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. Ellison's Anti-Cloud Computing Rant - Thinking Out Cloud. Once again, in either complete self-unawareness or a calculated manipulation, Oracle comes out with a cynical statement.
Ben Worthen reports that on the Oracle earnings call, Larry Ellison said the following: The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. More than a couple of people that I respect, including Ben Worthen and Dan Farber, have written publicly or told me in person something to the effect of "you have to admit he has a point. " Google Starts Censoring BitTorrent, RapidShare and More. It's taken a while, but Google has finally caved in to pressure from the entertainment industries including the MPAA and RIAA.
The search engine now actively censors terms including BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload from its instant and autocomplete services. The reactions from affected companies and services are not mild, with BitTorrent Inc., RapidShare and Vodo all speaking out against this act of commercial censorship. The entertainment industries’ quest to root out piracy on the Internet has yet again resulted in commercial censorship. A few weeks ago Google announced that it would start filtering “piracy related” terms from its ‘Autocomplete‘ and ‘Instant‘ services and today they quietly rolled out this questionable feature. Social Media and Law Enforcement: Who Gets What Data and When? This month, we were reminded how important it is that social media companies do what they can to protect the sensitive data they hold from the prying eyes of the government.
As many news outlets have reported, the US Department of Justice recently obtained a court order for records from Twitter on several of its users related to the WikiLeaks disclosures. Instead of just turning over this information, Twitter “beta-tested a spine” and notified its users of the court order, thus giving them the opportunity to challenge it in court. House Subcommittee Revives Mandatory Data Retention Debate...With a Surprise Attack on EFF. Long Live the Web. Internet peut-il rester neutre ? - Sciences. La cartographie d'Internet ©Radio France Une telle question peut paraître obscure à nombre d’entre vous qui n’êtes pas familiers des débats qui agitent le microcosme d’Internet.
Pourtant, elle vous concerne directement. En effet, la neutralité d’Internet désigne l’absence d’intervention des différents acteurs, qu’il s’agisse des gestionnaires des infrastructures, des fournisseurs d’accès ou même des moteurs de recherche, sur les contenus et les applications qui se développent sur la Toile. En d’autres termes, c’est de la liberté de la création et de l’innovation sur Internet dont il est question. Pour les internautes, cette liberté se traduit par une capacité d’accès égale à tous les contenus des sites Internet mais également par celle de créer de nouveaux contenus accessibles par tous ou de développer de nouvelles applications sans contrôle a priori.Internet existe depuis une cinquantaine d’années. Evolution du nombre d'internautes dans le monde ©UIT. Essential new book on 'Net Policy (blessed by Lessig!): "Internet Architecture and Innovation"
CEASEFIRE DECLARED: AT&T Unblocks 4Chan. AT&T did the Internet equivalent yesterday of poking a beehive with a stick: the company blocked parts of 4chan , the Internet forum known for its pranks, hacks and the invention of the Rickroll (see AT&T Blocks 4chan ). , including the creation of a fake rumor about the death of AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson with the intent to lower AT&T’s stock price. AT&T’s block of areas of the site to its ISP customers looked almost certain to turn the site’s massive – and often troublemaking – userbase against it. AT&T confirmed the partial block to the blog CentralGadget , claiming the company was “following the practices of their policy department.” Others questioned whether the move was even legal under FCC rules. Web inventor: 'Snooping' authorities threaten Internet. La Commissaire Kroes s'engage en faveur de la Neutralité du Net. Report: AT&T Blocking 4chan. 4chan is the anonymous Internet forum known for its pranks, its hacking, and the Rickroll.
While its content and discussion is not suitable for children, it is a popular and important piece of web culture. AT&T doesn't seem to like 4chan, though. According to the Los Angeles Metblogs, AT&T DSL users are unable to access anything on the img.4chan.org subdomain if they live in Southern California. If true, this essentially blocks 4chan's most popular and controversial forum, /b/. Don't let Twitter, Facebook, Google be the only game in town - C. Anil Dash says people don't have to rely just on Twitter, Google and Facebook to relay information.
Anil Dash says Internet was designed to endure disasters, free up communicationDash: If Web's goal is decentralization, why was Twitter crash so disabling for many? Dash reminds us that social networks come and go; remember when AOL ruled? Web users should take charge of their own communication efforts, Dash urges Editor's note: Anil Dash is the director of Expert Labs, an independent nonprofit that is part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and uses the web to let policy makers listen to the expertise of citizens.
He blogs at Dashes.com and is on Twitter at @anildash. New York (CNN) -- Decades ago, when the Department of Defense was creating the predecessor to today's Internet, one of the main goals was to create a communications system that could endure catastrophic disasters. Net neutrality videos. Net Neutrality. Net neutrality clone.