An EU Latvian presidency proposal to break the diplomatic logjam over net neutrality in the draft "connected continent" telecom reform package has drawn mostly critical early reaction from the Internet industry and digital rights activists. The proposal, outlined in a Jan. 20 memo to EU government ministers, will be discussed article-by-article when the Telecom Council Working Party meets Jan. 27, the Presidency said Wednesday. The "harm-based" approach "will be a source of hot debate," said Hogan Lovells (Paris) attorney Winston Maxwell. The text raises doubts about how the system would be implemented, said an Internet industry official. The proposal is "very clear non-neutrality in a text claiming to support net neutrality," said European Digital Rights Executive Director Joe McNamee.
Dugie Standeford
Dugie Standeford, European Correspondent, Communications Daily and Privacy Daily, is a former lawyer. She joined Warren Communications News in 2000 to report on internet policy and regulation. In 2003 she moved to the U.K. and since then has covered European telecommunications issues. She previously covered the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and intellectual property law matters. She has a degree in psychology from Duke University and a law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law.
European companies, consumers and policymakers must "think like an entrepreneur" and stop being afraid of new things, speakers said Tuesday at a Brussels workshop on competition in digital platforms hosted by the European Parliament Industry Research and Energy Committee. European pessimism about innovation is one of several key challenges to the digital economy, said Pal Belenyesi, professor of economics and competition of European integration at John Cabot University in Rome. Another is whether existing competition law is outdated in the digital world, panelists said at the event, which was streamed.
EU governments are moving forward on a net neutrality policy but ditching efforts to harmonize some aspects of spectrum management as part of the European Commission-proposed "connected continent" telecom reform package, an EU diplomatic source said Wednesday. A working party of the Telecom Council of national ministers met Tuesday and agreed to a principles- -- rather than rules- -- based approach to net neutrality, the person said. The EU Latvian Presidency aims to distribute new text Jan. 20, with talks to begin Jan. 27, she said.
Rules governing the revolving door between European Commission officials and members of European Parliament (MEP) and the private sector aren't tough enough, some experts said. Current officials pointed toward ongoing efforts to increase transparency, which some said aren't adequate. Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) team member Vicky Cann said U.S. rules appear to be "more developed," possibly because of the different political system and the amount of money in play.
Talks on updating broadcasting protections made some progress but no breakthrough at last week's meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, European Broadcasting Union Intellectual Property Head Heijo Ruijsenaars said in an interview Friday. The meeting was helpful because the positions of different delegations on some of the issues became clearer, he said. Pure webcasting signals won't be covered, but divergences between the U.S. and some other delegations over what transmissions will fall within the accord remain unresolved, he said. Absent any conclusions on the issues, SCCR Chairman Martin Moscoso produced a factual summary of the discussion.
Europe won't have a true digital economy unless governments embrace cooperation, said European Commission Digital Single Market Vice President Andrus Ansip Tuesday during a webcast hearing by the European Conservatives and Reformists group in Brussels. Saying there are 28 different sets of rules in the areas of consumer and data protection and other areas, Ansip said he has "no illusions" about the scale of the challenge, but warned EU members that if they won't agree on more harmonization, there won't be a digital single market (DSM). Panelists from industry, standard-setting bodies and groups saying they represent consumers laid out a wish list of priorities for the DSM.
Internet access should be a universal service, the Italian EU Presidency said as debate on net neutrality, part of the proposed "connected continent" legislative package, stalled in the Telecom Council. Italy tried to find agreement on the issue but was forced to acknowledge that "none of the compromise drafts ... has gathered enough consensus" among governments, said Communications Undersecretary Antonello Giacomelli in a statement Thursday on the presidency's website. He proposed to "free the ongoing reflection between operators' and [over-the-tops] OTTs' interests by focusing on the ... right of the citizen-user. ... An adequate access to the Internet should be considered a universal service." Advocacy group European Digital Rights (EDRi) called the idea "interesting but tangential." Separately, reaction continued to the European Parliament vote (see 1411280035) to break up Google.
Reclassification of broadband as a telecom service could hamper FTC consumer protection enforcement efforts against ISPs and other access providers, several key players in the debate said in interviews. Classifying broadband as a common carrier service under the Communications Act, as FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has proposed, would make it harder for the FTC to assert its authority over unfair and deceptive practices, FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen said Tuesday. It could also make it tougher for the FTC to win the right to review certain transaction cases, said a consumer protection lawyer. Public Knowledge Vice President Michael Weinberg, however, said the FCC is perfectly competent to handle consumer protection issues.
Government ministers plan to move forward on the proposed telecom single market (or connected continent) package, an EU diplomatic source told us Monday. The debate over whether the legislation, which includes controversial net neutrality provisions, will stall out in the Council of Europe heated up when European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was reported by The Wall Street Journal Friday to have asked his commissioners to "examine all pending proposals in your area and to signal those which we should review together, for example because they have no realistic chance of being adopted in the near future, or because the degree of ambition achievable does not match the objectives sought." That potential review will have "no effect" on the connected continent measure, said the diplomatic source. Some in the telecom community agree that legislation will eventually emerge, while others think it will die.
Growing innovation in payment mechanisms is raising privacy and security issues that must be addressed, said the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom). In response to the innovation, W3C launched a Web payment interest group that seeks to identify the conditions needed for more uptake and wider use of online payments via standards that will make systems more interoperable among different stakeholders and payment methods, its charter said. Ofcom said it's working with other relevant regulators to ensure that new payment systems respect privacy and are secure.