The Closing of the European Internet

[ Thanks to Dangermouse for this link. ]

"At least, that's the most charitable explanation for the fact that European politicians are on the brink of passing legislation in the current Telecoms Package that will destroy a key part of that openness, by allowing telecoms companies to discriminate in the way that they handle IP packets according to their type.

"This loss of net neutrality has been dressed up by proponents as simply a case of allowing customers to shape the contours of the market through their purchases, but as they well know, it's actually a matter of giving telecoms companies a gatekeeper function that will let them control the Internet through anti-competitive differential pricing.

"Tim Berners-Lee has emphasised the importance of net neutrality in the creation of a level playing field that allows innovative new services to emerge. Indeed, had there been no net neutrality when he invented the Web, it is quite likely that the latter would never have taken off, because closed rival services like AOL or CompuServe could have offered to pay more for preferential delivery of their content platforms."

Complete Story

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