'Net neutrality: towards a co-regulatory solution' released by Bloomsbury

Its on a Creative Commons download- and the Preface thanks all of you as readers, and many of you by name - so thank you:-) 
If you enjoy reading the bits you print or read onscreen, there is an introductory offer on the hardback, either contact me or look on the Bloomsbury website.
Happy reading - I will post the gentler or most revelatory reviews and link obscurely to the rest...
STOP PRESS: if you wait to download until Monday, you can get the cover and see it in all its glory.

BEREC formed - European FCC draws no closer?

The new super-souped-up European Regulators Group is founded today - with a name so preposterously badly chosen that its alternates BERT and GERT sound better every day...its called BEREC (B-Erik?) and its been welcomed by Ofcom for reasons that are clear - better the B-Eriks than letting the European Commission take executive control. In the future the European Commission will be required to seek BEREC's advice and take 'utmost account' of its guidance in making its own recommendations in the telecoms sector.It will have up to 28 Eurocrats staffing it alongside the 27 NRA chiefs so expect a delicious fudge, though its agenda items are very substantive:

"Next Generation Access: regulation for the next generation of super-fast broadband;

Net neutrality: the debate about internet service providers prioritising data on their networks

Universal Service Obligations: the requirement on communications companies to provide access to specific services, such as a landline phone; and

Functional separation: establishing competitive telecoms markets by creating operationally separate businesses for local and backhaul network access."
But don't get too excited, here's what it says about net neutrality and its reactive position:
"During 2010, the debate on enhancing net neutrality is likely to develop further. The revision to the regulatory framework will make important revisions to strengthen requirements in this area. ERG will contribute to this debate and examine issues which fall within the scope of the electronic communications regulatory framework. In particular, ERG will work with the Commission and provide input to any measures or communication which will be developed by the Commission including a formal opinion in response to public documents issued by the Commission."
"Deliverable: ERG Opinion on Commission communication. Deadline: Depending on Commission initiatives"

Reding v. Kroes, round one

Viviane Reding may be on her way out of DG Info Society, but it seems like she'll be bringing along some pet projects to her new Fundamental Rights Directorate. EurActiv reports today that Reding's personal priority will be updating the outdated Data Protection Directive, and sources close to Reding insinuate that her focus shall be on online privacy. Never mind that much of online privacy is being dealt with in the ePrivacy Directive, for which Reding's former Directorate is responsible.

Not coincidentally, Reding and the new commissioner at Information Society—Neelie Kroes—reportedly do not get along well. The heated debate between Kroes and Reding over functional separation of telecom operators of 2007 most clearly testified to their icy relationship.

So is a turf war to follow? Reding's approach seems to suggest that she already fired the first shot. After all, while she stresses that the Data Protection Directive has not been revised in 15 years, she does nowhere mention the 'particularizing and complementing' role of the ePrivacy Directive alongside the Data Protection laws. Moreover, the ePrivacy Directive has officially been revised only a month ago—which took place under Reding's watch.

I'm curious to see if and how Neelie Kroes will respond. Only then it can be determined whether we've got a fight on our hands...

Clinton speech - what it didn't say

Hillary is rather caught between her own spooks' need to snoop on her citizens (and everyone else in the world) and the old 'fr'dom' chant of George Dubya - she freely admits this is his policy initiative:
'All societies recognize that free expression has its limits. We do not tolerate those who incite others to violence, such as the agents of al Qaeda who are - at this moment - using the internet to promote the mass murder of innocent people. And hate speech that targets individuals on the basis of their ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is reprehensible...We must also grapple with the issue of anonymous speech. Those who use the internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities. [But] these challenges must [not] be[come] an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the internet for peaceful political purposes.' (My punctuation).
So do we want the home of the NSA, the Patriot (sic) Act and most of the surveillance-intelligence complex lecturing the rest of us on free speech while licensing the flogging of blade servers and other DPI kit to friends, Romans and Chinamen? Its a point made robustly by Rebecca McKinnon and Ian Brown, who points out the nasties perpetrated by Yahoo! and Microsoft back in the day. To which we can add of course Mr Murdoch, an unambiguous threat to free speech in China based on past history.

Clinton on censorship and Google/China - lessons for net neutrality?

As the Google-China thing rumbles on, and we ignore China's claims that it co-regulates via ISPs to stamp down on porn, hate speech, religious extremists and security breaches, Hillary Clinton has weighed in with a speech asking why the rest of the world can't be more First Amendment friendly, conflating commercial with political censorship. '"Countries that censor news and information must recognize that, from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech. If businesses in your nation are denied access to either type of information, it will inevitably reduce growth. Increasingly, U.S. companies are making the issue of information freedom a greater consideration in their business decisions. I hope that their competitors and foreign governments will pay close attention to this trend."
National sovereignty has some role to play, surely, on the Internet - after all, the US with its traditional hypocrisy hounded offshore gambling firms and recently jailed a foreign executive who just happened to be swinging through the US in transit (and of course hosts much spam and kiddie porn that plagues users). Much as we might agree with her preaching, if not US practice, does this mean net neutrality becomes a foreign policy issue for USTR, as suggested by Andrew McLaughlin? No, thought not, empty gesture politics so far!
It'll be good to see the European Commission hammer the US in front of the WTO on its disgraceful illegal activities in trying to persecute offshore gambling - if the EC has got the stones to carry through an obvious case.

UK 3 Strikes: Goldilocks and the 3 bears

A draft Code of Conduct for ISPs and copyright holders (thanks for the link to IPTegrity) has been issued by the government departments responsible for its implementation, and its suggestions illustrate the fairytale dilemma facing industry. How do you persuade subscribers to do the right thing, without either putting the fear of God into them and getting a thousand appeals set in motion by civil rights groups, or putting in so many checks and balances that it amounts to a free pardon? How can the porridge be not too hot and not too cold, and the beds not too hard and not too soft? Frankly its clear that its not possible to strike the right tone. 
The draft Code note sets out the problem: 'The consideration for the code would be to strike a balance. Setting the trigger levels too high would decrease the credibility of action and in effect give infringers x amount of free content. Setting the level too low would result in far more “final warnings” which we anticipate would generate excessive numbers of costly appeals. Ironically this too would reduce the deterrent as we only expect copyright owners to take civil action against the most damaging of infringers and we would then have the situation of large numbers of subscribers receiving final warnings who then had no further action against them.'

Amazon and net neutrality lite: old idea, new reaction?

The blogosphere seems ablaze with Amazon's suggestion that QoS priority services could be allowed on the Internet subject to non-interference with regular traffic. Now leaving aside the fact that priority means some investment is for private traffic not the public Internet, meaning compromises not absolutes, what is new about Amazon net neutrality? Its net neutrality lite - some protections for universal Internet service but permitting private investment.
Paul Misener said the same thing - for what may have been the first time - at George Mason University in September 2006 - 40 months ago. Does anyone know of an earlier statement of the same?
P.S. Ken Carter has posted his paper (in Japanese) comparing net neutrality to samurai-first rules on Japanese public roads 300 years ago. His point was that its about socio-economic policy priorities - my response would be that I prefer the British common carriage rules that the US inherited back then!