Techdirt. Stories about "free" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories about "free"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:22:55 PST Fight Over French ISP Blocking Ads Really Just A New Perspective On Net Neutrality Debate Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130109/08190121617/fight-over-french-isp-blocking-ads-really-just-new-perspective-net-neutrality-debate.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130109/08190121617/fight-over-french-isp-blocking-ads-really-just-new-perspective-net-neutrality-debate.shtml blocked all internet banner ads. There was no whitelist. It was either all or nothing (and if you went "all," you were trusting that it wouldn't over-filter). This quickly raised an awful lot of questions -- with the biggest among them being "can they do that?" According to the French Digital Economy minister, the answer apparently is no. Free was quickly told to turn off its ad blocking software.
The French minister said: "No actor can jeopardise the digital ecosystem in a unilateral way."
Of course, the reason for doing this was not to make their subscribers happier but rather to attempt to force Google to pay them more money for carrying their traffic. It was related to the story we just had about France Telecom degrading YouTube performance. Both were examples of these French companies effectively seeking to break basic end-to-end principles of the internet, in an effort to get Google to pay more, since Google is so popular. As we've noted, some European telcos have been desperately trying to make the argument that successful internet companies should pay them more money to carry their traffic.

The whole thing leaves me conflicted. Obviously, some will argue that I'm biased, since a significant part of our revenue comes from banner ads on this site. However, as I've made clear in the past, I have no problem with users who choose to make use of ad blocking software themselves, such as AdBlock, if they feel that ads on a site are too annoying. Many sites get upset at users who do this, or even try to punish them. We do not and would not do such a thing. We consider it an incentive to try to figure out ways to make money that don't annoy our readers.

However, what Free is doing is different than that. Not only does it not really have anything to do with creating a benefit for the user, the fact that it's universal with no control is quite worrisome. Furthermore, while some consumers will (obviously) argue that removing all ads is a major benefit, they might want to be careful in thinking about the slippery slope they're stepping on when it comes to "net neutrality" issues. If an ISP is able to simply block all advertising, unless it gets paid directly from the ad platform, what's to stop it from blocking other content (like all YouTube videos, all Netflix movies, all Spotify plays, all Skype calls, etc...) unless those companies pay to reach the ISP's subscribers as well.

In some ways it's a clever play by Free, who likely hoped consumers would support this move, without recognizing they were really supporting the same tool being applied across other content that they actually want.

Of course, given all that, I'm still a bit conflicted, since it's uncomfortable to then see a government official step in unilaterally, and tell an ISP what they can and cannot do. This is, obviously, the net neutrality debate in a nut shell but pushed into an alternate perspective, thanks to the fact that it's about advertising, rather than content subscribers really want. In the end, I find it problematic that the ISP is doing this unilaterally -- whereby it seems like it really should be the end user's choice to set their own rules for how their internet connection works, not the ISP in the middle.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> internet-wars http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130109/08190121617 Fri, 4 Jan 2013 09:36:08 PST France Telecom Accused Of Holding YouTube Videos Hostage Unless It Gets More Money Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130102/02113921537/france-telecom-accused-holding-youtube-videos-hostage-unless-it-gets-more-money.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130102/02113921537/france-telecom-accused-holding-youtube-videos-hostage-unless-it-gets-more-money.shtml enabled France Telecom to hold YouTube videos hostage unless Google backbone partner, Cogent, pays more money:
Millions of French netizens discover their YouTube streams sputter and die or never begin in the first place. Other video services, including TF1, are also struggling. The effect varies, sometimes randomly and sometimes by time of day. Respected consumer organization UFC-Que Choisir found between 20% and 50% of users surveyed online had problems.

Again, the existing connection remains and much of the traffic gets through. But Net traffic always grows and without regularly adding additional capacity many - not all - streams are blocked. French networks, with France Telecom in the lead, are refusing to accept growing traffic from Cogent, a major backbone carrier that services Google. They demand payment to accept all the streams their customers request. The independent French competition authority (Autorite de la concurrence) on September 20 approved the charging plan, leaving no doubt this is neutrality dispute.
The details suggest that this isn't so much a "neutrality" issue as a peering dispute. In fact, it actually sounds somewhat similar to the Level 3 / Comcast dispute from a few years back. In that case, Level 3 was providing service to Netflix, and Comcast worried about the big influx of traffic. Comcast (like France Telecom) demanded that Level 3 pay up for delivering it extra traffic. The bit that's interesting here is that French regulators got involved and said that this was legal in this case, though they're worried about the lack of transparency.

Of course all this does is show, yet again, how the internet's interconnectivity through peering arrangements is increasingly under pressure as certain broadband players become more powerful. And, unfortunately, the public (and their YouTube videos) may be at risk.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> more-peering-disputes http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130102/02113921537 Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:29:37 PDT French ISP Free Gives In, Will Send 3 Strikes Notices Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101015/02592611443/french-isp-free-gives-in-will-send-3-strikes-notices.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101015/02592611443/french-isp-free-gives-in-will-send-3-strikes-notices.shtml refusing to pass on Hadopi "three strikes" notices, realizing that the law did not mandate that ISPs pass on the notices, but the law did say that you couldn't have your connection disabled if the notices hadn't been sent. Not surprisingly, this upset the French government, which took the extraordinary step of simply decreeing a change to the law to require ISPs send on the notices. This seemed extreme, and potentially illegal.

While Free had initially indicated interest in fighting this, it's now given in and will send the letters. Apparently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had threatened to "make an example" of ISPs who didn't send on the notices. Fitting, of course, that a law that avoids due process is changed without any due process.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> too-bad http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101015/02592611443 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:25:52 PDT French Culture Minister Unilaterally Tries To Change Hadopi Rules To Close Loophole Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101013/14093711414/french-culture-minister-unilaterally-tries-to-change-hadopi-rules-to-close-loophole.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101013/14093711414/french-culture-minister-unilaterally-tries-to-change-hadopi-rules-to-close-loophole.shtml using a loophole in the Hadopi "three strikes" rules to protect its subscribers. Basically, the law says that ISPs should pass along the notices, but does not have any penalties if the ISP does not pass the notices along to users. So Free simply chose not to pass along the notices, even if it did send user info to the agency. But the problem is that the law says that users can't be cut off unless they've been notified, so without the notification, there can be no kicking people off the internet, which was the entire point of Hadopi.

In response, it appears that French culture minister Frederic Mitterand decided to unilaterally decided to issue a "decree" clarifying Hadopi and extending the fines for not handing over info to not passing along the notices. Of course, that raises all sorts of questions about the French lawmaking process, and Free is insisting that such a decree, issued quickly with no review or vote is simply not legal. Also, it's been pointed out that EU law requires that members notify the EU regulatory bodies of any new laws that would punish ISPs if they don't comply -- and clearly this didn't happen in this case.

As Zeropaid points out in the link above, it is pretty clear that Free is playing a semantic game, and it's likely that the law will be changed eventually to close that loophole, but that certainly doesn't mean it's okay for the French culture minister to unilaterally change a law without any review or oversight, just because the original law makers left a loophole in.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> that's-how-democracy-works? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101013/14093711414 Thu, 7 Oct 2010 08:23:44 PDT French ISP 'Free' Refusing To Send Out Hadopi Notices To Users [Updated] Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101007/03094611323/french-isp-free-refusing-to-send-out-hadopi-notices-to-users-updated.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101007/03094611323/french-isp-free-refusing-to-send-out-hadopi-notices-to-users-updated.shtml tens of thousands of "first strike" notices, they would ignore the requests. It appears that may be happening. Apparently the French ISP "Free" (which, as I discovered last time I was in France and tried to connect to its WiFi, is not actually free) has decided that it will not pass along the warning notices to users:
"The law says that it is the Hadopi which has to send the warning 'for his own account and under its stamp, by electronic means, through the (ISPs)'. It never says how it should be sent 'through the ISPs'."

Furthermore, although ISPs have been given the job of identifying and matching up IP addresses with the alleged infringers' personal details (on pain of 1,500 euros per day per IP fine for failing to do so), there are no penalties in place for not sending out warnings.

"But 'Free' did not agree to Hadopi using its SMTP servers without a signed agreement, which apparently was refused, probably because they required payment or other forms of compensations."
The TorrentFreak article notes that other ISPs are complaining that Free is doing this to gain a competitive advantage with customers, but I'm not sure I buy that. After all, it doesn't sound like Free isn't handing over the users' personal info. They're just not letting users know about it. If anything, that could make Free seem worse to users, in that it's handing their info over to Hadopi for the purpose of the three strikes program, but not letting the users know that they have any strikes.

Update: Guillaume Champeau, who originally reported this story explains further in the comments:
The Hadopi law says that in order to face penalties before the court, Internet suscribers must have received at a least one previous warning by paper mail. - It also says that in order to send this paper mail, the HADOPI must have been noticed of new infrigements which must have occured within 6 months after an e-mail was sent. - Therefore, if the e-mail was never sent, no paper mail can be sent either, and the users can't face penalties. Currently the law does not mandate an ISP to send the e-mails. But it does mandate them to hand out personal infos.
So, it sounds like this does protect users, via a bit of a loophole in the Hadopi law. Even if Hadopi sends out the personal info, if the email isn't sent, then Hadopi can't take the person to court, and Free has no obligation under the law to actually send the email.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
]]> but-does-that-still-count? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101007/03094611323