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Two House lawmakers introduced a resolution on Tuesday urging the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations to oppose any resolution that would regulate the Internet.
The bill's sponsors, Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), warned that China and Russia may seek a U.N. resolution to give authoritarian regimes the license to continue censoring the Internet.
The lawmakers said their resolution is consistent with President Obama's stated policy to "preserve, enhance and increase access to an open, global Internet. "
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UN tryin' to take over the internet...
Lawmakers push resolution opposing UN regulation of the Internet
3/27/12 : The bill's sponsors warned that China and Russia might seek a U.N. resolution to give authoritarian regimes censorship powers.
Two House lawmakers introduced a resolution on Tuesday urging the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations to oppose any resolution that would regulate the Internet.
The bill's sponsors, Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), warned that China and Russia may seek a U.N. resolution to give authoritarian regimes the license to continue censoring the Internet.
The lawmakers said their resolution is consistent with President Obama's stated policy to "preserve, enhance and increase access to an open, global Internet. "
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The Federal Communications Commission is eyeing a proposal to tax broadband Internet service. The move would funnel money to the Connect America Fund, a subsidy the agency created last year to expand Internet access. The FCC issued a request for comments on the proposal in April. Dozens of companies and trade associations have weighed in, but the issue has largely flown under the public's radar. "If members of Congress understood that the FCC is contemplating a broadband tax, they'd sit up and take notice," said Derek Turner, research director for Free Press, a consumer advocacy group that opposes the tax. Numerous companies, including AT&T, Sprint and even Google have expressed support for the idea.
Consumers already pay a fee on their landline and cellular phone bills to support the FCC's Universal Service Fund. The fund was created to ensure that everyone in the country has access to telephone service, even if they live in remote areas. Last year, the FCC overhauled a $4.5 billion portion of the Universal Service Fund and converted it into a broadband Internet subsidy, called the Connect America Fund. The new fund aims to subsidize the construction of high-speed Internet networks to the estimated 19 million Americans who currently lack access. Julius Genachowski, the FCC's chairman, has made expanding broadband access his top priority. He argues that a high-speed Internet connection is critical for succeeding in the 21st century economy and that expanding Internet access is the country's next great infrastructure challenge.
But the money for the new Internet subsidy is still coming from the fees on phone bills. And in recent years, with more people sending emails instead of making long-distance phone calls, the money flowing into the program has begun to dry up. The Universal Service fee has had to grow to a larger and larger portion of phone bills to compensate. The FCC floated a number of ideas for reforming the fund's contribution system. In addition to the broadband fee, the commission also sought comments on taxing text messages, as well as levying a flat fee on each phone line, instead of the current system, which is based on a portion of the revenue from interstate phone calls. The commission only sought input on the ideas and did not indicate whether it planned to move ahead with any of them, including the broadband fee.
When the FCC released its proposal, Genachowski issued a statement saying the current contribution system is outdated and full of loopholes. "Today we propose three goals for contribution reform: efficiency, fairness, and sustainability," Genachowski said. "And we underscore that any reforms to the contribution system must safeguard core Commission objectives, including the promotion of broadband innovation, investment, and adoption." In its filing, Google argued that the evidence "strongly supports expanding the [Universal Service Fund] contribution base to include broadband Internet access services." According to Google, taxing broadband service is preferable to taxing the kinds of online services it offers, like email or Google Voice. "Saddling these offerings with new, direct USF contribution obligations is likely to restrict innovative options for all communications consumers and cause immediate and lasting harm to the users, pioneers, and innovators of Internet-based services," Google argued.
But Turner argued that imposing a fee on broadband access, even if it is only a dollar or two, would discourage many people from buying the service—the exact opposite outcome of what the FCC is trying to achieve. "For folks who are thinking about adopting broadband, who have much lower incomes or don't value broadband as much—that extra dollar on the margins will cause millions of people... to not adopt," Turner said. The FCC could run into legal problems with the Internet Tax Freedom Act, a 1998 law that bans the government from taxing Internet access. But the FCC has long argued that Universal Service is a fee that the providers choose to pass on to consumers and not a tax. Turner said it is unlikely that the FCC will make any controversial moves before November's election. "I don't anticipate that the chairman would move to adopt a drastic overhaul ahead of the election," he said.
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Joel Tenenbaum must pay $675,000 (£426,000) in damages awarded to the major US music labels after his request for a retrial was turned down. Mr Tenenbaum, 25, was found guilty of illegally downloading and distributing 31 songs in 2007. A judge in Massachusetts ruled that the damages, set by a jury in 2009, had been fair. Mr Tenenbaum was 16 years old when a letter was sent to his parents' home accusing him of illegal file-sharing. He was asked to pay $5,250 (£3,319) for downloading seven songs. He claims he offered $500 (£316) which was all he could afford at the time, and it was declined.
In 2007 the case went to court for the first time. On his website Joel Tenenbaum says that he counter-claimed "asserting abuse of federal power". He refused to settle and a new trial was set for 2009. The result of that trial was the awarding of damages to the major US record labels. In the US a jury can set a fine of up to $150,000 for every occasion of wilful copyright infringement, meaning that Mr Tenenbaum's fine is below the maximum he could have received for the 31 songs he was found guilty of illegally sharing.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said it was "pleased" with the decision made by District Court Judge Rya Zobel in Massachusetts, reports Cnet. In court Mr Tenenbaum had admitted to file-sharing around 800 songs. "I used the computer. I uploaded, I downloaded music," he said. In the past he has refused to take donations from supporters keen to help with the fine. "This lawsuit was against me. This is my verdict," he wrote on his blog.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19370862
Without broadband, rural communities and business owners face a substantial challenge, said Dallas Tonsager, Agricultural Undersecretary for Rural Development, in announcing the $554,140 grant. In Alaska, this grant will bring the benefits of broadband, including new educational, business and public health and safety opportunities to rural residents living in a remote area. The taxpayer funds will go directly to Tanadgusix Corporation, the company that will build the broadband network.
The grant is administered through the Community Connect program, which is run by USDAs Rural Development agency. Community Connect provides grants to poor, rural communities with populations under 20,000 where broadband service is least likely to be available, but where it can make a tremendous difference in the quality of life for citizens, according to the programs description.
Funds can be used to construct, acquire or lease facilities to deploy broadband to schools and public safety buildings as well as homes and businesses. There are strings attached: Each project requires a matching contribution and must serve an area where broadband is not available. And the grantee must agree to provide a local community center with at least 10 computers, which will be free to residents for two years.
During fiscal year 2011, the Community Connect program distributed nearly $13.5 million in grants to install broadband in rural communities across the United States. The Obama administration has set a goal of providing broadband access to 10 million Americans who are on the wrong side of the so-called digital divide. In the long term, these unparalleled rural investments will help ensure that Americas rural communities are repopulating, self-sustaining and thriving economically, the USDA says.
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Chinese authorities, who have long sought to limit access to information, seem to have reinforced the so-called Great Firewall of China, frustrating foreign companies and raising activists concerns. The Great Firewall the nations huge system of Internet limits and censorship now appears to be stepping up targeting of virtual private networks, or VPNs, commonly used to circumvent controls on Web sites the government considers threatening. While VPNs let users gain access to sites blocked by the Firewall due to their content or sensitivity which in China include Facebook and Twitter they are also vital to firms, enabling secure and encrypted communications.
Foreign firms have flocked to China to try to participate in decades of stunning growth, but Web users are complaining of VPNs being inaccessible or quickly going down once accessed, while speeds have slowed to a crawl. For us its catastrophic, a Western businessman in China said on condition of anonymity. We are used to working between different offices and subsidiaries using Google Drive, which lets us save, share and work simultaneously on common documents. Well, we cant do that here. Another expatriate complained about the extreme slowness and frequent inaccessibility of Gmail and Google Agenda, the Internet giants e-mail and planning services. Some foreign-based VPN providers are saying system interference due to a strengthening of controls is involved.
In a message to its users, VPN provider Astrill blamed a technology update to the Great Firewall (GFW), saying the system now has the ability to learn, discover and block VPN protocols automatically. This GFW update is one of the worst so far and it has affected not just all VPN providers, but as well as many companies which use VPN protocols to connect different branches of their network, it said. Witopia, another provider, referred in a tweet to rolling countrywide protocol blocks. Messages seeking comment and sent by Agence France-Presse to Astrill, Witopia and StrongVPN, another provider reportedly affected, went unanswered. Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not immediately reply to questions seeking comment, but the government has previously said controls are in place to limit access to pornographic and violent content to protect children.
However, yesterday, the state-run Global Times which earlier this month quoted officials saying foreign-run VPNs were illegal defended restrictions on the Internet in an editorial headlined: Freedom not at odds with online regulation. Problems caused by the Internet have been accumulating, said the paper, which, despite the Great Firewall, boasts its own Facebook and Twitter accounts. It advocates individual freedom, but at the same time severely damages it, it said. It is time to regulate the Internet. Such a view is actually embraced not only by the authorities, but also by the public who fear that their privacy may be intruded upon. People who feel constrained by it [regulation] are those who create waves online or even use the Internet illegally, it said.
More China strengthens Internet restrictions - Taipei Times
A law being discussed this week would mean people would have to present their government-issued identity cards when signing contracts for fixed line and mobile internet access, state-run newspapers said. "The law should escort the development of the internet to protect people's interest," Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily said in a front page commentary, echoing similar calls carried in state media over the past week. "Only that way can our internet be healthier, more cultured and safer."
Many users say the restrictions are clearly aimed at further muzzling the often scathing, raucous - and perhaps most significantly, anonymous - online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for open debate. It could also prevent people from exposing corruption online if they fear retribution from officials, said some users. It was unclear how the rules would be different from existing regulations as state media has provided only vague details and in practice customers have long had to present identity papers when signing contracts with internet providers.
Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina Corp's wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names. The government says such a system is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online and that many other countries already have such rules. "It would also be the biggest step backwards since 1989," wrote one indignant Weibo user, in apparent reference to the 1989 pro-democracy protests bloodily suppressed by the army.
Chinese internet users have long had to cope with extensive censorship, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked. Despite periodic calls for political reform, the ruling Communist Party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.
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On Wednesday, communications minister Nikolay Nikiforov told the Russian state news service RIA Novosti that authorities were to begin testing various methods “to prevent Russia being cut off from the Internet from abroad.” Nikiforov said much of Russia’s Internet traffic is actually routed through servers in Amsterdam, making the nation vulnerable to Western powers. “We modelled what would happen if our respected foreign partners, under the influence of the latest mood of their politicians who play with sanctions, suddenly decide to take this or that measure against Russia,” Nikiforov told RIA Novosti. “Our task is to do what is needed so that the Russian Internet will carry on working independently of the opinion of colleagues, whatever sanctions policy decisions they decide to take.”
An employee is seen working at the headquarters of Kaspersky Labs, a computer security company in Moscow.
The Moscow-based news site Slon is reporting that Andrey Semerikov, head of the Russian telecommunications provider ER-Telekom, told reporters earlier in October that such tests took place in the spring of 2015. Semerikov is quoted as saying that the Russian Internet monitor Roskomnadzor sent Russian Internet service providers (ISPs) instructions how to block traffic from various foreign sources using a technique known as DPI, or deep packet inspection. DPI allows ISPs to scan the contents of data as it passes through network hubs. Semerikov said the DPI tests were ultimately unsuccessful because hundreds of small Russian ISPs, over which Roskomnadzor has little influence, did not participate.
Mail.ru Group employees work in a hall in their office building in Moscow, Russia.
Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonskiy disputed that account, telling the Russia-based Interfax news service that no such tests occurred or have been scheduled. “Roskomnadzor had nothing to do with these actions and is not aware of their results,” Ampelonskiy said.
‘CIA project’
India’s push for net neutrality comes at a time when the United States has unveiled plans to roll back regulations on it. “The core principles of net neutrality, non-discriminatory treatment of all content, we’ve upheld them,” R.S. Sharma, Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, TRAI, told reporters as he unveiled recommendations following a year-long debate. These proposals seek to prohibit any service provider from blocking or offering preferential data speeds which essentially means that telecom providers cannot create “fast lanes” for higher paying customers or speed up or slow down websites and apps.
Equal access
Advocates of net neutrality, who have led an impassioned battle to ensure equal web access, welcomed the latest recommendations, saying that these would ensure that India is among countries with the strictest net neutrality rules in the world. Last year India put in place rules that prohibited telecoms from differential pricing. India’s IT industry lobby, NASSCOM, in a statement, said the reaffirmation of net neutrality would be a “shot in the arm” for the country’s digital economy. Nikhil Pahwa, one of the founders of Internet Freedom Foundation, which has campaigned for strict net neutrality, says open access to the Internet is critical for India. “This is really, really essential. It is important for India because we are at the cusp of great Internet growth and innovation with lots of start-ups coming up and students and people developing things online,” he said.
Indians use their mobile phones in New Delhi, India
India’s stand on net neutrality had last year effectively blocked efforts by Facebook to offer free but limited access to the web in the country’s fast growing Internet market. The company said it wanted to expand access to the net in poor, rural areas but digital rights activists had slammed the plan as “poor Internet for poor people” and said it would create a “walled garden” in which Facebook would control the content it offered users. A Facebook spokesperson at the time said the company was disappointed by the outcome but would continue its efforts to "eliminate barriers."
80 million users
Supporters of an open Internet point out that India’s experience demonstrates that net neutrality rules are not hampering access to the Internet in a country where many people are still not connected to the web. “In the last year alone we have added about 80 million Internet users. There has been a substantial increase in Internet access in the country and it is increasing rapidly despite net neutrality. So this notion that net neutrality is adversarial to growth of Internet access or to sustainability of mobile operators is incorrect,” said Pahwa. India’s position on ensuring an open Internet is in contrast to the U.S., where last week the U.S. Federal Communications Commission unveiled plans to repeal net neutrality rules, saying they discourage Internet service providers from making investments in their network to provide better and faster online access.
An Indian man surfs a Facebook page at an Internet cafe in New Delhi, India
India’s strict net neutrality rules have disappointed private telecom providers, who had hoped for some leeway in the latest recommendations. In an oblique reference to the U.S. position, a statement from the telecom industry’s main lobby group, the Cellular Operators Association of India, said that at a time when, globally, countries are adopting a more “market oriented, and market driven approach to net neutrality in order to not stifle development, innovation, proliferation and growth of the Internet, we believe TRAI should have adopted a light touch approach to net neutrality.”
India Unveils New Recommendations to Reinforce Strict Net Neutrality
