

EU final agreement for network neutrality and free roaming - zurn
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5275_en.htm

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higherpurpose
> The agreed rules establish a right of all Internet end-users (consumers and
> businesses) to access and distribute _legal_ content, services and
> applications of their choice.

I'm hoping "legal" content here will ultimately be defined by a judge (before
a blocking occurs), and not law enforcement or worse, the ISPs themselves.

Reading further below, guess not:

> to comply with Union or national legislation related to the lawfulness of
> content or with criminal law, or with measures implementing this legislation
> such as a decision by public authorities or a court order, for instance if a
> judge or the police have ordered blocking of specific illegal content;

So it will depend entirely on national laws, which probably means some
countries _could_ make it so ISPs themselves block some type of content
automatically.

It seems there are quite a few "exceptions" to the "Open Internet", and while
they seem to have arrived from good intentions, my guess is at least some of
them will be abused.

The "specialized services" thing doesn't seem very clear. They keep mentioning
autonomous driving and telesurgery and whatnot, but it doesn't sound like
there will be a set number of such services that carriers will provide.
Although that should encourage innovation, I'm also foreseeing services like
Netflix entering the "specialized service" mode - therefore paying more money
to the carriers, and doing exactly what the EU says here it's trying to avoid
(paid prioritization).

They also seem to allow Internet.org style zero rating, with even less clear
rules. Ugh.

~~~
zurn
Sounds like it will be up to national legislation:

"This general [discrimination] prohibition is subject to a limited number of
tightly defined exceptions:" [...]

"\- To comply with Union or national legislation related to the lawfulness of
content or with criminal law, or with measures implementing this legislation
such as a decision by public authorities or a court order, for instance if a
judge or the police have ordered blocking of specific illegal content"

