“The best thing about the Internet is that it is open” says Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission and in charge of the Digital Agenda. Today she delivered an important speech today about the future of internet on www2012, an international conference which was held in Lyon this year.
In view of all the discussions surrounding ACTA, copyright systems in Europe and net neutrality Ms. Kroes speech was considered an important one as it will set the agenda of the EC for the years to come. We eagerly awaited her views and the announcement that she would speak about the “open internet” raised expectations.
Unfortunately Ms. Kroes didn´t address the current concerns about Europe´s stance in detail. No word about ACTA, some lip service to the need to review the existing copyright systems and some rather vague words about the roles of ISP´s in Europe.
On copyright: “The complicating licensing systems for copyrighted material here in Europe guarantee that Europeans miss out on great content. We must be open to different online business models. That doesn’t necessarily mean offering something for nothing … but there’s more than one way to do it. … If we are too rigid or too constraining in our approach, we will put artificial limits on innovation and discovery. And that’s not being open.”
Good to hear, but it is clear that the European Commission is torn between the old industry wanting to protect its intellectual property models and the new creators who want to share their content with the largest audience possible.
However listening to Ms. Kroes more closely gave us some hints about new models for the audio-visual as well as the scientific world. She stated that “current systems don´t respond nearly well enough to online realities” and “updating EU copyright rules” as well as “new recommendations on access to publicly funded scientific research results and data”.
On Net neutrality: “I am committed to safeguarding net neutrality. Everyone should have the option of full access to a robust, best-efforts Internet. But, once again, openness here is a subtle term. For me it does not mean banning all targeted or limited offers: it means being transparent about them.”
Again, it sounds like providers who want to limit certain types of downloads get the nod from the EC. Consumers who are concerned that P2P, FTP, and online games are being blocked or throttled are offered just a small solace: transparency. In her words: “If you only need to check the odd email on 3G and someone is ready to offer you that service – why should you subsidise someone else’s film habit?”, which sounds reasonable, but does it mean that providers are allowed to check our traffic to see what we are doing, the so called deep inspection?
Kroes promised to address the issue again when she has the results of an investigation started last year, but from her speech it becomes clear that as long as a provider is transparent about his offerings the EC will be happy. Some European nations already go farther and forbid providers from monitoring the actual traffic from their suppliers. It would have been good if Kroes had made it clear that price competition and limited bandwidths are okay, but discrimination on the kind of traffic, and therefore the real net neutrality is not.
The European vice-president jokingly showed the handcuffs she got from the Free Software Foundation and said she would oppose all digital handcuffs. She pledged the continuous support for privacy and safety on the web and observed that openness does not come at the expense of privacy or safety. Indeed you can’t have one without the other; as fundamental rights, liberty and security are guaranteed together: I don’t know about you: but I will only feel really free if I feel safe.
Wise words, but it leaves us concerned as sometimes the things left unsaid are more interesting than the speech itself. We hope to see some real progress on the European copyright system, a new approach to the sharing of scientific results resulting from public money and a clear NO against all attempts by providers to inspect your data.
Do you expect Europe to become the new leader in an open and transparent internet or did you lose all trust in governments whatever they say
Further reading:
Press release with Ms. Neelie Kroes Speech
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/12/275&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
