UK Consultation on Draft Investigatory Bill Closes Monday: Please Write

The Joint Committee on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill invites any "interested individuals and organisations" to submit evidence to this inquiry.  Written evidence should arrive no later than 21 December 2015.   Here are the four main questions:

Are the powers sought necessary?

Has the case been made, both for the new powers and for the restated and clarified existing powers?

Are the powers sought legal?

Are the powers compatible with the Human Rights Act and the ECHR? Is the requirement that they be exercised only when necessary and proportionate fully addressed? Are they sufficiently clear and accessible on the face of the draft Bill? Is the legal framework such that CSPs (especially those based abroad) will be persuaded to comply? Are concerns around accessing journalists’, legally privileged and MPs' communications sufficiently addressed?

Are the powers sought workable and carefully defined?

Are the technological definitions accurate and meaningful (e.g. content vs communications data, internet connection records etc.)? Does the draft Bill adequately explain the types of activity that could be undertaken under these powers? Is the wording of the powers sustainable in the light of rapidly evolving technologies and user behaviours? Overall is the Bill future-proofed as it stands?

Are the powers sought sufficiently supervised?

Is the authorisation process appropriate? Will the oversight bodies be able adequately to scrutinise their operation? What ability will Parliament and the public have to check and raise concerns about the use of these powers?

Weirdly, you are not allowed to publish your submission until you are given permission:

Evidence which is accepted by the Committee may be published online at any stage; when it is so published it becomes subject to parliamentary copyright and is protected by parliamentary privilege. Submissions which have been previously published will not be accepted as evidence. Once you have received acknowledgement that the evidence has been accepted you will receive a further email, and at this point you may publicise or publish your evidence yourself. In doing so you must indicate that it was prepared for the Committee, and you should be aware that your publication or re-publication of your evidence may not be protected by parliamentary privilege.

So, let me give a summary of my answers to the questions:

No, the powers are not necessary, because they are based on the idea that mass surveillance works.  It doesn't.

No, the powers are not legal: both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights have said mass surveillance is illegal. 

No, they are not workable, because the idea of an Internet Connection Record makes no sense. UK's biggest telecoms confirmed the plan is unworkable.

No, the powers are not supervised because the "double-lock" authorisation is a sham: the judge does not check whether the authorisation was justified, only whether the procedure was correctly followed.

Also worth noting that the distinction between "content" and "communications data" is meaningless: metadata is actually more revealing than content, because it is already parsed in a computer-readable form that allows it to be combined with billions of other pieces of metadata.

Creating huge databases of metadata will create huge honeypots that will be irresistible to criminals and foreign governments.  Stealing the metadata will give them valuable information that can be used for identity theft or blackmail.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that the whole idea of "equipment interference" is really stupid.  If agencies are given permission to break into people's systems, they can plant anything there, and make changes to things like browser histories.  As a result, any computer evidence in a trial is suspect, since it could easily have been planted using "equipment interference" without anyone noticing.  As computer-based evidence becomes more important, "equipment interference" would seriously undermine the UK's legal system.  It should be the very rare exception, not part of a standard toolset.

This is a really important consultation: please respond by Monday.

Russian Authorities Threaten To Block CloudFlare And Other Key Infrastructural Sites

This is getting boring. Every time Techdirt writes about Russian Internet blocking, it's along the lines of: "just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it does." Here's another one. As a post from TorrentFreak explains, Russia's telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor maintains a blacklist of sites that allegedly promote the usual bad stuff -- child pornography, criminal activities, suicide etc. In news that will surprise no one that understands how the Internet works, Roskomnadzor is finding it hard to enforce those blocks on material held on servers located outside Russia: 

On Techdirt.

Data Retention Directive Incompatible With Fundamental Rights According To EU Court Of Justice's Advocate General

Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote about two important cases before Europe's highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). They both involved the European Union's Data Retention Directive, which obliges telecoms companies to retain metadata about their customers -- now an even more contentious issue in the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks. One case was from Ireland, brought by Digital Rights Ireland, which needs donations to carry on its great work, and the other from the Austrian digital rights group AKVorrat (which probably also needs support.) 

On Techdirt.

Help: EU Net Neutrality Consultation Closes Today

As you may recall, back in September the European Commission finally came out with its proposals for net neutrality, part of its larger "Connected Continent" package designed to complete the telecoms single market. I learned yesterday that the European committee responsible for this area, ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy), has launched something of a stealth consultation on these proposals. Stealth, because neither I nor anyone else that I know covering this area, was aware of them, which is pretty bizarre.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Net Neutrality under Threat in Europe - Unnecessarily

As long-suffering readers of this column will know, I've been following for a while the winding road leading to the European Commission's proposals regarding net neutrality in Europe. Along the way, there have been many twists and turns, with hints of first one direction, then another. But today, the Commission has finally released its plans - not just for this area, but for the whole telecoms market in Europe:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Google's Other Bad Idea: Offering 50 Million Euros To French Newspapers [Updated]

Earlier this week we wrote about a strange move by Google: apparently agreeing to pay the French telecoms company Orange extra to deliver its traffic -- thus abandoning the principle of net neutrality it has championed for so long. And now here's another dubious decision: allegedly offering to pay French publishers 50 million Euros in order to settle the dispute over the display of news snippets in its search results: 

On Techdirt.

Google Decides Smartphone Market Share Is More Important Than Net Neutrality

As a recent post noted, net neutrality is under threat in France, with ISPs like Free asking Google to pay extra for delivery of its traffic. According to this post on the Forbes Web site, Google has already agreed to pay the French telecoms company Orange in precisely this way. As well as damaging the whole principle of net neutrality, something that Google has been championing for many years, this would seem to be a pretty bad business decision. After all, if Orange is now getting paid to carry Google's traffic, why shouldn't every other telecom company out there also receive money for delivering Google's services? 

On Techdirt.

The Next Attack on Net Neutrality

One of the depressing things about net neutrality is that it is a battle that must be won again and again. It's becoming increasingly clear that another effort will be made by telecoms companies to destroy net neutrality at the big World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). Here's how it describes itself:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Russian Internet Content Monitoring System To Go Live In December

Back in April of this year, the Russian government put out a tender:

Last week, Roskomnadzor, Russian Federal Service for Telecoms Supervision, announced a public tender for developing Internet monitoring system. According to the tender, the budget for such system is 15 million rubles (about $530,000) and the job applications should be submitted by April 15, 2011. The system needs to be developed by August 15, 2011 and the testing period should end on December 15, 2011.

On Techdirt.

Can You Feel the Tension?

There's an important conference taking place in Brussels next week: "Tensions between Intellectual Property Rights and the ICT standardisation process: reasons and remedies - 22 November 2010". It's important because it has a clear bearing on key documents like the forthcoming European Interoperability Framework v2.

It all sounds jolly reasonable:

Key ICT standards are perceived by many as critical technology platforms with a strong public interest dimension. However, concerns are voiced that Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and their exclusivity potential, may hinder or prevent standardisation.

The European Commission and the European Patent Office (EPO) are organising a conference to address some specific issues on patents and ICT standards: are today’s IPR features still compatible with fast moving markets and the very complex requirements of ICT standardisation in a global knowledge economy environment? Where are problems that we can we fix?

Unfortunately, I can't go - actually, better make that *fortunately* I can't go, because upon closer inspection the agenda [.pdf] shows that this is a conference with a clear, er, agenda: that is, the outcome has already been decided.

You can tell just by its framing: this is "a conference to address some specific issues on patents and ICT standards". ICT is mostly about software, and yet software cannot be patented "as such". So, in a sense, this ought to be a trivial conference lasting about five minutes. The fact that it isn't shows where things are going to head: towards accepting and promoting patents in European standards, including those for software.

That's not really surprising, given who are organising it - the European Commission and the European Patent Office (EPO). The European Commission has always been a big fan of software patents; and the EPO is hardly likely to be involved with a conference that says: "you know, we *really* don't need all these patents in our standards."

Of course, the opposite result - that patents are so indescribably yummy that we need to have as many as possible in our European ICT standards - must emerge naturally and organically. And so to ensure that natural and organic result, we have a few randomly-selected companies taking part.

For example, there's a trio of well-known European companies: Nokia, Ericsson and Microsoft. By an amazing coincidence - as an old BBC story reminds us - all of them were fervent supporters of the European legislation to make software patentable:

Big technology firms, such as Philips, Nokia, Microsoft, Siemens, and telecoms firm Ericsson, continued to voice their support for the original bill.

So, no possible bias there, then.

Then there are a couple of outfits you may have heard of - IBM and Oracle, both noted for loving software patents slightly more than life itself. So maybe a teensy bit of bias there.

But wait, you will say: you are being totally unfair. After all, is there not an *entire* massive one-hour session entitled "Open source, freely available software and standardisation"? (although I do wonder what on earth this "freely available software" could be - obviously nothing so subversive as free-as-in-freedom software.)

And it's true, that session does indeed exist; here's part of the description:

This session will explore potential issues around standardisation and the topic of open source software and free licences. We will look at examples of how standards are successfully implemented in open source. We will also consider licensing issues that may exist regarding the requirement to pay royalties for patents present in standards, as well as other licensing terms and conditions in relation to the community approach common in open source and free software technology development.

But what's the betting that those "examples of how standards are successfully implemented in open source" will include rare and atypical cases where FRAND licences have been crafted into a free software compatible form, and which will then be used to demonstrate that FRAND is the perfect solution for ICT licensing in Europe?

Luckily, we have Karsten Gerloff from the FSFE to fight against the software patent fan club, and tell it as it is. Pity he's on his own on this though - and no, poor Erwin Tenhumberg does not count. He may be "Open Source Programme Manager, SAP", but SAP is one of the fiercest proponents of patenting software in Europe, as I've discussed a couple of times.

So this leaves us with Karsten against the collective might of the European Commission, EPO, Microsoft, Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Oracle and SAP: clearly they'll be some of that "tension", as the conference title promises, but a fair fight conducted on a level playing-field? Not so much....

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

EU's Unconvincing ACTA Act

The EU has made an official statement [.pdf] on ACTA. As you might expect, it is as wriggly a wriggly thing as a wriggly thing can. Here it is, with a few annotations:

The Commission can inform the Honourable Member that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will be in line with the body of EU legislation, which fully respects fundamental rights and freedoms and civil liberties, such as the protection of personal data. This includes the Intellectual Property Rights' relevant aspects of the Telecoms package.

As for being in line with "EU legislation", this *already* allows ACTA-like provisions, so that's cold comfort.

ACTA should not contain measures restricting end-users’ access to the internet that would not be appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society and without a prior, fair and impartial procedure.

These are the same weasel words used in the Telecoms Package, and have no real weight whatsoever without judicial oversight: no protection there.

It is the Commission's view that ACTA is about tackling large scale illegal activity, often pursued by criminal organisations, that is causing a devastating impact on growth and employment in Europe and may have serious risks to the health and safety of consumers. It is not about limiting civil liberties or harassing consumers.

That may well be; but the great ACTA bait and switch means that civil liberties *would* be limited, and consumers *would* be harassed.

So, "no points - nul points - keine Pünkte", I'm afraid, for that attempt at mollification.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

UK "Three Strikes": Please Write to Your MP

Yesterday I wrote a quick analysis of the insane U-turn effected by the UK government over "three strikes and you're out". Below I've posted the corresponding letter that I've sent to my MP on the subject. I urge you to do the same if you're a Brit, since it's the only way we have of influencing the situation. I'm not holding my breath waiting for a result, but I feel it's my duty....

I am writing to express my deep disquiet at the UK government's U-turn over disconnecting those accused of sharing copyright materials on the Internet.

For the eminently sane and well-balanced conclusions of Lord Carter and his Digital Britain team, based on many months of hard work, to be thrown away in this manner is extraordinary. In the place of a carefully-considered view that access to the Internet is a right not to be removed lightly, and that doing so on the say-so of media companies would be an inappropriate response to alleged copyright infringement, we now have a diktat from on high that proposes precisely this punishment.

As the indecent haste clearly demonstrates, this has not been thought through.

First, it is completely disproportionate. Cutting off people's Internet connection for allegedly swapping copyright materials is not just, any more than cutting someone's electricity supply would be for watching the TV without a licence, or cutting someone's water supply off would be for brewing illegal spirits.

Secondly, it represents a fundamental assault on due process in this country. If people can be cut off from the most important communication medium of the 21st century on the whim of media companies, who don't even need to prove their accusations in court, then things have reached a pretty sorry state in this country.

Thirdly, the approach won't work from a technical viewpoint. All it means is that the more tech-savvy will start encrypting their traffic; those who can't take this route will simply buy a few huge external hard discs – ones able to hold a quarter of a million songs cost around £50 these days – and swap files personally when they visit their friends.

Fourthly, the idea is at odds with European legislation. Amendment 138 of the Telecoms Package currently being finalised in Europe forbids the cutting off of users without judicial oversight. And that's even before the ISPs start taking legal advice on other ways in which it breaks relevant laws. Moreover, the European Court of Human Rights would probably have something to say about legislation that allows what Viviane Reding has explicitly called a “fundamental human right” (http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/05/internet-access-is-fundamental-fight.html) to be taken away so easily.

What's particularly bizarre about this move is that those who will suffer the most are likely to be traditional Labour supporters. For it is the poor who cannot afford to pay for high-priced digital downloads, and may therefore look for material on P2P networks. It is the poor who may well share an Internet across several families using a wifi connection in a block of flats, for example. If one user is accused of swapping copyright materials, several families will be severely disadvantaged – hardly something that fits with Labour's historical mission to help precisely these people.

For all these reasons - assuming this truly is a consultation and not just another rubber-stamping – I urge you to join your colleague, Tom Watson (http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2009/08/filesharing-revised-consultation/), in passing on to Lord Mandelson and Stephen Timms the comments of myself and others who may write to you on this subject.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

A Different Point of View on Software Patents

One of the fears that I and others have voiced is that the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) - an attempt to set up a unified European judicial system for patent litigation - might be an attempt to get software patents in through back door. Often, though, these concerns are dismissed by supporters of software patents as unwarranted. But here's someone who disagrees:

The industry-based driving force behind the EPLA comes from the pro-software patent group as a way of ensuring that their software or potential software patents are fully enforceable across Europe. The EPO is fully supportive of the EPLA, and some national governments and patent registries have voiced their support.

More whining from the anti-software patent lot? Well, not actually. These words were written by Alison Crofts, who:

provides specialist IP advice and expertise in both litigation and commercial matters. This includes advising on: the creation, protection and exploitation of IP rights, including trade secrets, confidentiality issues, technology transfer agreements and licensing; the enforcement and defence of IP rights, including the conduct of litigation and arbitration proceedings; and IP aspects of joint ventures, co-ownership and transactions. Alison has an engineering background and has particular experience in the semiconductor, oil and gas, hi-tech and telecoms engineering industries.

In other words, she's likely to be for rather than against software patents. Don't say we didn't tell you.... (Via FFII.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

So What's the Net Net on Net Neutrality?

Viviane seems confused:

From the governance point of view "Net Neutrality" is essential. New network management techniques allow traffic prioritisation. These tools may be used to guarantee good quality of service but may also be used for anti-competitive practices. The Commission has taken steps to empower national regulators to prevent such unfair abuse to the detriment of consumers. These measures are at the heart of the new telecoms regulatory package

Well, no, not as such. The provisions in the Telecoms Package actually *gut* net neutrality. So either you don't understand what the current proposals say (not difficult, since they are meant to be misleading) or you don't really care about *real* net neutrality.

So which is it?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Malcolm Harbour Doesn't Get Net Neutrality

It seems that one of the main architects of the disgrace that is the Telecoms Package is the UK MEP Malcolm Harbour. Here's an indication that he doesn't know what he is talking about:

According to rumours in cyberpsace the proposed new rules will impose conditional access to internet, providers will be able to limit the number of site you're visiting and Skype could be blocked. Is Internet freedom really at risk?

That's pure fantasy. The Telecoms package has never been about anything to do with restrictions on the internet. I am astonished to see this remarkable text from Black-out Europe. There is absolutely nothing in this proposal that says anything about that.

The questioner is wrong to frame this in terms of blocking *sites*: it's about blocking *services*, particularly ones based on new protocols piggy-backing on TCP/IP. The Telecoms Package gives telecoms companies the possibility of blocking anything it doesn't like at this level - killing net neutrality - provided they tell people what they are doing.

So Mr Harbour is absolutely incorrect to say "The Telecoms package has never been about anything to do with restrictions on the internet." He obviously doesn't understand what Blackout Europe is saying, as the latter's own post on the topic points out.

Last Chance to Save the European Internet

Believe it or not, this saga isn't over, and things are going badly again. The Open Rights Group has a good detailed summary of what's happening, but the short version is this: all of the hard-won victories on the Telecoms Package may come to nought in a vote tomorrow through some outrageous bullying and trickery by national governments (especially UK and France.)

This means we need to write - or, better, phone - our MEPs, and get them to vote as follows:

Here are crucial amendments you should tell MEPs to vote for:

* Trautmann's report
o Amendment 3=7: guarantee of access and distribution of any content/application/service
o Amendment 1CP=2=5=6=9: original 138

* Harbour's report
o Amendment 101=111=117: no discrimination in traffic management policies
o Amendment 102=112=118: regulatory powers against discriminated traffic management policies
o Amendment 62=94=104=119: original 166
o Amendment 96=106=120 : deleting cooperation between ISP and copyright holder about lawful content

As you can see, this has become hideously complicated thanks to the constant to-ing and fro-ing of votes and amendments. Perhaps it's simplest to ask them to vote for the "Citizen's Rights Amendments", and emphasise why it's important to do so. Basically, if they don't, we'll lost net neutrality in Europe, and also the right to judicial reviews before people are thrown off the net on the say-so of companies.

MEPs by country, complete with their direct telephone numbers, can be found on the excellent Quadrature du Net site, which has bags of background info. In the UK, you can find out who your MEPs are by entering your postcode into the WriteToThem service.

Update: This rather poorly-written piece ("digital copyright thieves"? - Sorry, you don't understand the law) suggests that a deal has been done:

Last month, MEPs voted for a bill that read: “No restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities.” But, facing opposition from the Council Of Ministers, they on Tuesday rewrote the passage to read: “Recognising that the internet is essential for education and for the practical exercise of freedom of expression and access to information, any restriction imposed on the exercise of these fundamental rights should be in accordance with the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.”

This is particularly nauseating:

“The spirit of the amendment has been respected ... we have avoided the rejection of the amendment.” Trautmann said the compromise writes a “sense of a principle” in to the bill.

No, you just gave in to bullying, love.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody.

Urgent: Please Write to your MEPs about Amendment 138

Sorry, it's time to get those virtual quills out, and to write to your MEPs. There's a crucial vote coming up in the next couple of days that may see net neutrality killed in Europe thanks to the British and French governments. La Quadrature du Net has the details; here's my letter:

I am writing to ask you to urge your colleagues, particularly those on the ITRE committee, to vote in favour of amendment 138/46 to the Telecoms Package, and not to allow it to be deleted or watered down in any way – for example, by making it an indicative recital instead of an article.

As a journalist who has been writing about the Internet since 1994, I know how important it is that the connection is provided without any technical restrictions. This is the only way that innovations can emerge – indeed, the British inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has said that if restrictions of the kind that the striking of amendment 138/46 will allow were in place back in 1989, the Web would never have taken off. This means that if the amendment is dropped or weakened, Europe may well miss out on the next Internet revolution – hardly what the European Union is seeking to do with its wider support for innovation.

To its great credit, the European Parliament has consistently fought to retain this protection for users, and I urge you and your colleagues to continue to stand up for European citizens who are being sidelined by the proposal from some governments to drop amendment 138/46.

Please send your own variation before tomorrow evening. Remember: it's *your* Internet they want to ruin.

Save the European Internet – Write to Your MEPs (Again)

Last week I was urging you to write to a particular set of MEPs about proposed changes to the Telecoms Package, which is wending its slow way through the European Union's legislative system. Now it's time to write to *all* you MEPs, since a crucially important vote in a couple of committees is to take place tomorrow. You can read more about what's been happening and why that's a problem on the La Quadrature du Net site, which also offers a detailed analysis of the Telecom Package and the proposed amendments.

Here's what I've just sent to all my MEPs using WriteToThem:

I am writing to ask you as my representative to contact your colleagues on the IMCO and ITRE committees about crucial votes on the Telecoms Package, taking place in 31 March. At stake is nothing less than the future of the Internet in Europe. If amendments being supported by AT&T and others go through, the main driver of the Internet – and with it, online innovation – will be nullified.

This would be deeply ironic, since it was in Europe that the most important online innovation of all – the Web – was invented. In fact, no less a person than Sir Tim Berners-Lee, its inventor, has warned (at http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144) that the loss of net neutrality – which is what some of the proposed amendments would lead to – would have made it impossible for him to have carried out his revolutionary work. If we wish Europe to remain in the forefront of digital innovation, it is vital that the net neutrality of the Internet be preserved.

This is a complex issue – I personally find it very difficult to navigate through the many conflicting options before the committees. Fortunately, others have already done the hard work, and boiled down the recommendations to the following.

For your colleagues on the IMCO committee, please urge then to:

Vote against the amendments authorizing “net discrimination” and guarantee it is not put in place, by :

rejecting amendements 136=137=138 pushed by AT&T (and the related recitals 116, 117=118)

voting for amendment 135 bringing protection against “net discrimination”

as a default, if the first ones were all rejected, vote for ams 139+141

Vote for positive protection of EU citizens' fundamental rights in amendments 72=146

Vote for protecting EU citizens' privacy by rejecting amendment 85 and voting for am. 150.

Similarly, for those on the IMRE committee, please ask them to:

Protect EU citizens fundamental rights and freedoms by voting for amendment 46=135 (first reading amendment 138).

Reject the notion of “lawful content” in amendment 45 for it is a major breach to the technical neutrality of the network, would turn operators into private judges, and open the door to “graduated response” (or “three strikes”) schemes of corporate police.

If you or your colleagues are interested in seeing the detailed analysis of all the amendments, it can be found here:

http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package_2nd_Reading_ITRE_IMCO_Voting_List.

This is a critical series of votes for the Internet in Europe. At a time of great economic turmoil, the last thing we can afford is to throttle Europe's entrepreneurial spirit; for this reason, I hope that you will be able to convince your colleagues on the committees to vote as suggested above.

Sadly, this is really important and really urgent. Please add your voice if you can, or the Internet as we know may cease to exist in Europe soon, to be replaced with something closer to a cable TV service. You have been warned.

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

Save the European Internet – Write to Your MEPs

Things seem to be going from bad to worse with the EU's Telecoms Package. Now, not only do we have to contend with French attempts to push through its “three strikes and you're out” approach again, which the European Parliament threw out, but there are several other amendments that are being proposed that will effectively gut the Internet in Europe.

The Open Rights Group has a good summary of two of the main threats (also available from its Blackout Europe Facebook group):

One of the most controversial issues is that of the three-strikes strongly and continuously pushed by France in the EU Council. Although most of the dispositions introducing the graduate response system were rejected in first reading of the Telecom Package, there are still some alarming ones persisting. France is trying hard to get rid of Amendment 138 which seeks to protect users’ rights against the three-strikes sanctions and which, until now, has stopped the EU from applying the three-strikes policy. Also, some new amendments reintroduce the notion of lawful content, which will impose the obligation on ISPs to monitor content going through their networks.

The UK government is pushing for the “wikipedia amendments” (so-called because one of them has been created by cutting and pasting a text out of the wikipedia) in order to allow ISPs to make limited content offers. The UK amendments eliminate the text that gives users rights to access and distribute content, services and applications, replacing it with a text that says “there should be transparency of conditions under which services are provided, including information on the conditions to and/or use of applications and services, and of any traffic management policies.”

To these, we must now add at least one more, which the indispensable IPtegrity site has spotted:

Six MEPs have taken text supplied by the American telecoms multi-national, AT&T, and pasted it directly into amendments tabled to the Universal Services directive in the Telecoms Package. The six are Syed Kamall , Erika Mann, Edit Herczog , Zita Pleštinská , Andreas Schwab , and Jacques Toubon .

AT&T and its partner Verizon, want the regulators in Europe to keep their hands-off new network technologies which will provide the capability for broadband providers to restrict or limit users access to the Internet. They have got together with a group of other telecoms companies to lobby on this issue. Their demands pose a threat to the neutrality of the network, and at another level, to millions of web businesses in Europe.

As you can read, this is a grave danger for the Internet in Europe, because it would allow telecom companies to impose restrictions on the services they provide. That is, at will, they can discriminate against new services that threaten their existing offerings – and hence throttle online innovation. The Internet has grown so quickly, and become so useful, precisely because it is an end-to-end service: it does not take note of or discriminate between packets, it simply delivers them.

What is particularly surprising is that one of the MEPs putting forward this amendment is the UK's Syed Kamall, who has a technical background, and in the past has shown himself aware of the larger technological issues. I'm really not sure why he is involved in this blatant attempt by the telecoms companies to subvert the Internet in Europe.

Since he is one of my MEPs (he represents London), I've used the WriteToThem service to send him the following letter:

I was surprised and greatly disappointed to learn that you are proposing an amendment to the Telecoms Package that would have the consequence of destroying the network neutrality of the Internet – in many ways, its defining feature.

Your amendment 105, which requires network providers to inform users of restrictions and/or limitations on their communications services will allow companies to impose arbitrary blocks on Internet services; instead, we need to ensure that no such arbitrary restrictions are possible.

As the inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has pointed out when net neutrality was being debated in the US (http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144):

“When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA.

I blogged on net neutrality before, and so did a lot of other people. ... Since then, some telecommunications companies spent a lot of money on public relations and TV ads, and the US House seems to have wavered from the path of preserving net neutrality. There has been some misinformation spread about. So here are some clarifications.

Net neutrality is this:

If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.

That's all. Its up to the ISPs to make sure they interoperate so that that happens.

Net Neutrality is NOT asking for the internet for free.

Net Neutrality is NOT saying that one shouldn't pay more money for high quality of service. We always have, and we always will

There have been suggestions that we don't need legislation because we haven't had it. These are nonsense, because in fact we have had net neutrality in the past -- it is only recently that real explicit threats have occurred.”

He concludes:

“Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can't photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it.”

I'm afraid that what your amendment will do is to destroy that freedom. I am therefore asking you to withdraw your amendment, to preserve the freedom of the connection that allows new services to evolve, and innovations to be made without needing to ask permission of the companies providing the connection. Instead, the Internet needs net neutrality to be enshrined in law, and if possible, I would further request you and your colleagues to work towards this end.

If you are also based in London – or in a constituency represented by one of the five other MEPs mentioned in the IPtegrity story - I urge you to write a similar (but *not* identical) letter to them. It is vitally important these amendments be withdrawn, since most MEPs will be unaware of the damage they can do, and might well wave them through. Further letters to all MEPs will also be needed in due course, but I think it's best to concentrate on these particular amendments for the moment, since they are a new and distrubing development.

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EU Telecoms Promote "Legitimate" Content

Interesting initiative from the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association (ETNO):

ETNO is launching a new online content web site today, to raise awareness of attractive online offers put on the market by its members throughout Europe to download music, films or watch TV. ETNO members believe that offering a wide choice of online services is the best way to promote a legitimate use of the Internet and fight against illicit file-sharing.

"The rapidly growing choice of legitimate online content services illustrates the increasing cooperation between e-communications providers and content owners in order to respond to consumer demand for price-worthy, secure and user-friendly services”, says Michael Bartholomew, ETNO Director.

The new ETNO web site gives a non-exhaustive overview of services available including IP TV, video on demand or music downloads, offered by ETNO members through different platforms and devices to meet user’s demands.

"User-demand for content is the basis of our actions. ETNO members develop and promote business models for content online offers, including music, films and TV. This list will of course need to be continuously updated,” says Patrik Hiselius, TeliaSonera, Chair of ETNO’s Content Working Group.

Increasing choice of legitimate content online and raising awareness among users are the best instruments to fight against illicit file sharing.

“Illicit file sharing represents a major burden for all stakeholders, including internet service providers. Education is key. Users should not be unreasonably criminalised or stigmatised. Through this new web site, ETNO members show their commitment to play their part and cooperate with rightsholders under the existing legal framework, in a scenario where choice and availability for the consumer, and rights and privacy for the citizen are all fully guaranteed”, added Bartholomew.

ETNO calls on policy makers and stakeholders to work together in order to ensure the wide availability of legitimate content offerings and to enable new creative market-driven business models to emerge.

This isn't perfect - I have problems with this "illicit file sharing", and the phrasing of "users should not be unreasonably criminalised or stigmatised", but what's interesting is that it shows an awareness of the broader issues, and of the fact that customers have rights as well as holders of intellectual monopolies. It suggests to me that the telecoms companies are beginning to understand that things are changing, and are beginning to change their own stance in response too.