Please Stand By
A number of people are sounding bugles over a “secret treaty” that is going to shut down the Internet.
I want to see an actual law being proposed, not a blog entry.
The Internet is international, and the CBC reports that the EU agrees on new internet user rights
Under the guarantee, national authorities will only be able to cut off such services if they have proof that a user was downloading illegal copies of movies or music files, ensuring users are presumed innocent.
The structure of the Internet was designed to route around obstructions. If the US wants to push all of its ‘Net users over to European companies, the tactics described as being part of this “treaty” would certainly do it. There is no reason Google et al. have to be in the US.
2 comments
Believe me, I would be hearing about it if it were true. I have contacts at Google, Netapp, Sun, Fujitsu, AT&T, Lycos, Yahoo… well, pretty much everywhere out here, and none of us have heard anything of this. I suppose this is like that supposed treaty that was going to merge Mexico, the USA, and Canada into a single nation, just another right wing conspiracy theory making the rounds to scare tighty righties into soiling their undies and thereby willing to pay money to right-wingers to launder them with bogus solutions that for some reason always require the rank and file to send dough to their so-called “leaders”….
– Badtux the Cynical Penguin
I haven’t heard or seen anything on the ISP forums, where there would supposedly be a direct effect. They aren’t as connected as Google, but some of the old-timers are paranoid about this sort of thing as they are dealing with take-downs all the time from people annoyed by content on personal web sites in small communities. The margins for the little guys generally suck, so they are more sensitive to potential problems.