How can we manage this internet thing? The Euro gov needs YOU

The European Commission is asking for help in drawing up laws to govern the internet. On Thursday it launched yet more public consultations designed to inform bureaucrats attempting to help create the digital single market. The two new consultations are so broad as to be almost unmanageable: one on “geo-blocking” and the other …

[Anonymous Custard]

Geo-blocking

The response to geo-blocking is easy...

"Don't do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Geo-blocking

It's more complicated than that.

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: Geo-blocking

Bullshit. It's about time globalization started benefiting the people instead of only corporations.

There are no good reasons for charging different rates for something based on where someone resides. Period.

There may be good reasons for not offering services at all based on geographic location. The only two good reasons I can think of for not offering services based on location are:

1) "It is a government service that, by definition, is only available to residents of a given location (as opposed to those services which are available to citizens, and thus should be accessible from anywhere).

2) "Selling this product or service is illegal in the target location". This can include conforming with export laws as well as conforming with local sale laws.

"I want to make more money" is absolutely not a good reason for geo-blocking. If you consider that to be a valid reason, I hope you evaporate with expediency.

Either globalization levels the playing field for consumers as well as producers or we should not have it. Period.

[Phil O'Sophical]

It’s almost as though the Commission doesn’t really know what it wants to do without being told.

Now that is unfair. It knows exactly what it wants. It has a budget that it wants to spend, it has reports that it wants to write, and it has MEPs that it wants to guide. It also has staff that want to get more power, salary and promotions.

[Ole Juul]

brilliant

If there are problems, someone will need to be more precise about what exactly they are

In other words before you decide on a solution, you need to decide on a problem.

[Graham Marsden]

"It’s almost as though the Commission doesn’t really know what it wants to do without being told"

So you'd prefer they just went ahead and did whatever they liked and then you bitch about them doing it afterwards saying "why didn't they ask people what they wanted"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "...Commission doesn’t really know what it wants to do without being told"

So you'd prefer they just went ahead and did whatever they liked

They were supposedly appointed by MEPs who were supposedly democraticaly elected by the people so, at least in theory, they should already know what they have to do by virtue of having been appointed to do it. Why else are they there?

In reality, of course, they were appointed because somebody thought that "someone ought to do something", and they're now trying to justify their existence by running round asking people "what am I supposed to be doing?". And it's costing us a fortune for them to do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

For a start they can scrap The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

[jake]

There are no laws. And never will be.

TCP/IP is designed to share information, not to suppress it.

That's not to say that there will never be a world network that can't be managed by governments, but the TCP/IP world isn't it. Consider that "Five Eyes" tries to monitor it, but obviously can't manage it, despite decades of trying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

"There are no laws"

Really? Like no Data Protection laws? Ever?

No libel laws, no fraud laws, no money laundering laws. This is a great idea.

Children who scream "no laws" realise this is a bad idea when their balls drop. I am guessing that in your case the body has aged differently to the brain?

[TeeCee]

Re: Huh?

No need to go all ad hominem in public. If you disagree with somebody taking that position, just backtrace the IP, go round to his house and kill everyone in it. There are no laws to stop you......

[jake]

Re: Huh?

The reality is that TCP/IP isn't a secure protocol. Never has been, never will be, for the simple reason that it wasn't designed to be secure in the first place.

I saw no ad hominem, TeeCee. I saw a child with no clue.

[nerdrage]

Don't worry. By the time the EU bureaucrats finish their song and dance, Netflix will be able to provide the whole world (not just Europe) with the same content at the same time. This is a business problem, so let business solve it.

The real holdup here is Hollywood accepting that the distribution business has fundamentally changed and not in their favor. Hollywood can adapt, but the European film business is too dependent on the current distribution model for financing. When the EU bureaucrats realize that, they will amusingly do a 180 and start defending geoblocking.

[Nick Pettefar]

Error 403

After you spend ages filling in the Geo-Blocking questionnaire and press Submit you get:

Forbidden

Sorry, but you don't have the permission to access this page.

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Version 1.2.4.2090 (24/09/2015 07:46)