Net neutrality, Roaming: Though struggling in the US, at least winning in the EU!

[Cheetah]

Or perhaps more accurately:

Greens, Socialists, Liberals and Lefties are better representatives for the people than Tories, Republicans, Democrats, and other paid-for politicians!

European fans of the open internet can breathe a sigh of relief: the European parliament has passed a major package of telecoms law reform, complete with amendments that properly define and protect net neutrality.

The amendments (PDF) were introduced by the Socialist, Liberal, Green and Left blocs in the European Parliament after the final committee to tweak the package – the industry committee – left in a bunch of loopholes that would have allowed telcos to start classifying web services of their choice as “specialized services” that they can treat differently.

It’s a good thing the net neutrality argument didn’t sink the whole package, as it also includes new laws to eliminate roaming fees within Europe, creating a truly single market for telecoms services. Now the whole package gets passed through to the next Parliament (elections are coming up in May), then the representatives of European countries for final approval.

Definition of net neutrality:

“Net neutrality” means the principle according to which all internet traffic is treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, independently of its sender, recipient, type, content, device, service or application.

And ISPs are still allowed to make specialised offerings:

Providers of internet access, of electronic communications to the public and providers of content, applications and services shall be free to offer specialised services to end-users. Such services shall only be offered if the network capacity is sufficient to provide them in addition to internet access services and they are not to the detriment of the availability or quality of internet access services. Providers of internet access to end-users shall not discriminate between functionally equivalent services and applications.

And the final proof that this is actually a really, really good thing:

In a statement, mobile carrier industry body the GSMA said it “recognises the efforts of Rapporteur Pilar del Castillo to develop a constructive response to the Commission’s Connected Continent proposals but believes that the overall package fails to address the key challenge of stimulating growth and investment.”

Source: David Meyer at Gigaom

Now hopefully the US's FCC can get things sorted out over there too, before Netflix, Comcast, TimeWarner and the rest rip the Internet apart.

 

[Akka]

Or perhaps more accurately:

Greens, Socialists, Liberals and Lefties are better representatives for the people than Tories, Republicans, Democrats, and other paid-for politicians!

It this seriously a surprise for anyone ?

Anyway, great news

Waiting for eurosceptics to come and cry about this foul abuse of oppressive UE power toward the people.

 

[classical_hero]

In Australia net neutrality was trying to be stopped by the left.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Makes sense, everything in Australia's upside down.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Aren't Koalas just squirrels that are going through an identify crisis, anyway?

 

[Camikaze]

In Australia net neutrality was trying to be stopped by the left.

How so? I must have missed that.

 

[warpus]

You know, one of these days I might very well move back ton the E.U. I love living in Canada, but North America is such a strange place. The quality of life is very high, but there's too many people trying to make it worse for the average person - people with influence who have politicians in their pocket. In the E.U. at least a lot of the politicians are on our side when it comes to a lot of important issues like these.

This is not one of those "I'm leaving the country!" posts, I'm just sayin... I am a EU citizen technically, so it's good to have that option. Not everything on that continent is going well, but at least the politicians appear to actually care about the people instead of just the people with money in their pockets.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

In Australia net neutrality was trying to be stopped by the left.

What an odd way of putting it. I am trying to get a mental image of net neutrality going: Someone, please stop me! You! on the left!, only it's not that easy to attribute a mental image to net neutrality. (I got what you meant of course)

The European Union always has been the land of the free, sporting the greatest democracies on Earth, so I am not surprised by this.

 

[Tahuti]

You know, one of these days I might very well move back ton the E.U. I love living in Canada, but North America is such a strange place. The quality of life is very high, but there's too many people trying to make it worse for the average person - people with influence who have politicians in their pocket. In the E.U. at least a lot of the politicians are on our side when it comes to a lot of important issues like these.

This is not one of those "I'm leaving the country!" posts, I'm just sayin... I am a EU citizen technically, so it's good to have that option. Not everything on that continent is going well, but at least the politicians appear to actually care about the people instead of just the people with money in their pockets.

The EU has a lot of braindead people who proclaim that the EU 'socialist, fascist, islamist'. The Netherlands for instance has the far-left SP and the far-right Freedom Party gobble up a significant amount of seats, should elections be held now, and ultra-right parties are fairly popular elsewhere in the EU too, whereas in Canada and the USA, even the most right-wing politicians with any modicum of success proclaim themselves as multiculturalists. You might want to think twice.

 

[warpus]

I realize that no place is going to be perfect, but it seems to be far easier to bribe a politician on this side of the pond. It's sort of encouraged over here.

 

[Akka]

The EU has a lot of braindead people who proclaim that the EU 'socialist, fascist, islamist'. The Netherlands for instance has the far-left SP and the far-right Freedom Party gobble up a significant amount of seats, should elections be held now, and ultra-right parties are fairly popular elsewhere in the EU too, whereas in Canada and the USA, even the most right-wing politicians with any modicum of success proclaim themselves as multiculturalists. You might want to think twice.

You might want to think about the fact that the US political system which so hugely favours a two-parties situation that the lack of seats for other parties has little to do with people's opinions and more with the tendencies of nearly always joining one of the big blocks.

 

[Tahuti]

Every democracy has a de-facto two-party system: The coalition and the opposition.

 

[Akka]

Every democracy has a de-facto two-party system: The coalition and the opposition.

That's a pretty simplistic and binary view of the world, which is false on top of that.

 

[Tahuti]

In the US, the two parties have underwent significant institutional change unheard of in European "political parties", ways echoing changes in the composition of European coalitions. The difference between European 'multi-party' systems and the American two-party system is that the internal factions of political macroparties are formalised in the form of legally recognised political parties in Europe and not their agglomeriation, whereas the inverse situation is true in the US.

 

[Akka]

Feels like this belongs to this thread :

Top EU court rejects EU-wide data retention law

 

[peter grimes]

North America is such a strange place. The quality of life is very high, but there's too many people trying to make it worse for the average person - people with influence who have politicians in their pocket. In the E.U. at least a lot of the politicians are on our side when it comes to a lot of important issues like these.

...

at least the politicians appear to actually care about the people instead of just the people with money in their pockets.

Any idea what structural differences exist that would result in this difference?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Any idea what structural differences exist that would result in this difference?

I think I have a pretty solid idea to offer.

I think the key is party democracy. The US has of course also parties on which democracy rests, but its parties play as institutions a way smaller role. Whereas in Germany and Europe in general, parties play a way bigger role. And that then is a party democracy. To illustrate I'll compare the US to Germany.

In the US, if you run for a seat in Congress, you somehow need to be supported by your party I suppose (not sure how it exactly works), but you are still a fairly independent guy who most of all needs money.

In Germany, if you run for a seat in our parliament you need to get put on a party list of candidates the voter may than vote for. Who gets on this list is an internal matter of the parties, and it basically is about having the right friends, having a strong standing within the party. The best chance have those who have been the longest in a party and hence have the best party connections. Also Germany has this weird hybrid where there are also direct candidates, but what goes for the party list in general also goes for the candidates. Campaigns are paid for by the party.

What this means is that in a party democracy candidates are products of the party through which they had to work their way up over years, there is a very strong preselection of candidates by the party and candidates are very strongly interwoven with party structures. This of course isn't all good. But it means that candidates are to some extend more or less bound by party values and the party will.

And at this point for an American it is important keep in mind what Kaiserguard said:

The difference between European 'multi-party' systems and the American two-party system is that the internal factions of political macroparties are formalised in the form of legally recognised political parties in Europe and not their agglomeriation, whereas the inverse situation is true in the US.

Our parties aren't just conglomerations. They are sort of communities of shared values and the structure of the party democracy makes those values also matter.

This makes our parties sound better than they are and is a bit simplified I am afraid, but it is also a real and principle difference to the American style of democracy.

But since I already babbled so much about German party democracy, allow me to add that those party voting lists I mentioned are IMO a huge issue. As is already the case in the city of Hamburg I believe, the very least we should do is allow the voters to rank those lists themselves if they choose to do so. Because the top spots often go to those party members who most of all care about their career, not to those who really want to make a difference. That needs to change. And mixing up the list can do that. If I could I would out of principle switch the lists ranking upside down with every party vote I give unless I have good reason not do so. But well, that is also besides the point Sorry, just had to vent at least a little bit after all that thinking about German party democracy.

 

[BvBPL]

Somewhere there is someone who thinks he is a libertarian who is celebrating net neutrality in the EU.

That man is very confused.

 

[Winner]

Note of sadness:

these issues should be the ones determining voter preferences in the upcoming European Parliament elections, not national issues.

When I walk around the city and look at the political posters, I just want to vomit. The Eurosceptics are the loudest and as usual they appeal only to people's base emotions, i.e. fiear. Others only offer general slogans that have nothing specific to do with European politics.

I truly believe the European parties need to integrate more on a transnational basis for the elections to fully serve their democratic purpose.

 

[Tahuti]

I truly believe the European parties need to integrate more on a transnational basis for the elections to fully serve their democratic purpose.

As I mentioned earlier elsewhere on CFC, I think a Eurosceptic 'victory' (they won't be taking a majority but at least a significant voice) will accomplish exactly that.