Open Forum Europe summit "The Future is Open" today, Vint gave the keynote address. He explained that the conscious choice to design an open and neutral Internet turned out to be the main ingredient for its tremendous success. If the Net stays open, he predicted that it will help us getting out of the present economic gloom by unleashing creative ideas and helping create successful businesses, small and large, in Europe and elsewhere. Before Vint took to the podium, Professor Ziga Turk had explained how the first communication revolution - cheap paper from China - empowered the masses and helped unleash the Renaissance's creativity, and how the Internet is provoking a second communication revolution by spreading knowledge across the globe. Vint took up the train of thought and offered an analogy to the French Revolutionary goals of liberté, egalité and fraternité , saying openness, open standards, and open source must be the three guiding principles for the Net to achieve this revolutionary promise.pointed out at the same conference: competition law and transparency may provide certain safeguards - but chances are this won't be enough, especially not for start-ups. A recent consumer survey that Google helped commission, showed that an overwhelming 91% of consumers in the UK, France and Germany expect their Internet Service Provider to avoid blocking or limiting their service. We have joined with a group of Internet companies including France's Dailymotion and PriceMinister, as well as Yahoo, eBay, Skype and Amazon, in favor of maintaining an open Internet. Together with them, we have signed a position paper
The vote on Net Neutrality is tomorrow in the Parliament. Does Google supports the Citizen Rights amendments? Net neutrality is about giving rights to end users of the internet after all.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that we will have net neutrality in Europe, there are too many lobbyists from the big telcos invading Brussels those days who are pushing for the right to filter.