Warp wrote:
>   In this particular case it would cost the company money to implement the
> censorship. Letting all IP packets through without filtering costs them
> nothing extra.

	In the short term only. If some ISP is getting hurt by huge bandwidth
requirements (iplayer, youtube, Bittorrent, etc), in the long run they
may save more money by implementing filtering.

>>  That is not censorship, that is just business.
> 
>   Also business has to obey the law.

	Yes, but it's not contradictory to have this law and still require
businesses to obey the previous laws.

-- 
"The security of the Enterprise is of Paramount importance.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> - Package 1 only allows you to access item A.
>> - Package 2 only allows you to access item B.
>> - Package 3 only allows you to access item C.
>> - Package 4 only allows you to access items A and B.
>> - Package 5 allows you to access items A, B and D, but not C.
>> ...
>>
>> Of course, these are stupid, stupid choices, but hey, it'll allow ISPs
>> to charge you way more money for exactly the same thing, which can
>> only be good, right? (For the ISPs, that is.)
> 
> That will only happen if all ISPs work together to fix the prices, which
> is strictly illegal under EU law.  And even if it did happen, there

	I suspect it's illegal only if they collude.

	Don't _expect_ that the market will always fix this naturally. Take
text messaging on cell phones. It is *ridiculously* expensive. Yet no
mainstream provider (at least in the US) has decided to compete by
reducing prices. Does this mean they're colluding? No.

-- 
"The security of the Enterprise is of Paramount importance.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>> Questions such as, "Since when is Internet service a human right?"
> 
>   Great, another nitpicker.
> 
>   - "Hey, country X does not allow women to express their opinion on the
> internet. This is a violation of human rights!"
>   - "Since when is internet access a human right?"

	That's irrelevant (and at least I didn't invoke it) - what's relevant
is what is considered a human right by the EU.

>   - "Hey, the government is allowing the press to censor political parties.
> This is a violation of basic human rights!"
>   - "Since when is access to paper and ink a human right?"

	Your whole argument is that this case is problematic because it costs
the ISP's nothing extra to provide everything, and so if they start
limiting services, they are actively blocking them. You just haven't
established that there is something legally wrong with that. You've
given some draconian what if scenarios, but some of them are already
protected by existing laws.

	If you just want to say that "This sucks", then I agree with you.<G> If
you want to argue that the Internet is a public good, I can see a case,
but it's not yet obvious.


-- 
"The security of the Enterprise is of Paramount importance.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> Yes, but when it costs a company money to provide the information, IMO 
> the company should not be forced to provide everything in existence for 
> a fixed price.

Nobody is arguing against fee-for-=bandwidth. But if it costs the same to 
provide web pages about lolcats as it does to provide web pages about 
football scores, why should the ISP make more money from providing web pages 
about football scores?

> ISP wants to charge more for bittorrent than http, or more to access BBC 
> iPlayer because it generates 10x the bandwidth, 

But it doesn't. It costs exactly the same dollars per megabyte transferred. 
That's the point.

Would it be a good idea to say it's alright to refuse to put blacks or gays 
or whatever in your apartment complex, because you can't after all house 
everybody, so you might as well discriminate based on skin color?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
> ...until ISPs start deciding to charge content producers in order to 
> allow access to their content.

And vice versa. For a while, ESPN was refusing to serve content to Time 
Warner because TW wasn't paying ESPN extra.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> That will only happen if all ISPs work together to fix the prices, which 
> is strictly illegal under EU law. 

How many network connections do you actually have access to in your house. I 
only have a TV cable and a wire for the phone. I could probably get a fiber 
installed, but maybe not. And I could probably get a cellular wireless 
connection to the internet from two different companies. Everything but the 
wireless is a government-enforced monopoly.

Five mega companies aren't a whole lot of choice. Not like newspapers, which 
I can get from anywhere in the country and probably the world.

> As I said, there would then be an irresistable opportunity for some 
> company to make a shed-load of profit.

Only if you were actually allowed to. Are you allowed to start a new company 
that runs fiber into everyone's house?

> Being an ISP is not like, say, providing live coverage of a sporting 
> event, there is no restriction to how many companies can offer it.

Are you sure?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
> This directive is totally about the ISPs 
> wanting to make more money by blocking traffic-heavy data like torrents, 
> YouTube videos, BBC iPlayer etc.

Where did you see this?  You don't need to block specific sites in order to 
regulate bandwidth, so I suspect you're chasing a straw-man here.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   There's no CD like OCD, there's no CD I knoooow!

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> If they're privately held companies, they can do whatever they like.

  That's certainly not true in the general case. There are tons of laws
governing what private companies can and cannot do, even with their own
property. Monopoly law is just one example.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Mueen Nawaz <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   If an ISP started censoring all websites related to a political party,
> > should they be allowed to do that? What if all the ISPs started blocking
> > all political parties except one? Should they be allowed to do that?

>         Is there a generic existing law against that?

  How about the constitution? At least here.

  There's no valid reason (eg. technical or monetary) for an ISP to block
some political party, and thus such an action would be unconstitutional.

  (OTOH I understand that constitutional law works differently in the US.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Mueen Nawaz <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   In this particular case it would cost the company money to implement the
> > censorship. Letting all IP packets through without filtering costs them
> > nothing extra.

>         In the short term only. If some ISP is getting hurt by huge bandwidth
> requirements (iplayer, youtube, Bittorrent, etc), in the long run they
> may save more money by implementing filtering.

  Or simply by limiting its customers' bandwidth.

  Bandwidth limitation for technical reasons sounds a lot less dubious
practice than filtering content.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message