Dutch Hotels Must Register As ISPs 152
hankwang writes "The Dutch telecommunications authority OPTA has announced that Dutch hotels must register as internet providers (original version, in Dutch) because that is what they formally are, according to Dutch laws. It is well possible that once hotels are officially internet providers, they will also have to abide by the European regulations on data retention and make efforts to link email headers and other data traffic to individual hotel guests. Could this also happen in other European countries? This is probably not likely to lead to a more widespread adoption of free WiFi services in hotels."
Not fully correct (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not fully correct (Score:5, Informative)
Parent is correct, article summary is very imprecise ... slow news day?
Someone, not mentioned explicitely in the article, complained to the OPTA, saying that hotels should be considered ISPs. OPTA considered the wording of the laws they are enforcing and said ' yeah, they might be right ' and has now summoned a few hotels to register as ISP's, to see where this leads.
Obviously, the law is poorly worded and this is a side effect nobody foresaw or intended. This will be probably be fixed, if even necessary.
Please stop with all the efforts to make every little hickup in the law system armaggedon for freedom, please. It's cheap and sensationalist.
Re:Clearly the answer is more government intervent (Score:2, Informative)
Seeing as how I've actually been to TEA party rallies and support Libertarian ideas, and have not come across a single example of a libertarian push for government control of anything, I must ask you to cite your sources.
Tea Party protests FOR government intervention to stop the rebulding of a mosque at ground zero.
Brooklyn Tea Party founder John Press, who rallied against the Ground Zero Mosque in recent weeks, again raised the spectre of foreign domination. "The Mosque is founded by a very scary people and the US Constitution does not guarantee the right of a foreign nation to build a mosque in our country," he said. It's unclear if Mr. Press had merely forgotten the First Amendment, but one member of his protest group did recall the constitutional barrier on government suppression of religion -- he just chose to ignore it.
Link [ittefaq.com]
Mark Williams, chairman of the Tea Party Express, blogged about the 13-story mosque and Islamic cultural center planned at Park Place and Broadway, calling it a monument to the 9/11 terrorists. "The monument would consist of a Mosque for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god,"
Link [nydailynews.com]
Example 2: Tea Party anti-abortionists that WANT government to legislate against abortion.
Link [flickr.com]
Example 3: Tea Party WANTS laws to differentiate Gay and Lesbians.
Montana Tea Party Leader Endorses Violence Toward Gay People
Link [change.org]
In other words the Tea Party is nothing more than religious conservatives trying to control our lives. The Libertarian Party used to be run by Ron Paul who helped kick start the tea party movement. The two are clearly intrinsically linked. Libertarian has come to mean the opposite of its original definition thanks to people trying to play double-speak.
Timothy this title is misleading. (Score:3, Informative)
hankwang and timothy! Article title is misleading.
"Dutch Hotels Must Register As ISPs" is wrong (they do not) and should read "Dutch OPTA sues Hotels for being an ISP".
It is the OPTA that is test-trialing 10 large hotels to find out (by ruling) whether they are (or not are) ISP's.
"OPTA checks whether market parties comply with the law in order to protect consumers." - http://www.opta.nl/en/about-opta/ [www.opta.nl]
In what way exactly this move protects consumers i am not sure, but i reckon the OPTA wants to break down some vague holes in the law behind some ISP's might hide themselves.