EU Wants To Enshrine Network Neutrality In Law 76
Bismillah writes "Following the example of the Dutch, who enacted laws supporting network neutrality, the European Union is now looking at doing the same. They are pushing for an end to the throttling and blocking of services such as Skype and Whatsapp by providers hoping to drive users to their own competing services. The EU also wants a service transparency requirement for ISPs, so people know what they're buying — like minimum speed. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out."
Re:Please EU, more laws! (Score:5, Informative)
European Union politicians simply cannot be trusted as none have been elected by the people, so one can only wonder whose interests they serve.
That is quite a blanket statement. Members of the EU Parliament are politicians and directly elected by the people, so it is also wrong. Note that I am not saying that the European Union does not have serious democratic problems. The EU Parliament holds few of the powers usually attributed to parliaments and the EU Commission is appointed by the EU governments, so it is "buffered" against the people.
Why this happened in the Netherlands (Score:4, Informative)
Before you start accusing the Netherlands or the EU over being overzealus about this, consider that these laws were a response to the biggest mobile internet provider in the Netherlands announcing plans to block WhatsApp access, and only allow access to it to those who payed up, after people stopped text-messaging in droves in favor of WhatsApp. This didn't come out of the blue, and I personally feel stopping this sort of thing is a good(tm) thing.
Re:Define it... (Score:5, Informative)
She has an exemplary track record of protecting the consumer, the common man, and hitting at corporate interests that try the opposite.
Because the already existing Dutch example was mentioned we can assume the EU rules would follow a similar path and that's again a sign for a consumer-friendly ruling.
When the ruling is consumer friendly it will be a bonus for all, not just the single company that wants to bent the rules it's own way for profit.
Although Europeans have to remain vigilant about the various restrictions set on public speech, via the Internet or any other means, there is a wide agreement among many Europeans not all needs to be allowed.
Europeans will typically sooner accept a restriction set by a democratically elected legislature than by a commercial entity.