[Chapter-delegates] Netherlands is First Country in Europe with Net Neutrality

Sun May 13 18:48:17 PDT 2012

Hi all,

we have been involved in the Network Neutrality legislation effort in Mexico and what we've learned is a good lesson.

ISOC Mexico has been rather cautious in this matter as we know even the name "network neutrality" is problematic, as has been well explained by ISOC and many of us over the years. We are wary of legislation since it can have lots of unintended and unforeseeable consequences, and, worse, the political process of legislating may hide great risks - and we did find out those!

A few months ago, the Science and Technology Commission of the Senate, with whose Chair we have a good dialog as he understands Internet issues well (he is a former President of a University and a graduate in Economics), put forward a draft Network Neutrality law, largely inspired in the one in Chile and also possibly a result of extensive discussions with the representatives of Google in Mexico. This initiative was not accepted in the joint Senate Commissions charged with studying it before it went to the Plenum.

The next step the Senate took was to call for a public consultation on the issue. About half the experts in the consultation, which took place a few weeks ago, were members of ISOC, with a variety of views. In general the principle of Network Neutrality, in some version, was reaffirmed, though with a clear opposition of some of the telcos and ISPs also present in the consultation. The Senate group which convened the consultation agreed to call on a small group of experts and draft an alternative law.

What they came up was very bad. Essentially it was a law that would allow any violations to Network Neutrality as long as the providers inform their clients of them. This was drafted by a well-known consultant who, in a Twitter discussion, said he was using one of the arguments I had presented in the consultation, viz. a market approach. What I said was a bit broader, saying that countries like the UK (through OFCOM) are letting the market decide but watching carefully for violations and ready to regulate.

So immediately we went into opposition, especially when we realized that the initiative was going to be passed by fast track without any votes! It took us a weekend of intense Twitter campaign - based on my blog for explanations - to make the Senators backing the initiative to announce they woul withdraw it.

So my word of caution - don't play with fire. Go to the legislative only if you can prove that you have the right backers and allies, that you have assessed well the adversary's power and their silent lobbying, and with a backup/exit plan. As much as we are happy with good results, like the law in the Netherlands which Rudi has brought to our attention, we will be suffering great damage globally with each bad law that is enacted and can be quoted as a precedent.

I think that we should also be careful about the use of ISOC's name and corporate image as we enter these battles. Are we strong enough? are we perceived as an independent, nationally loyal entity? or can some local actors weaken our case by calling us "lackeys of imperialism", "agents of American interest", etc.? Do we appear aligned with a political party when we enter this fight in each specific country? There's a lot of evaluation to be done. In our case, we let it be known that we are in ISOC, I am known as the ISOC Mexico Chair and others for their service to ISOC, we quote ISOC materials intensively, etc., but we don't go in in a corporate way. I believe that this has proven to be a wise strategy given our circumstance and that it may be different for others.

I will be glad to share more information and documents with those interested. This is part of the now long experience of engagement with law-making and public policy we have developed in ISOC Mexico.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  .  .  .  .
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

Tels. +52-(1)-55-5105-6044, +52-(1)-55-5418-3732

*Mi blog/My blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
*LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
*Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
*Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
 Participa en ICANN, http://www.icann.org
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________________________________
Desde: chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org [chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org] en nombre de Eduardo Diaz [eduardodiazrivera at gmail.com]
Enviado el: domingo, 13 de mayo de 2012 08:49
Hasta: Rudi Vansnick
CC: Chapter Delegates; Chapters European
Asunto: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Netherlands is First Country in Europe with Net Neutrality

Rudi:

This great news indeed.

Our chapter is working with a couple of legislators in Puerto Rico to pass a similar law. Let's see how far we can go with it.

-ed

On Sun, May 13, 2012 at 5:12 AM, Rudi Vansnick <rudi.vansnick at isoc.be<mailto:rudi.vansnick at isoc.be>> wrote:
Netherlands is First Country in Europe with Net Neutrality<http://e2ma.net/go/11036753017/208894755/234081773/1411202/goto:http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2012/05/09/netherlands-net-neutrality/>
<http://e2ma.net/go/11036753017/208894755/234081774/1411202/goto:http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2012/05/09/netherlands-net-neutrality/>May 8th, 2012 is a day to celebrate in The Netherlands as it becomes the first country in Europe to protect its citizens by enshrining net neutrality into law. The Netherlands is also implementing privacy protections for users against wiretapping and disconnection by the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which will no longer be able to interrupt traffic of users unless it is proven to be in the public interest. (Global Voices, 5-8)

http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2012/05/09/netherlands-net-neutrality/

Rudi Vansnick
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