EU lawmakers approved net neutrality protections and an end to mobile roaming fees Thursday, as expected (CD April 3 p13). By a 534-25 vote on the European Commission-proposed “connected continent” package, members of the European Parliament barred Internet access providers from blocking or slowing selected services for economic or other reasons. They also approved language banning mobile data, voice and text roaming charges as of Dec. 15, 2015. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) wanted clear rules to stop Internet access providers from promoting some services at the expense of others, Parliament said. Under the language approved, providers would still be able to offer specialized services of higher quality, such as VOD, as long as that doesn’t affect the availability or quality of access services offered to other companies or service suppliers, it said. Amendments also shortened the EC’s list of cases in which access providers could still be entitled to block or slow the Internet. MEPs want those practices to be permitted only to enforce a court order, safeguard network security or prevent temporary network congestion, Parliament said. All Internet traffic must be treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, regardless of the sender, recipient, type, content, device, service or application, it said. The Netherlands enshrined net neutrality into law in 2012, noted MEP Marietje Schaake, of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the amendments of which she said helped close loopholes in the text. “The public value of an open internet can not be underestimated,” she said in a news release. Digital rights activists were overjoyed, telcos dismayed. The net neutrality vote “established the EU as the major global force to protect the freedom of the open internet,” said European Digital Rights Executive Director Joe McNamee in a news release. By amending the text with cross-party amendments, MEPs “took a historic step” to protect net neutrality and the Internet commons in the EU, said French citizens’ advocacy group La Quadrature du Net. BEUC-The European Consumer Organisation said MEPs heard consumers “loud and clear” in tackling roaming fees, the “hydra of EU regulation,” and building a net neutrality buffer against granting control over Internet traffic speeds and access to “Europe’s handful of network operators.” The telecom and digital technology sectors said the net neutrality provisions could reduce consumer choice and hurt competitiveness. Amendments mandating the complete separation of specialized services and requiring that they not have any influence on capacity available for other Internet services are concerning, said the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association. The text approved would place far-reaching restrictions on traffic management, making efficient network management nearly impossible, it said. The European Parliament’s stance on net neutrality is too specific about how networks should function, and it will quickly become obsolete as innovation drives the technology forward, said DigitalEurope. The question now is whether operators feel they can work within the scope of the regulation to offer the services they plan to, but a last-minute lobbying effort to remove some of the wording of what constitutes such services suggest not, said Ovum analyst Matthew Howett. “The fear exists around whether even basic (and generally accepted) forms of traffic management will be permissible” under the EC’s vision for an open Internet, he said. The telecom package now needs approval from EU members. The EC expects final agreement by year’s end, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes.
Lobbying on a European Commission telecom reform package ratcheted up a day before Thursday’s European Parliament vote. Although the “connected continent” measure (CD Dec 2 p8) addresses a range of issues such as mobile roaming charges and spectrum allocation, most of the attention has focused on its net neutrality provisions, which have attracted intense lobbying from major telcos, digital rights and consumer activists and EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Everyone seems to want an open Internet, but few agree on what that means, said consultant Innocenzo Genna, who represents non-incumbent telecom and Internet players. The fate of the package was unclear at deadline, but some observers predicted the more net neutrality-friendly provisions might pass.
Courts may order ISPs to block access to copyright-breaching websites under certain conditions, said the European Court of Justice (ECJ) Thursday in a decision one commentator called unsurprising but important. The ruling in UPC Telekabel Wien GmbH v. Constantin Film Verleih GmbH and Wega Filmproduktionsgesellschaft mbH (http://bit.ly/NYcjur) arose from complaints by the movie companies that their films could be viewed and downloaded from the website kino.to without authorization, the court said. They sought injunctions against ISP UPC Telekabel Wien, which argued that it couldn’t be enjoined because it had no business relationship with kino.to’s operators and there was no proof that its own customers acted unlawfully. The ISP also claimed any possible blocking measures could be circumvented, and some are excessively expensive. The ECJ said the EU copyright directive allows rights-holders to seek injunctions against intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe their rights, and that UPC is such an intermediary. The law doesn’t require a specific relationship between the person carrying out the infringement and the intermediary against whom an injunction is issued, nor is it necessary to prove that an ISP’s customers are actually accessing the material, it said. But fundamental rights recognized by EU law permit injunctions on two conditions, the court said: (1) The ISP’s measure doesn’t unnecessarily deprive users of the ability to lawfully access the information. (2) The blocking or other actions do prevent unauthorized access to the material or at least make it hard to access. Intellectual property rights in such situations conflict with other rights such as the freedom to conduct a business and user’s freedom of information, the ECJ said. Where several basic rights are at issue, EU governments must ensure their national laws strike a fair balance, it said. The ruling isn’t surprising because EU laws implicitly allow such interventions in order to repress piracy, telecom consultant Innocenzo Genna wrote on his radiobruxelleslibera blog (http://bit.ly/1pzl2OJ). Genna, who represents new-entrant, non-incumbent operators, said the decision is “very important” because it’s the first time the ECJ has set out mandatory principles national courts must comply with when they order ISPs to block access to copyright-infringing websites. Under the decision, ISPs can’t be forced to bear significant costs and put in place complex and difficult technical solutions, Genna wrote. The court said Web-blocking must be strictly targeted, particularly when the illicit content is available on sites used for lawful purposes, he said. The decision is “an important clarification that will strengthen the ability of the music and other creative industries to tackle piracy,” said the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The ruling confirms that “copyright is itself a fundamental right requiring protection,” it said. Europe’s recording industry has more than 230 licensed services but its continued success depends on the legal environment in which it operates, IFPI said. “ISPs’ ability lawfully to prevent access to pirate sites that undermine legitimate music service is critically important.”
Big data and online accessibility and access should be among the Council of Europe’s top priorities for its 2016-2019 Internet governance strategy, speakers said Friday at a webcast CoE conference in Graz, Austria, on ensuring online rights. Government and civil society panelists said the 47-country human rights organization could play a leading role in helping stakeholders share best practices and in making sure that compliance with rules on Internet human rights is monitored properly.
The European Parliament’s overwhelming vote to revamp data protection rules won cheers from consumers and telecom network operators, but jeers from Europe’s digital technology sector, digital rights activists and direct marketers Wednesday. Parliament members (MEPs) approved 621-10 a regulation aimed at strengthening personal data protections in the digital world, and 544-78 a non-binding resolution ending their a six-month probe into NSA mass surveillance. They also passed 371-276 a proposal to improve data privacy in the context of law enforcement and judicial matters. The draft data protection regulation should help Internet users by giving them a right to have personal information erased, setting new limits on profiling and requiring Internet companies seeking to process personal data to obtain freely given, well-informed, explicit consent from users, Parliament said.
The European Parliament appears likely to back broad data protection changes as well as a nonbinding report on NSA spying in a plenary vote Wednesday. In a debate Tuesday, Parliament members (MEPs) generally supported the proposal for a regulation on processing of personal data, although several voiced misgivings with some provisions. The own-initiative report by the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee, on the impact of mass surveillance on EU citizens’ fundamental rights and trans-Atlantic cooperation, prompted impassioned debate. One center-right political group said it will oppose the report because it jeopardizes vital EU-U.S. trade and other agreements. Lawmakers slammed EU governments for their failure to reach speedy consensus on the data protection proposal and for not taking any action in the face of U.S. and other nations’ spying.
Internet of Things governance “might be defined carefully with two objectives in line to maintain customer trust: Security and privacy,” said European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Smart M2M (machine-to-machine) Chairman Marylin Arndt in an email over the weekend. Arndt, the standards manager for wireless carrier Orange, will speak at a panel Tuesday at the IoT Europe summit in Brussels (CD March 3 p15). The session will compare the two approaches to IoT governance: Standards vs. policy and, if regulation is needed, at what level it should be implemented, she said. ETSI and now oneM2M -- the website of which says its goal is to develop technical specifications to address the need for a common M2M service layer that can be easily embedded in hardware and software to connect devices -- are working on standards based on the existence of a horizontal service platform which has application programming interfaces, is network-centric, and is independent from device connectivity and business vertical applications, she said. The platform will provide interoperability at three interfaces, she said: South (toward and from the devices); north (toward and from the applications); and middleware (above the device or gateway operating system). Different customized service layers will then co-exist on the service platform, and a guidelines and best practices book will define how data can be exchanged and shared with other applications, Arndt said. There will be a common semantic that allows higher-layer applications to be easily defined on top of the service layer, she said. The service layer with its tools and the abstracted layer with semantics could be considered “global” standards, which must be open and interoperable, in contrast with “dedicated” standards that are often closed and don’t allow networking, she said. ETSI M2M and oneM2M have now defined global standards, the first step toward such standards for the IoT, she said. Regulators will have to set rules for such things as common data models and command language for the home and building environment, and ensure that best practices respect privacy, she said. Governments will apply the rules allowing end-to-end security for IoT autonomous communication and data treatment, said Arndt. She said IoT governance will “probably be a balance between interoperable standards and policies.” The U.S. and European approaches to IoT development differ but are complementary, speakers said Monday at the meeting. (See separate report in this issue.)
BRUSSELS -- The Internet of Things will bring massive benefits to consumers, but the “smart home” it enables also sparks strong concerns about security and privacy, said panel and audience members Monday at the IoT Europe summit. There are also questions about what consumers will make of, and want from, the technology, and what social values, if any, it brings, they said.
BRUSSELS -- Nearly everyone agrees that the Internet of Things is coming, but not when or in what form, speakers said Monday at the Internet of Things Europe summit. The IoT always seems to be “just a few years around the corner,” said Carl-Christian Buhr, a member of cabinet for Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. The IoT should be, but often isn’t, distinguished from cyber-physical systems (CPS), said Geoff Mulligan, U.S. presidential innovation fellow on CPS and founder of the IPSO (Internet Protocol for Smart Objects) Alliance. The U.S. and EU approaches to IoT development differ but are complementary, speakers said.
The definition of Internet of Things governance is a murky concept that’s hard to pin down, several speakers told us ahead of a March 3-4 IoT Europe summit in Brussels. In addition, opinions differ on whether and what standards may be needed for the technology, they said. But there appears to be agreement that governments should guide, but not dictate, the IoT, they said.