Today has been a good day to be European
It’s a sad fact, but we now have to be permanently vigilant if we want to prevent the constant abuses of our governments and those of the increasingly powerful lobbies that hold them in sway. All the more reason therefore, to celebrate one of those rare occasions when our representatives get something right.
Today, at a historic session of the European Parliament, eurodeputies have supported Neelie Kroes’ Connected Continent proposal, along with amendments that guarantee the neutrality of the internet. Establishing once and for all the net’s impartiality is a major triumph for people everywhere. The reforms also include the elimination of roaming charges, which will also make life easier and cost us less when we use the internet on our travels. This was a logical move: there was no defending operators charging huge amounts of money to transport information from one country to another, and was simply a scam.
While the United States continues to await the implementation of one of Barack Obama’s most important electoral promises, and still has no idea what the government intends to do to guarantee internet freedom, in Europe we have now enshrined one of the fundamental principles of the internet: a guarantee that no industry can establish privileges or penalties regarding companies that offer services through channels managed by others.
The idea that telecommunications companies can be the internet’s gatekeepers, deciding which services can be offered on it is an insult to the intelligence of anybody who uses the web. Defending an open internet is vital, and something that thanks to widespread activism appears to have registered with members of the European Parliament ahead of elections in May.
There are no shades of gray in this issue. Once telecoms companies have established the principle of certain players enjoying privileges at the expense of others, we all lose, and the internet ceases to be a platform for innovation. The lack of any legal enshrinement of the internet’s neutrality would allow telecoms companies to control any innovation that might improve services, while at the same time creating a two-tier world wide web by offering faster connections to say, certain sectors of the economy.
Ending the neutrality of the internet on the grounds of the free market, as the telecommunications companies have tried to argue, is a contradiction in terms: the free market is based on the principle of a level playing field, not one that benefits the interests of those who manage our infrastructures. Managing infrastructure means just that; not getting involved in how that infrastructure is used or by taking decisions that favor this or that service.
In the final analysis, defending the neutrality of the internet is a question of common sense. What doesn’t make sense is an internet subject to the Byzantine arguments of large corporations or governments (which is still the case in some countries), prepared to push their own interests at the expense of ours.
What we are celebrating today is the fact that the European Parliament, which is plagued by powerful lobbies with ready access to our representatives, has put our interests above those of big business. Today, as a European, I am proud of my Parliament. We can only hope that other institutions and representative bodies begin to think along the same lines.
(En español, aquí)
