The European Union’s Telecom Package, that was put through voting earlier this month, sparked reactions in blogs and forums ranging from extremely negative, bordering on scaremongering, to more balanced and even positive.

The so-called Telecom Package is a mammoth of more than 30 amendments to EU telecom rules, containing about 1000 changes.

Mammoth composites of amendments are an old political strategy to get controversial measures voted into law. This old practise, combined with ambiguous phrasing of the amendments, seems to be triggering a lot of the criticism.

According to some online rights groups and even the venerable BBC (1), the amendments would lead to a “Soviet net” with almost unlimited, permanent monitoring of internet use and the limitation of internet access to government-approved applications. Kafka and Orwell rolled into one.

Others have been more moderate, pointing out that even though the text is woolly and ambiguous, it is said to contain keywords that should signal content providers that the European Parliament (EP) does take their concerns seriously, but it does not actually implement anything to limit the freedom of internet users (2).

The problem with EU bureaucracy is that its main purpose seems to be the generation of mountains of paperwork that no mortal could ever conquer. Deep-pocketed lobby groups are funding a spin-off industry of lawyers and lobbyists with enough (paid) time to go through it all with a fine comb and pick out (or have put in) what suits their needs.

Online rights groups, more often than not not-for-profit foundations that are working off of donations, have a hard time keeping up.

And ambiguous law texts make for wonderful litigation playgrounds.

In the case of the Telecom Package, Malcolm Harbour and Syed Kamall, the members of European Parliament (MEP) who tabled the amendments, issued a statement (3) rubbishing criticism and saying that their “amendments reinforce the openness of the internet” and that they “have ensured that consumers’ rights are respected”.

Amendment H1 in fact gives national regulatory authorities and the commission the power to take appropriate action to prevent degradation and slowing of traffic and against unreasonable restrictions of users’ possibilities to access or distribute lawful content or to run lawful applications and services of their choice. Furthermore, recital 14 starts with the words: “It should be the end-users’ decision what lawful content they want to be able to send and receive, and which services, applications, hardware and software they want to use for such purposes…” It also notes that “an unrestricted basic internet service” could be required as a response to a perceived problem, the statement by the two MEPs reads.

These statements seem to go a lot further than the usual bland comments from obviously clueless politicians that we’ve seen in the past. Somehow, I cannot shake the feeling that, somewhere out there, there are at least two MEPs who seem to have some sort of clue of this internet thing and how its use relates to basic freedoms we have long come to take for granted in all other situations, but that still need to be defended online. Or maybe I’m just being optimistic, hopeful, call it whatever you will.

Back in the real word, far away from thoughts about e-utopian government, some privately owned companies are taking steps to discourage internet use that they have long claimed harms their business. This time, the working model is not that of oppression, but of fair competition. A recent article in The New York Times (4) said that Warner Brothers was going to release movies for online rental at the same time with their DVD release, instead of the current practice of delayed online release. Frustration over companies using technology for practices, like limiting access to distribution and price differentiation between the market, have been the fuel for piracy, both online and offline. Turning that practise around is what will make the real difference in reducing “illegal internet use”.
Let’s hope this e-utopian business does not turn out to be a mirage.