the FCC.
Further, the groups argue, citing case law, the government must show immediate, real harm, rather than theoretical or possible harm.
“There isn’t a record to support suppression of speech here,” added Berin Szoka, also an attorney and president of TechFreedom, who spoke with Ars on Tuesday. “You could imagine a world where net neutrality violations have been frequent. The government would have a much stronger argument that they have a substantial or a compelling interest. That’s not the world that we live in.”
"Father of the Internet" calls this argument "flawed"
The FCC, of course, has previously argued that its actions are aimed at protecting consumers from being able to access whatever service they want over their home Internet connections.
Skeptical Vint Cerf is skeptical.
Joi Ito
Net neutrality advocates, like Vint Cerf, the co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol (and often dubbed a “father of the Internet”), e-mailed Ars to say that he agreed and that the premise of the amicus brief was “fundamentally flawed.”
“Editing the Internet in the way this brief suggests is a gross violation of the First Amendment rights of the customers, because there is not much competitive choice of Internet access providers—the FCC is to be credited for their effort to preserve the rights of citizens.”
Meanwhile, the groups also argue that the FCC Order is in violation of the Fifth Amendment, which prevents the government from, among other things, taking private property for public use, “without just compensation.” They also say that if the FCC order stands, “content providers will enjoy a nearly unqualified right to occupy the cables and wires that constitute broadband networks.”
This appears to be a fairly broad reading of the Fifth Amendment, given that private data transiting through a private cable isn’t quite the same thing as the government taking private property to use for the public good.
The final argument that the libertarian groups put forward is that the FCC lacks regulatory authority, because Congress had not specifically authorized the agency to claim “ancillary authority,” adding ominously at the end of its brief: “If the FCC can invent authority to regulate the Internet today, there is no limit to what it might do tomorrow.”»
«Net neutrality is one of those areas that most people are vaguely in favour of, without giving it much thought. Governments take advantage of this to make sympathetic noises while doing precisely nothing to preserve it. For example, following a UK consultation on net neutrality two years ago, Ofcom came out with a very wishy-washy statement that basically said we think net neutrality is a jolly good idea but we won't actually do anything to protect it.»
«The use of DPI to implement traffic shaping is another compelling reason to insist on net neutrality. If not, the danger is that DPI will be justified on the grounds that it is needed to manage traffic, and then the logic will be that since ISPs have DPI at their disposal it could also be used for certain "limited" purposes - you know, the usual "just to catch terrorists and paedophiles" argument - after which it would be generalised to check the legality of all content flowing through your connection (although the European Court of Justice might have something to say about that, luckily...)»
Anime, elephant dream, net neutrality
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♫ I'm the internet, you're the internet ♫