ONI Home Page. What the web COULD look like without Net Neutrality. By Jess Sloss on October 28, 2009 Welcome bundled services, with money going into your local internet service providers pocket, instead of the developer, creator or service owner’s. Sure, it might not look like this. But I think we can all agree that the world is better off with a Neutral Internet More. Net Neutrality Timeline | Lobbynomics. Wikileaks ISP Anonymizes All Customer Traffic To Beat Spying. In order to neutralize Sweden's incoming implementation of the European Data Retention Directive, Bahnhof, the Swedish ISP and host of Wikileaks, will run all customer traffic through an encrypted VPN service.
Since not even Bahnhof will be able to see what its customers are doing, logging their activities will be impossible. With no logs available to complete their chain of investigation, anti-piracy companies will be very, very unhappy. In 2009, Sweden introduced the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED). The legislation gave rights holders the authority to request the personal details of alleged copyright infringers. This prompted Jon Karlung, CEO of ISP Bahnhof, to announce that he would take measures to protect the privacy of his customers. Shortly after Bahnhof ceased logging customer activities and with no logging there was no data to store or hand over. “In our case, we plan to let our traffic go through a VPN service, ” Bahnhof’s Jon Karlung told SR. Netherlands first European nation to adopt net neutrality.
The Dutch Parliament yesterday agreed to make the Netherlands the first nation in Europe to officially put net neutrality principles into law. The law will force ISPs and telecom operators to ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network. The new telecom law has won a near unanimous vote, despite fierce opposition from telecom operators, who had been planning to charge for over-the-top services, such as Skype or WhatsApp Messenger, which bypass traditional cellular communications.
Vodafone Netherlands is currently still blocking the use of Skype on its 3G mobile network. Facing sharp criticism, the largest Dutch political party – the liberal VVD – withdrew an amendment which would still allow carriers and ISPs to charge extra for services. The proposal came from Afke Schaart, who until last year was Director of Public Affairs for KPN, the biggest telecom operator in the Netherlands. Vaizey's net neutrality knock-out. The FT World Telecoms Conference is an annual gathering of top management from telecoms carriers throughout the world. It isn’t a high profile event for the general public, yet this is the platform where minister Ed Vaizey announced the future of the internet in the UK. Mr Vaizey praised the UK’s grossly inadequate current investment in internet infrastructure - however, the key point in his speech was about the abandonment of net neutrality in the UK.
What does net neutrality actually mean? Net neutrality can be hard to define because of technical issues involved. But according to one of the world’s experts on it, Professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law School in New York, it is a principle that advocates no restrictions by internet service providers, infrastructure providers or the government on content, sites or different ways of using the ’net. It is an online ‘free market’ in its purest sense. Do we have net neutrality today? In some ways we don’t. Paid-for access A lack of transparency. Eben Moglen Is Reshaping Internet With a Freedom Box. Federal Court Strikes Down the FCC's 'Net Neutrality' Authority. In a dramatic ruling that's sending shock waves from Washington, D.C., to Silicon Valley, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the legal authority to enforce its "network neutrality" principles.
Although this ruling specifically involves a 2008 FCC sanction against Comcast (CMCSA), the nation's largest cable company, the decision effectively sets a precedent that severely limits the FCC's power to regulate broadband providers' "network management" practices. The ruling immediately undercuts the FCC's ability to move ahead with a new net neutrality rulemaking process, and it moves the focus of the net neutrality battle to Congress.
Net neutrality advocates have long said if they lost this court case, they would move to have the principles enshrined by law. A Failed Assertion of Authority The decision is a major -- if somewhat symbolic -- victory for Comcast, which voluntarily has said it will abide by net neutrality. Moyers on America . The Net @ Risk.
The debate is hot, the language heady, the metaphors many. Op-ed pages alternately bemoan "The End of the Internet" or curse "Net Neutrality Nonsense. " Allegations fly about the stifling of free speech, the holding back of progress and corporate hegemony. Indeed, network neutrality has become something of a cause celebre in the digital world, pitting a slew of high-profile Internet content providers and consumer-advocacy groups against major phone and cable companies, and federal lawmakers against each other. But what exactly is net neutrality, and why does it seem to have everyone from Google and Yahoo!
To Verizon and AT&T concerned? So why "neutrality? " Neutrality supporters worry that without regulation, there's no guarantee that some traffic would move over the net at all. This past summer, Congress took up the issue. Some lawmakers have said they are sympathetic to the cable and phone conglomerates' assertions that regulating the Internet isn't necessary. What We Do. The Federal Communications Commission regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the commission is the United States' primary authority for communications law, regulation and technological innovation. In its work facing economic opportunities and challenges associated with rapidly evolving advances in global communications, the agency capitalizes on its competencies in: Leadership The agency is directed by five commissioners who are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S.
Senate. The president also selects one of the commissioners to serve as chairman. Only three commissioners can be of the same political party at any given time and none can have a financial interest in any commission-related business. Organization Rules and Rulemakings Advisory Committees. FCC Net Neutrality Wiki Home - FCC Net Neutrality Wiki. The internet needs tougher policing, says Vodafone CEO. Vodafone's CEO, Vittorio Colao, has spoken out on the about web freedoms, saying that the internet should be subject to regulatory laws. Colao sides with French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who recently called for greater state control of online content and services. It all comes down to trust, says Colao, and self-regulation is not providing that given the regular security breaches, prevalence of piracy and 'infringements of individual rights'. "Mr Sarkozy is really right to argue that realising the full potential of the internet will also require an effective legal framework and that self-regulation will not be enough," he wrote in an open letter to the Financial Times.
Restrictions incoming? His comments fly in the face of the attitude taken by web services like Facebook and Google, which have both recently talked about the importance of freedom on the web in the light of the major role the internet played in the Arab Spring. From The FT. Google, Verizon and the FCC: Inside the War Over the Internet's Future.
It was a high-stakes gamble gone terribly wrong. At approximately 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 5, Federal Communications Commission Chief of Staff Edward Lazarus walked into a conference room where his boss, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, was meeting with public interest groups discussing federal broadband policy. The chairman turned to his chief of staff and asked him to update the room on the ongoing broadband regulation talks between Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T), Google (GOOG), Skype and the Open Internet Coalition, a Web industry group. "Eddie looked like he had just lost his best friend," according to a person who was present and recalled the expression on Lazarus's face. Addressing the gathering, Lazarus announced that the talks had been terminated -- he would later say "suspended" -- explaining that the negotiators had found a number of points of agreement but had failed to reach a consensus.
What was at stake in the Lazarus talks? Behind-the-Scenes Maneuvering by Two Giants.